Is Firm‐specific Return Variation a Measure of Information Efficiency?

The issue of whether firm‐specific return variation measures the private information reflected in stock returns or trading noise is controversial. Using a firm's geographic proximity to its investors as a proxy for a firm's private information, we investigate the relation between firm‐specific return variation and price informativeness. We find that firms located in metropolitan areas experience higher firm‐specific return variation and that holdings and trading by local institutional investors positively affect firm‐specific return variation. These findings suggest that higher firm‐specific return variation is indicative of more informative stock prices.     

Frequency and Motives for Stock Dividends in a Unique Environment

We investigate the possible differences in the information content of stock dividends between firms that distribute stock dividends frequently (frequent distributors) and firms that distribute stock dividends infrequently (infrequent distributors) using a unique data set from Oman where the market microstructure frictions are either absent or limited. We find that infrequent stock dividend distributors have higher postdistribution operating performance relative to frequent distributors. We also find that the illiquidity measure is significantly related to the announcement effect only for frequent stock dividend distributors, whereas short‐term performance is significantly related to the announcement effect only for infrequent distributors. Our findings indicate that infrequent stock dividends are used mainly to convey favorable private information about the firms’ future prospects, and frequent stock dividends are used to reduce stock price to an optimal trading range in order to improve trading liquidity. JEL classification: G14, G35.     

Stock Price Informativeness and Corporate Governance: An International Study

This study investigates the cross‐country relationship between firm‐level corporate governance and stock price informativeness. Using firm‐level data from 22 developed countries, we find that stock price informativeness, as measured by firm‐specific stock return variation and future earnings response coefficients, increases with the quality of a firm's corporate governance. Further analyses show that all mechanisms except board‐related governance relate positively to stock price informativeness. Finally, firm‐level corporate governance plays a more significant role in strengthening the stock return–earnings associations for firms in countries with strong institutional environments. This evidence highlights the role of country‐level legal investor protections in shaping the relationship between firm‐level corporate governance and stock price informativeness.     

Insider trading laws and price informativeness in emerging stock markets: The South African case

We test the view that insider trading deters informativeness and, thereby, provide empirical evidence on the ramifications of insider trading legislation, particularly in an emerging market, that has hitherto received no research attention. Using the difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that “effective insider trading law” improves stock price informativeness, a reflection of market efficiency, and that this efficiency is robust to both economic factors that affect market efficiency and the choice of control. Importantly, our results support the hypothesis that prohibition of insider trading elicits efficiency enhancement, particularly in emerging markets which are often characterized by weaker requisite institutional infrastructure than developed markets.     

The capital market spillover effect of product market advertising: Evidence from stock price synchronicity

We analyze whether product market advertising has a spillover effect on stock price synchronicity by transmitting firm-specific information to the capital market and attracting more investor attention. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2017, we find that firms with greater advertising expenditures have lower stock price synchronicity. The results are robust after we address endogeneity concerns. In accord with our hypothesis that product market advertising increases the amount of firm-level information capitalized into stock prices through the information channel, we find that the impact of advertising on synchronicity is more pronounced for firms with a higher degree of information asymmetry and firms in the consumer-product industry. Further tests show that product market advertising enhances the ability of current period returns to reflect future earnings, and thus rules out that the negative relationship between advertising and synchronicity is driven by noise trading. Our results imply that product market advertising plays an informative role and improves information efficiency in a capital market.     

Recent SEC prosecution and insider trading on forthcoming merger announcements

While trading on nonpublic information is illegal, the enforcement of this law has been elusive, particularly in the area of trading in advance of merger announcements. We examine the impact of insider trading on daily stock price changes for firms identified by the SEC in the Antoniu-Newman insider trading case. Using residual analysis, the abnormal returns occuring prior to the announcement are calculated and compared with a sample of 188 typical merger candidates not identified in the Antoniu-Newman case to determine whether or not there was an unusually large market reaction prior to the forthcoming merger announcement on the subset of merger candidates involved in the court procedure.     

The Chinese warrant bubble: A fundamental analysis

We investigate the information content in Chinese warrant prices based on an option pricing framework that incorporates short‐selling and margin‐trading constraints in the underlying stock market. We show that Chinese warrant prices can be explained under this pricing framework. On the basis of this new model, we develop a price deviation measure to quantify stock market investors' unobserved demand for short selling or margin trading due to market constraints. We find that warrant‐price deviations are driven by underlying stock valuation to a great extent. Chinese warrant prices, save for the time around expiration dates, are better characterized as derivatives than as pure bubbles.     

Stock price informativeness and analyst coverage

We examine whether more analyst coverage translates into more informative stock prices and apply this to both developed and emerging markets. We measure price informativeness using the association between current stock returns and future earnings. We argue that more informative stock prices contain more information about future earnings. Results indicate that analysts' activities do not contribute to the impounding of future earnings information into current stock prices, in accordance with the view that analysts are outsiders who do not have full access to firm‐level information. We also find that analysts specialize according to industry and that “industry expertise” is limited to developed countries. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the explanation that analysts focus on gathering and mapping industry‐ and market‐level information (macroeconomic information) into stock prices. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetric Post-Announcement Drift to Good and Bad News: Evidence from Voluntary Trading Disclosures in the Chinese Stock Market

This article investigates the post-announcement drift (PAD) of stock returns in the Chinese stock market. We use a sample of voluntary trading disclosures to test the hypothesis that an asymmetric PAD exists in a market in which managers are more likely to suppress negative news. We show that a pattern of short-term momentum and long-term reversal in returns persists for up to 250 trading days following the announcement of trading statements in the Chinese stock market. This finding is stronger for positive announcements in terms of the magnitude and the variance of stock returns. Our findings are in line with both Shin’s theoretical predictions and the credibility hypothesis, in which disclosure and asset returns are jointly determined and the adoption of a “sanitisation strategy” in information disclosure generates more volatile returns for firms issuing good news. Further, we show that the latter effect is more pronounced for firms which are partially state-owned, suggesting that they potentially receive more government support, a finding which is in line with the hypothesis that the incentive to suppress negative information is related to a country’s legal/judicial system.     

Takeover protection and stock price crash risk: Evidence from state antitakeover laws

We exploit the passage of state antitakeover laws to examine the relation between takeover protection and stock price crash risk. We find that firms incorporated in states that passed the laws are negatively associated with future stock price crash risk in the post-law periods, suggesting that takeover protection mitigates bad news hoarding activities. Further analysis shows that the mitigating effect is more pronounced when firms have severe information asymmetry or face strong product market competition. Together, our findings shed new light on the impact of takeover threats on managerial incentives to engage in bad news hoarding.     

Retail attention,retail trades,and stock price crash risk

This paper investigates the impact of retail attention on stock price crash risk in the Chinese stock market. Developing a composite measure of retail attention emphasizing its dynamic changes, we find that retail attention exacerbates future crash risk, which is robust to numerous checks that accommodate possibly omitted variables, apply the fixed effects model and instrumental variable approach, and adopt a legal interpretation as an exogenous policy shock. Extended analyses show that the impact of retail attention is more pronounced for firms with high information uncertainty under optimistic aggregate states. Moreover, using a sample of attention-grabbing stocks, we find that retail trades offer a crucial linkage from retail attention to crash risk. Overall, our findings are helpful to understand the nature of retail attention and its consequences on trading behavior as well as stock returns.     

The Impact of Fraudulent False Information on Equity Values

There are two types of stock price manipulation examined in the theoretical literature: (1) insider trading, which involves private information that is true and (2) the public spreading of fraudulent false information. While there is a large empirical literature on insider trading, this is the first empirical article to examine the impact of false, fraudulent public information on stock prices and trading volume. We find that such false information, even after being denied by a credible source such as the SEC, generates both abnormal returns and abnormal trading volume. We also find that the effects of the false information on security returns and volume can be persistent for at least 2 weeks. In addition, we show that perpetrators of false news attacks can make potentially large profits from such market manipulations.     

沪市股票量价关系研究——基于E-G两步法和脉冲响应函数

本文选取股权分置改革后的数据,通过协整、误差修正模型、Granger因果检验和脉冲响应函数对股价和交易量之间的关系进行了全面深入的研究,得出股价对交易量的影响大于交易量对股价的影响。     

The Textual Contents of Media Reports of Information Security Breaches and Profitable Short-Term Investment Opportunities

Information security-related incidents continue to make headlines. Interestingly, researchers have found mixed results when attempting to associate reports of information security breaches with changes in the affected firm's stock price. This research delves further into this puzzle by investigating the association between the textual contents of information security breach media reports and the stock price, as well as the trading volume reactions of the affected firm(s) around the breach announcement day. Our findings suggest that when the textual contents of breach reports provide more detailed information regarding the incidents, a more consistent belief is formed by the market about the negative impact of the reported security incident on the firm's business value. However, when there is a lack of specific information regarding the reported breach, the market does not seem to reach consensus on the impact of reported security incidents. We further demonstrate that different perceptions exist among general and sophisticated investors regarding the impact of reported information security incidents on a firm's future performance as demonstrated by changes in trading volume. By exploiting the different perceptions among investors, we form a trading strategy to demonstrate that, on average, one can make about 300% annual profit around the breach announcement day.     

Do Patented Innovations Reduce Stock Price Crash Risk?*

Using a large sample of US firms, we document a significantly negative relation between the number of patents (citations) and stock price crash risk. Our findings are consistent with the arguments that patented innovation activities send a high‐quality signal and reduces proprietary information costs, which lowers information asymmetry and enhance disclosure. Further, we find that such impact of patented innovation on stock price crash risk is more pronounced in firms with weak corporate governance and high information opacity. Our findings provide new evidence on the real effects of patented innovation on crash risk in equity market.     

Two-stage models for the analysis of information content of equity-selling mechanisms choices

Extant research offers mixed empirical results on if private placement firms are undervalued. [Hertzel, Michael G., and Smith, L. (1993), “Market Discounts and Shareholder Gains for Placing Equity Privately,” J Finance 48, 459-485] suggest that private placements convey favorable information. On the other hand, [Hertzel, Michael G., Lemmon, M., Linck, J., and Rees, L. (2002), “Long-Run Performance following Private Placements of Equity,” J Finance 57, 2595-2617] show that, similar to public offering firms, private placement firms experience significant negative long-run post-announcement stock price performance. This paper develops the two-stage estimation models to explore the information content of equity-selling mechanism. This paper uses estimated residuals from insider trading regressions (proxy for abnormal insider trades) to measure private information. The result shows that the probability of making private placements increases with abnormal insider purchases and decreases with abnormal insider sales. This suggests that, relative to the public offering firms, private placement firms are undervalued.     

Influence of dividend tax policy tied to investment horizon on stock price stability: Evidence from the 2015 dividend tax reform in China

We examine how the dividend tax cut policy tied to the investment horizon enforced on September 8, 2015, influences stock price stability in China's A-share market. As the new dividend tax policy waives the tax on cash dividends for investors holding a stock for more than a year, it encourages long-term investment behavior. From 2013 to 2017, we find that stock turnover, return volatility, and turnover volatility decrease after the policy enforcement, especially for stocks with high dividend yields. This result shows that dividend tax reforms increase investors' stock investment horizons and help stabilize the market. However, our findings demonstrate that stock crash risk increases after policy enforcement. Further analysis shows that earnings management through real activities manipulation for stocks with a higher dividend yield contributes to an increase in stock crash risk. Therefore, one externality of the dividend tax cut policy tied to the investment horizon is that top managers of firms with a higher dividend yield may take advantage of investors' passive longer-term investment behavior and engage in more earnings management. This result suggests that regulatory agencies should pay attention to top managers' earnings management behavior after enacting policies that encourage long-term investment.     

中国式融资融券与企业金融化——基于分批扩容的准自然实验

本文聚焦于中国经济“脱实向虚”背景下非金融企业金融化问题,将分批次放开融资融券限制作为准自然实验,构造双重差分模型,探究融资融券机制对企业金融化行为的影响。研究发现,融资融券机制的实施总体上会显著地促进企业金融化。这种促进作用主要源于实际交易中占主导地位的融资机制。虽然融券机制对企业金融化有一定的抑制作用,但在融资交易与融券交易高度不对称的情形下,活跃的融资交易加剧了企业配置金融资产的短期投机套利行为。金融资产与经营资产的收益率差距和股价下跌风险是企业调整投资策略的两个关键因素。进一步研究发现,融资融券对企业金融化的影响只存在于管理层持股和机构持股比例较高、产品市场竞争较弱和处于牛市行情等情形中。本文有助于理解中国式融资融券的经济后果,也从制度环境层面为厘清非金融企业“脱实向虚”的内在机制提供了一个新视角。     

Price discovery in the aluminum market

An extended version of the S. Beveridge and C. R. Nelson (1981) decomposition and a latent variable approach are used to examine how the noise content, and therefore the informativeness, of four aluminum prices that have been quoted at various times since 1970—the (now defunct) U.S. producer price, a transactions price reported in a trade journal, and the LME and Comex exchange prices. It was found that the start of aluminum futures trading in 1978 resulted in greater price transparency in the sense that the information content of transactions prices increased. LME prices quickly came to be more informative than published transactions prices. Although the initial Comex aluminum contract failed to attract liquidity and had low information content, the 1999 contract, trading currently, is as transparent as the LME contract. © 2005Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:967–988, 2005     

Do Foreign Investors Promote Stock Price Efficiency in Emerging Markets?

This paper examines the role of foreign investors in promoting stock price efficiency in emerging stock markets relying on the fact that stock prices in these markets are influenced by both local and global factors. We employ a data sample of Vietnamese‐listed firms on the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange over the period from 2006 to 2015. We utilize the panel data estimation analysis. The results show that foreign investors accelerate the incorporation of available information into local stock prices. The finding reinforces the important role of foreign investors in domestic stock markets of emerging economies.