Insider stock pledging and stock price informativeness: Evidence from India

Insiders’ shares can act as collateral while raising funds from lenders. This study examines the impact of insiders’ stock pledging activities on stock price informativeness using a sample of 1835 Indian firms. Our findings report that insider stock pledging increases the informational efficiency of stock prices. This informational efficiency increases for larger firms with: (1) financial constraints (high leverage and low cash holdings); (2) greater reliance on trade credit; and (3) higher indulgence in related party transactions. We also provide evidence on abnormal share turnover as a trading mechanism through which insider stock pledging is related to stock price informativeness. Our findings are robust across different specifications and after accounting for endogeneity issues.     

Options trading volume and stock price response to earnings announcements

We examine the effect of options trading volume on the stock price response to earnings announcements over the period 1996–2007. Contrary to previous studies, we find no significant difference in the immediate stock price response to earnings information announcements in samples split between firms with listed options and firms without listed options. However, within the sample of firms with listed options stratified by options volume, we find that higher options trading volume reduces the immediate stock price response to earnings announcements. This conforms with evidence that stock prices of high options trading volume firms have anticipated and pre-empted some earnings information in the pre-announcement period. We also find that higher abnormal options trading volume around earnings announcements hastens the stock price adjustment to earnings news and reduces post-earnings announcement drift.     

Aggressive reporting,investor protection and stock price informativeness: Evidence from Chinese firms

This paper investigates the impact of aggressive reporting on the ability of stock prices to inform in Chinese firms. Using both stock price synchronicity and the probability of informed trading as proxies for stock price informativeness, we find that aggressive reporting damages the ability of stock prices to inform in Chinese firms. Our findings are robust to potential endogeneity and the use of alternative aggressive-reporting measures. Finally, we find that the impact of aggressive reporting in reducing stock price informativeness is stronger in firms located in regions of weaker institutional development and in private sectors firms.     

Fund ownership and stock price informativeness of Chinese listed firms

We examine the impact of mutual fund ownership on stock price informativeness in China. Existing evidence shows that stock price informativeness is low in China, and attributes this to firms’ lack of disclosure incentives under the weak investor protection institutional environment. Mutual funds are more sophisticated and influential than individual investors to monitor firms, and thus serve as an external governance mechanism to improve corporate transparency. However, the impact of mutual funds in China can also be moderated by state ownership of listed firms, which reduces firms’ dependence on outside investors for capital. Indeed, we find that mutual fund ownership is positively related to share price informativeness, but this effect is less pronounced among state-controlled firms. The main policy implication from our findings is that mutual funds contribute to the corporate information environment of emerging economies but further privatization of listed firms would be needed to realize greater benefit.     

CEO facial structure and stock price crash risk

This study conducted an empirical analysis of a manually collected sample of chief executive officer (CEO) facial structure measurements (facial width-to-height ratio [FWHR]) to examine the relationship between FWHR and stock price crash risk. The samples were collected for the period 2008–2019 from Chinese A-share listed firms. The results revealed a positive impact of FWHR on stock price crash risk. The positive impact is more pronounced for firms in which CEOs are entrusted with greater powers, firms that appoint a higher number of independent directors, or which function in a more competitive product market. Various robustness and endogeneity tests confirm our main conclusions.     

Do foreign investors improve stock price informativeness in emerging equity markets? Evidence from Vietnam

Most of previous studies on stock price informativeness tend to focus on the context of mature stock markets while this issue is more acute in emerging equity markets where regulatory and institutional structure are weak. This paper examines the relationship between foreign ownership and stock price informativeness in Vietnam stock market. We utilize a data set covering firm attributes of non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange over the period 2007–2015. Employing different estimation techniques for panel data, the empirical results indicate that foreign investors improve stock price informativeness in Vietnam stock market. The finding from this paper confirms the important role of foreign investors in emerging equity markets.     

Rumors in the sky: Corporate rumors and stock price synchronicity

Using hand-collected rumor clarification announcements from Chinese listed firms to identify corporate rumors, we find that rumored firms have lower stock price synchronicity (R²) than do firms without rumors. Channel analyses reveal that rumors reduce stock price synchronicity through elevating investor sentiment rather than stimulating informed trading. Additionally, the negative association between corporate rumors and stock price synchronicity is more evident among firms with more individual investors and higher information opacity. Moreover, corporate rumors are associated with higher analyst forecast errors and forecast dispersion. Overall, our evidence suggests that corporate rumors reduce stock price synchronicity by increasing investor irrationality.     

Professors in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Corporate Governance and Firm Performance

We find that companies with directors from academia are associated with higher performance. This relation is driven by professors without administrative positions. We also find that academic directors play an important governance role through their advising and monitoring functions. Specifically, our results show that the presence of academic directors is associated with greater acquisition performance, a higher number of patents and citations, higher stock price informativeness, lower discretionary accruals, lower chief executive officer (CEO) compensation, and higher CEO forced turnover‐performance sensitivity. Overall, our results indicate that academic directors are valuable advisors and effective monitors and firms benefit from having academic directors.     

The effect of CEO luck on the informativeness of stock prices: Do lucky CEOs improve stock price informativeness?

CEOs are “lucky” when they are granted stock options on days when the stock price is lowest in the month of the grant, implying opportunistic timing and severe agency problems (Bebchuk et al., 2010). Using idiosyncratic volatility as our measure of stock price informativeness, we find that lucky CEOs improve the informativeness of stock prices significantly. In particular, CEO luck raises the degree of informativeness by 4.39%. Powerful CEOs who can circumvent governance mechanisms and successfully practice opportunistic timing of options grants are so secured in their positions that they have fewer incentives to conceal information, thereby improving informativeness.     

Do political connections affect stock price crash risk? Firm-level evidence from China

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in the period from 2003 to 2012, this paper empirically investigates how the presence of politically connected directors affects stock price crash risk. We thereby make a distinction between listed state-controlled firms and privately controlled firms due to their different incentives to appoint politicians as directors on the board. Our empirical results show that politically connected directors exacerbate stock price crash risk in listed state-controlled firms, an effect driven by the appointment of local government officials as directors. In contrast, hiring politicians as directors, particularly central-government-affiliated directors, helps listed privately controlled firms to reduce stock price crash risk. Finally, good quality of institutions does not help to alleviate the positive relationship between political connections and stock price crash risk in listed state-controlled firms. However, it does weaken the role of political connections in reducing crash risk in listed privately controlled firms.     

Intangible intensity and stock price crash risk

We evaluate the association between intangible intensity and stock price crash risk for U.S. listed firms from 1983 to 2017. The results show that intangible-intensive firms are associated with high crash risk. The decomposition of intangible intensity identifies goodwill as the driving force and documents its predictability for future impairment events. Moreover, intangible intensity affects stock price crash risk mainly through increased information asymmetry, and the positive association increases with stock price synchronicity, CEO risk-taking incentives, and shareholder litigation risk. Our findings demonstrate the fragility of intangible assets and provide implications for financial regulation and portfolio management.     

Corporate Performance,Corporate Governance and Top Executive Turnover in Finland

This paper empirically investigates how corporate governance forces and firm performance affect top executive turnover in Finnish listed companies. I document an increase in CEO, top management, and board turnover in response to poor stock price performance and operating losses. The sensitivity of the relation between stock price performance and CEO turnover is significantly higher in firms with a two‐tier board structure (when the CEO is not the chairman), but significantly lower when the CEO or a board member is the controlling shareholder. These results suggest that both the ownership structure and the board design have implications for the disciplining of managers.     

Perks and the informativeness of stock prices in the Chinese market

While the literature shows that perks can affect firm values positively or negatively, we argue that firms with higher perks are more likely to be associated with a lower quality of financial reporting, which, in turn, can affect the informativeness of stock prices. Based on hand-collected data on perks from Chinese listed firms, we find that firms with lower perks are associated with higher informativeness of stock prices (or lower R-square). Moreover, the positive association between perks and R-square is shown to be weaker for firms with higher financial reporting quality through audit and earnings quality measures.     

CEO power and stock price crash risk in China: Do female directors' critical mass and ownership structure matter?

This study investigates how CEO power is associated with stock price crash risk. We further examine the moderating roles of female directors' critical mass and ownership structure on the relationship between CEO power and stock price crash risk. Employing one of the largest datasets to-date of Chinese listed firms over the 2005–2015 period (13,421 firm-year observations), we find that CEO's power to increase the likelihood of stock price crash risk is significantly mitigated when the percentage of: (a) female directors; and (b) ownership by blockholders and institutions, is high within firms. We interpret our findings within a theoretical framework that draws insights from neo-institutional, managerial power and critical mass theories. The findings are robust to the use of alternative measures, estimation methods and endogeneity issues.     

Business strategy,stock price informativeness,and analyst coverage efficiency

We examine how business strategy affects stock price informativeness which in turn influences analyst coverage efficiency. Using stock price synchronicity and the probability of informed trading as proxies for stock price informativeness, we show that stock prices of prospectors are less informative than those of defenders. Next, we explore two channels through which business strategy influences analyst coverage efficiency. We first test and find support for an information transfer channel, i.e., the higher stock price synchronicity of prospectors facilitates more information transfer by analysts, resulting in higher analyst coverage efficiency of prospectors than defenders. Next, we test and find support for an informed trading channel, i.e., the higher probability of informed trading on stocks of defenders intensifies competition between informed traders and analysts. Such competition adversely affects analyst coverage efficiency, leading to lower analyst coverage efficiency of defenders than prospectors. Our findings are robust to an array of robustness checks including 2SLS/IV tests, differences‐in‐difference tests, and high‐tech industry sensitivity analyses.     

Security Analysts’ Site Visits and Stock Price Synchronicity

This paper investigates how security analysts’ corporate site visits impact listed firms’ stock-price informativeness. Examining a sample of security analysts’ visits to Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019, we find that security analysts incorporate firm-specific information into share prices through site visits, significantly reducing the visited firms’ stock price synchronicity. This finding is robust to an alternative measure of stock price informativeness and a two-stage least-squares approach using the introduction of high-speed rail as the instrumental variable. We also find that the impact of analysts’ site visits on firms’ stock price synchronicity is more pronounced for firms with lower information disclosure quality and poor corporate governance than for other firms. Further analysis on firm characteristics documents that this effect is stronger for large-size firms, firms in the manufacturing industry, and state-owned enterprises.     

The impact of state ownership on share price informativeness: The case of the Split Share Structure Reform in China

This study examines the impact of state ownership on share price informativeness using the unique setting of the Split Share Structure Reform in China. This reform abolishes the trading restriction on shares held mainly by state shareholders. In doing so, it renders state shareholders' wealth more sensitive to share price movements and decreases their conflict of interests with private shareholders. This change is expected to strengthen the corporate governance incentives of state shareholders and reduce the information asymmetry in Chinese listed firms. This prediction is confirmed through empirical evidence of increased share price informativeness among firms that are more sensitive to the impact of this reform, i.e. those with more state ownership or restricted shares. These findings imply that this reform benefits the information environment and minority shareholders in the Chinese stock market.     

Shareholder coordination and stock price informativeness

We show that firm‐specific information is more likely to be incorporated into stock prices when firms have stronger shareholder coordination. The premise of our work is that geographic proximity reduces communication costs among shareholders, thereby leading to better coordination. The positive coordination‐informativeness relation is driven mainly by shareholder coordination among dedicated and independent institutions. We further show that the positive effect is more pronounced for firms with weaker governance mechanisms, suggesting that shareholder coordination could serve as a substitute conduit of price discovery. Lastly, we propose that shareholder coordination improves stock price informativeness through the channel of enhanced voluntary disclosure quality.     

The impact of tick size on intraday stock price behavior: evidence from the Taiwan Stock Exchange

This research examines the impact of tick size on intraday stock price behavior for stocks listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange over the 2-year period of 1998–1999. The sample involves the same 80 firms that trade under the tick size of (New Taiwan Dollars) NT$0.1 and NT$0.5, respectively. The sample firms display a U-shaped intraday pattern of bid–ask spread, volatility, autocorrelation, and trading volume. The empirical results indicate that a larger tick size is associated with a wider bid–ask spread, larger volatility, and more negative autocorrelation. Moreover, a larger tick size is associated with a higher percentage increase of bid–ask spread and volatility in the middle of the trading period. Finally, the effect of tick size on trading volume is insignificant.     

Price discovery in the U.S. stock and stock options markets: A portfolio approach

Option prices vary with not only the underlying asset price, but also volatilities and higher moments. In this paper, we use a portfolio of options to seclude the value change of the portfolio from the impact of volatility and higher moments. We apply this portfolio approach to the price discovery analysis in the U.S. stock and stock options markets. We find that the price discovery on the directional movement of the stock price mainly occurs in the stock market, more so now than before as an increasing proportion of options market makers adopt automated quoting algorithms. Nevertheless, the options market becomes more informative during periods of significant options trading activities. The informativeness of the options quotes increases further when the options trading activity generates net sell or buy pressure on the underlying stock price, even more so when the pressure is consistent with deviations between the stock and the options market quotes. JEL Classification C52, G10, G13, G14