eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Finance and Economics 2328-7276 2020-05-22 8 3 100 106 10.12691/jfe-8-3-2 JFE2020832 article Ching-Chih Wu ccwu5@pu.edu.tw 1 Yi-Ru Dong 2 Department of Finance, Providence University, Taichung City, Taiwan Department of Finance, Tainan University of Technology, Tainan City, Taiwan This paper investigates how a change in CEO ownership influences financial performance and market return in the long run. Using an accounting-based framework, we measure financial performance and changes in CEO ownership by using the public firms in the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 1996 to 2018. The findings in CEO ownership are consistent with the convergence-of-interests, entrenchment, and signaling hypotheses in different empirical tests. We find a positive relation between return on assets (ROA) and changes in CEO ownership when the CEO ownership is decreasing. In contrast, ROA is negative significantly associated with CEO ownership when the CEO ownership is increasing. Moreover, we also find that market performance is significantly positively associated with CEO ownership, which is consistent with the signaling hypothesis. Overall, this paper infers that a change in CEO ownership significantly affects future firm performance. Furthermore, investors respond positively to the negative signals released in the stock market. Therefore, the firms have poorer market performance simultaneously. http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfe/8/3/2/jfe-8-3-2.pdf CEO ownership convergence of interest entrenchment signaling hypothesis