Equity market data, bank failures and market efficiency

The paper examines the informational content of market data for long-term horizons in models, which predict bank failure. Univariate results document patterns such as declining prices, negative returns, declining dividends, and rising return volatility, up to 4 years before failure. Multivariate analysis shows that market information improves the failure predictive content of traditional models, which are based on accounting data. Out-of-sample predictions show that the use of stock market data does improve the forecast of bank failure. Furthermore, the persistence of this contribution generally increases with greater distances from the date of failure documenting the forward-looking nature of financial markets. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.