The effects of match results, investor expectations and stock exchange movement for publicly traded football clubs: The case of Manchester United Football Club

This bachelor’s thesis is an attempt to find out if match results, investor expectations and stock market fluctuation affect stock returns for publicly traded football clubs. The number of publicly traded football clubs has decreased a lot in the last 20 years. This study focuses on one specific English football club, the Manchester United. The observed events are the club’s matches played on weekends in the top English football league. Because the club listed on the New York Stock Exchange only in 2012, the sample size remains quite thin although large enough for this study to be conducted. The main tool used in the study is SPSS data analytics software and its multiple regression analysis specifically. Variables included in the regression models are stock market index, match results and investor expectations, which is measured by the stock price change prior to a match weekend. The results of this study were quite inconclusive. It was a struggle to find statistical significance given the challenges posed by the low sample size. The clearest of results was that the Manchester United stock price does in fact correlate with the stock exchange index chosen for the study. The fact that any significant coefficients were evidenced only in a three-day observation period following a match weekend supports the findings of earlier studies, in that it takes two to three days for a match result to be incorporated into the stock price. The findings also show, that match results do have an impact on the stock price, with wins leading to positive returns while draws and losses generally result in negative returns. Investor expectations did not appear to impact stock returns after a match event in this research