This study focuses on the dynamic aspect of capital structure which is a relatively new area in the finance literature. By employing panel data, 790 of non-financial listed firms in Malaysia are examined for the period 2000–2009. Conducted using the dynamic Partial Adjustment Model and estimated based on the Generalized Method of Moment, this study investigates the existence of target capital structure, speed of adjustment and factors affecting speed of adjustment. There are evidences of target capital structure and firms do adjust to be at their target from time to time with a considerably rapid speed of adjustment, in line with dynamic trade-off theory. Firms in Malaysia are found to be under-adjusted, being below the required adjustment to be at the target within a year. Study on factors affecting speed of adjustment is a new contribution to the literature as no work has been done regarding this issue in Malaysia. This study also analyzes firm-specific factors affecting speed of adjustment. There is strong evidence on the negative relationship between the speed of adjustment and distance from target leverage suggesting fast adjustment if not being far from target. Firm size and profitability significantly influence speed of adjustment for firms in Malaysia.

This study assesses the bibliometric analysis of sustainable waqf development that highlights new topics and provides insightful commentary for the waqf’s strategic growth and ongoing research. This work uses bibliometric analysis to count the number of studies that have been carried out in this domain and determine whether they have advanced knowledge on sustainable waqf development. The study specifically highlights the depth to which academics have investigated these relationships and maps to arrive at a conceptual framework of the area being studied. Bibliometric analysis within 30 years of a publication generally arises in three main areas, namely waqf fundamentals, analysis of cash waqf, as well as studies on the numerous waqf uses in Islamic social finance. Whereas analysis within 107 years shows publications concerning waqf increased after the year 2010, from 2017 onwards, despite the rising number of total publications, total citations decreased. Thus, this study focuses on the current ten years from 2011–2020 and dissects 281 papers to study the dynamic topic for current mass research. Three main areas are highlighted in the early study, namely, sustainable development, regional planning, and information management. At the end of the study, the findings show the state of development and the top trends in influence, as well as the major journals, articles, subjects, authors, and countries. Both scholars and practitioners can benefit from the analysis and graphical presentations since they will be able to better grasp the state of the art of waqf in the experiential and current digital eras.

This paper aims to examine the publication metrics of literature related to the influential aspects of ESG (environmental, social, and governance), SRI (socially responsible investing), ethical, and impact investing on the portfolio and financial performance literature. It also seeks to identify major patterns and core themes in this topic and draw lessons from the past literature for future directions. Data from the SCOPUS database were used in this study. The ‘biblioshiny’ R package, also known as ‘bibliometrix 3.0’, was employed to conduct bibliometric analysis, utilising mapping and clustering techniques on 260 articles, in order to distil the comprehensive knowledge and identify emerging trends in ESG, SRI, ethical, and impact investing. The thematic map classified the ESG, SRI, ethical, impact investing and performance relationship themes into four categories of themes: niche themes (SRI, engagement and ESG), motor themes (corporate financial performance, corporate social performance, ESG, ESG factors, sustainability, performance, integrated reporting, gender diversity, and board size), emerging or declining themes (social responsibility, environmental performance, socially responsible investment, ethical investment, and SRI), and basic or transversal themes (financial performance, corporate social performance, ESG performance, environmental, social, and governance). Socially responsible investing, engagement, and ESG imply a position between niche themes and a highly developed topic/emerging or a decreasing theme, while the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability and financial performance implies a position between a highly developed topic/emerging or decreasing theme and a basic theme. The findings contribute to the enhanced understanding of ESG, SRI, ethical, impact investing and performance, which are crucial for an efficient capital market in promoting sustainability and sustainable development. The study offers vital practical implications and future research directions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the timing behavior and the adjustment toward the target of capital structure interact with each other in the capital structure decisions. Past literature finds that both timing and targeting are significant in determining the leverage ratio which is inconsistent with any standalone framework. This study argues that the preference of the firm for timing behavior or targeting behavior depends on the cost of deviation from the target. Since the cost of deviation from the target is likely to be asymmetric between overleveraged and underleveraged firms, the direction of the deviation from the target leverage is expected to alter the preference toward timing or targeting in the capital structure decision. Design/methodology/approach: This study used the GMM system estimators with the Malaysian data for the period of 1992-2009 to fit a standard partial adjustment model and to estimate the speed of adjustment (SOA) of capital structure. Findings: This study finds that Malaysian firms, on average, adjust their leverage at a slow speed of 12.7 percent annually and this rate increased to 14.2 percent when the timing variable is accounted for. Moreover, the SOA is found to be significantly higher and the timing role is lower for overleveraged firms compared with underleveraged firms. Overleveraged firms seem to find less flexibility to time the market as more pressure is exerted on them to return to the target regardless the timing opportunities because of the higher costs of deviation from the target leverage. Underleveraged firms place lower priority to rebalance toward the target compared with overleveraged firms as the costs of being underleveraged are lower and hence, these firms have more flexibility to time the market. Research limitations/implications: The findings of this study support that firms consider both targeting and timing in their financing decisions. No standalone theory can interpret the full spectrum of empirical results. The empirical work is based on partial adjustment model of leverage; however, this model has been criticized by inability to distinguish between active adjustment behavior and mechanical mean reversion. This is an avenue for future research. Originality/value: This study investigates if targeting and timing behaviors are mutually exclusive as theoretically expected or they can coexist. A theoretical explanation and an empirical investigation support the conclusion that firms consider both targeting and timing in their financing decisions. This study provides evidence from Malaysian firms that are characterized by concentrated ownership structure and separation of cash flow rights and control rights of the firm due to pyramid ownership structure. Therefore, it provides evidence on how environmental characteristics may affect the capital structure determinants of the firm.

Stock price prediction is one of the major challenges for investors who participate in the stock markets. Therefore, different methods have been explored by practitioners and academicians to predict stock price movement. Artificial intelligence models are one of the methods that attracted many researchers in the field of financial prediction in the stock market. This study investigates the prediction of the daily stock prices for Commerce International Merchant Bankers (CIMB) using technical indicators in a NARX neural network model. The methodology employs comprehensive parameter trails for different combinations of input variables and different neural network designs. The study seeks to investigate the optimal artificial neural networks (ANN) parameters and settings that enhance the performance of the NARX model. Therefore, extensive parameter trails were studied for various combinations of input variables and NARX neural network configurations. The proposed model is further enhanced by preprocessing and optimising the NARX model’s input and output parameers. The prediction performance is assessed based on the mean squared error (MSE), R-squared, and hit rate. The performance of the proposed model is compared with other models, and it is shown that the utilisation of technical indicators with the NARX neural network improves the accuracy of one-step-ahead prediction for CIMB stock in Malaysia. The performance of the proposed model is further improved by optimising the input data and neural network parameters. The improved prediction of stock prices could help investors increase their returns from investment in stock markets.