Purpose: To analyze search funds as a new group of investment vehicles in Poland that constitutes a group of potential investors for family companies facing the lack of succession.

Methodology: The theoretical part presents family businesses, considers the problem of succession in Poland, and analyzes the literature on available forms of divestment of a family business owner.

Moreover, the article presents the roots of search funds creation and their characteristics, which reveals these investment vehicles as theoretically perfect for family businesses without successors. The empirical part presents a study into the sale of a Polish family business to a search fund, which was the first and only search fund deal in Poland until the end of 2020.

Findings: The study revealed that the sale of a family business to a search fund should be included in the catalog of possible forms of divestment of a family business owner facing the lack of successors.

Originality: The article fills a gap in the literature on family entrepreneurship in the context of
selling a business to a search fund in Poland, which has not yet been indicated as one of the methods for owners to exit a business.

Purpose: Stock market participants use technical analysis to seek trends in stock price charts
despite its doubtful efficiency. We tested whether technical analysis signals represent typical and
common cognitive biases associated with the continuation or reversal of the trend.

Methodology: We compared investors’ opinions about the predictive power of technical analysis
signals grouped into five conditions: real technical analysis signals associated with trend continuation
(real momentum signals) or trend reversal (real contrarian signals), fake momentum or fake
contrarian signals, and fluctuation signals.

Findings: Investors assigned larger predictive power to real and fake signals associated with trend
continuation than to signals associated with trend reversal. Fake signals, which represented cognitive
biases, elicited similar predictions about trend continuation or reversal to real technical analysis
signals.

Originality: Market players assess momentum signals to have greater predictive power than contrarian signals and neutral signals to have the least predictive power. These results are independent of whether technical analysis signals were well-known to investors or made up by experimenters. The hardwired propensity of our brains to detect patterns combined with the non-natural environment of the stock market creates the illusion of expertise that is not easy to dispel.

Purpose: This paper examines the changing behavior of two calendar anomalies in African stock
returns – the month-of-the-year and the intra-month effects – and their implications for the adaptive
market hypothesis (AMH).
Methodology: We applied two-stage Markov switching models (MSMs) instead of the conventional
single state regression model. The sample period includes the daily index return of Nigerian, South
African, Mauritian, Moroccan, and Tunisian stock exchanges from January 1998 to February 2018.
Findings: We found that (i) all the markets except for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) have
a higher tendency to be in bearish state than bullish state, (ii) month-of-the-year and intra-month
effects appear in one regime and disappear in another regime, and (iii) the behavior of calendar
anomalies is affected by market conditions and conforms to AMH rather than the efficient market
hypothesis (EMH).
Practical Implications: We present that (i) calendar anomaly is a characteristic that changes under
different regimes or market conditions in African stock markets, (ii) active investment management
may yield profits for market participants, depending on the market conditions and the anomaly in
question, and (iii) the right approach would be for investors to consider each market with its own
peculiarity even when they are in the same continent.
Originality/Value: The sensitivity of the month-of-the-year and the intra-month effects to market
conditions has not been documented in African stock markets, especially with the use of
regime-switching models

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine shareholders’ reaction to the decision of the supervisory board to appoint a CEO in companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Methodology: An event study and the mean-adjusted model were applied. The abnormal returns were measured as the CAAR in the entire (-60, + 60) window and selected sub-windows.

Findings: The obtained values of abnormal returns indicate the shareholder’s negative reaction. Throughout the observation window, they oscillate slightly below zero, and in the window (0, +20) they are negative at -1.566%. Irrespective of the observation window, negative abnormal returns were obtained for over half of the observation (52–57%). Therefore, preliminary results indicate the predominance of the information effect over the real one. The decrease in market value as a result of the event may result from an increase in investors’ uncertainty as to the effects of changes in strategy and skills of the new CEO.

Originality: The research is a unique one. To date, no one has carried out research into shareholders’ reaction to a CEO appointment in either the Polish or Central and Eastern European capital markets. They primarily bring the value of cognition of shareholders’ behaviour in the analysed event, which is reflected in share prices. They extend the literature on the signalization instruments, i.e. the activities that boards can undertake due to the new information transmitted to the capital market participants and stakeholders. The market reaction to a CEO appointment will without a doubt interest investors; the institutions responsible for supervision (which in the case of Poland is the Financial Oversight Commission) and the legislator in charge of regulations that prevent insider trading while promoting corporate disclosure transparency.

Purpose: The article presents the results of a study conducted for the January effect. This anomaly is best recognized in the capital markets. In this case, we fnd explanation of its appearance based on both fundamental analysis and heuristics used by investors. The research focuses on the markets of the European Union enlargement countries of 2004. There are three hypotheses stated in the article: Hypothesis 1: The January Effect occurs in the analyzed markets. Hypothesis 2: The January Effect weakens over time. Hypothesis 3: The January Effect weakens with the development of a market.

Methodology: Three methods verifed the hypotheses: tests of differences, average and median rate of return, and dynamic models paneled with the estimation of parameters and the generalized method of moments.

Findings: The January Effect exists in the analyzed markets. The anomaly weakens over time but, after accession to the European Union, January return rates increase signifcantly.

Limitation: The defnite verifcation was diffcult due to the available methods and data. Further research in this feld is, therefore, needed.

Originality: The originality of the paper stems from the construction of the sample – new evidence from post-communist countries – which became the European Union members in 2004. The next important issue is the period of twenty years after the economic transformation – ten before and ten after the enlargement of the EU.

behavior of investors and government in the process of decision-making related to financing designed
to reduce risks in investment activity.

Methodology: Considering the interdependent type (nature) of interactions between related parties,
game theory tools were used to model such interactions. Much attention was directed to search for
parameters of interaction leading to certain Nash equilibriums in pure strategies. The formal results
obtained with the model were verified by statistical analysis.
Findings: Analysis showed that the rational behavior of related parties can lead to unexpected
results. Powerful investors will aim to work in socially-oriented economies, whereas primarily
small investors will operate in most liberal economies with a minimum tax burden but with a higher
level of risk. As for governments’ behaviors, the images are the same: small economies tend to
liberalize their tax systems and to secure investment faster than powerful ones. Empirical verification
based on statistical data of groups of countries generally confirmed the conclusions. These
formal and logical conclusions were from statistical analysis of 124 countries divided into 5 groups:
OECD countries, post-socialist countries, Latin American countries, APAC countries and ACP
countries. Provided that the more powerful ones are covered economies, there was stronger interdependence
between the size of economies and tax burden and also between total investment and
tax burden, where this dependence is positive.

Originality: The results obtained used Nash equilibriums in pure strategies as models of behavioral
norms to define behaviors of related parties and also to explain assumptions concerning the
behaviors of investors and government.

Purpose: Analysis of reasons, correlations and consequences following from the impact that financial investors have on commodity markets – both before and after the crisis.

Methodology: The research on the tremendous impact that the financial sector exerts on price formation in commodity markets, defined as the financialization of commodity markets, was based on a narrative approach. This approach makes use of available historical documents and attempts to reconstruct factors causing structural changes in commodity markets. As a result of these factors, commodity and financial markets (and particularly
capital market) have become similar to a great extent.

Findings: Drawing upon the research, it can be stated that the global financial crisis has contributed not only to a major change in the involvement of investors in commodity markets, but also to a structural change of this involvement, which is accompanied by a number of negative consequences.

Originality: The research enables to draw certain conclusions, e.g. that the financialization of commodity markets is reflected in a radical price fluctuation in these markets due to which the prices are isolated from fair value. Structural changes are also discussed. They entail the attempt to counteract such negative consequences, e.g. regulations imposed to provide a greater transparency of the activity undertaken by investors in commodity markets.