SHARE PRICE DETERMINATION AND CORPORATE FIRM CHARACTERISTIC

At the close of 2009 the total market value of  266  securities  listed  on the Nigerian Stock market dropped by 26.5% resulting mainly from share price losses. In effect the crux of this work was to investigate share price determination  and  corporate  firm characteristics  in a view to critically examine  the significant effect corporate firm characteristics  has in determining  the price of shares  listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.  A panel data design was adopted using seventy-two companies  from 2004-2009, a six year period which were purposely selected  based on availability and adequacy of data.  Due to the panel nature of the study  Ordinary Least Square (OLS),  fixed  effect and random effect estimation technique  were employed  in the  analysis with the use of Gretl  econometric analytical tool. The result indicates  that  the size of the  firm  has the most significant effect on  share price determination in the two models adapted for the study. Conclusions were made on the note that our findings provided new and additional insights in the finance literature and point to a fruitful new line of research from both a theoretical and an empirical standpoint.  Hence recommendations were made in the lights that  investors should be critical and objective  in considering  corporate firm characteristics in making investment decisions  also  Managements and board members should aim at improving earnings which was rated through the literature reviewed to be a major determinant of share price. This could be done by  proper definitions of earnings management to avoid manipulations of accounts which most times lead to fraud.

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