Trading Procedures, Evolving Settlement Systems and The Day of Week Effect in the U. K. and French Stock Markets

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine whether the change of settlement procedures have an impact on the distribution of day of the week effect in the UK and French markets or not. U.K and France changed their systems from fixed settlement date systems to fixed settlement lag systems Design/methodology/approach - This study adopted the data of the specific stock market indices such as FTSE 100 in the U.K market and FRCAC 40 in the French market, This study constructs a test of the differences in mean returns across the days of the week by computing the regression equations for each country index. Findings - First, this study found that the evolving settlement procedures in stock exchanges have an effect on stock return of day of the week. Second, long-run improvements in market efficiency may have diminished the effects of certain anomalies in recent periods. Improvements in market efficiency and evolving settlement systems may cause the disappearance of the weekend effect. Research implications or Originality - The Implication of this study is that recent settlement systems contributed to the disappearance of the weekend effect and explains improvements in market efficiency and diminishments of market anomaly. This study may be the first study which examines whether evolving settlement systems have an effect on the disappearance of the weekend effect in the market or not.