Where Should the Line Be Drawn on Insider Trading Ethics?

Finance ethics have drawn increasing attention from both government regulators and academic researchers. This paper addresses the issue of insider trading ethics. Previous studies on insider trading ethics have failed to provide convincing arguments and consistent results. In particular, the arguments against insider trading are based primarily on moral and philosophical grounds and lack empirical rigor. This study intends to establish and examine the relationship between the ethical issue and economic issue of insider trading. We argue that the ethics of insider trading is in essence an economic rather than a moral issue. It is so far not clear to what extent insider trading may increase or decrease shareholders wealth. Until then, we must take care to avoid over-regulating insider trading.     

When Kamay Met Hill: Organisational Ethics in Practice

The Kamay and Hill insider trading conviction in Australia highlights many of the issues and problems involved in the prevention, detection and prosecution of insider trading. The case uniquely highlights how ethical behaviour is instilled at home, in school and in society, and the need for ethical responsibility at the personal and organisational level to complement legal rules and enforcement. We use the Kamay and Hill case to explore the reasons behind the failure of the traditional top-down approach to insider trading prevention, where institutional ethical codes of conduct largely reflect and rely upon national rules, norms, and regulation. We propose a bottom-up approach to ensure that individual and organisational behaviour is ethical, where emphasis is not on compliance but on a set of core ethical values that allow individual and corporate expression. It is our strong belief that compliance cannot replace ethics.     

Corporate governance and insider trading regulation efficiency

This paper aims to measure insider trading probability and the corresponding regulation efficiency in China. Based on an identification of influencing factors of corporate governance, the author explores the relationship among insider trading, corporate governance, and corporate value. The author also uses, based on high-frequency financial data, the probability of insider trading to measure the degree of insider trading in China’s security market. Results reveal that China’s security market has failed to punish and prohibit illegal insider trading effectively. However, the security market does exert certain constraints on insider-trading-ridden listed companies. The conclusion of this article is that by improving corporate governance, we can enhance the efficiency of insider trading regulation. Practical implications are also discussed.     

Informed trading around merger and acquisition announcements: Evidence from the UK equity and options markets

This paper offers new evidence on informed trading around merger and acquisition announcements from the UK equity and options market. The analysis suggests that in about 25–33% of events there is abnormal option trading volume during the month that precedes the announcement. Such evidence is found in both call and put option volumes, is robust to different “estimation” and “event window” lengths, to different sub‐samples, and to liquidity considerations. These results support the argument that informed investors will transact in both the options and the stock market, and are comparable to results reported by the FSA in the cash market. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 31:703–726, 2011     

News media and insider trading profitability: An emerging country perspective

We test news media's disciplining by dissemination role and predictive power in insider trading related issues with a large and novel dataset on Chinese firms between 2008 and 2017. We find that more media coverage is associated with significantly lower level of insider trading profitability, which confirms the disciplining by dissemination role of media documented in the developed market. However, as a new evidence to the media and insider trading literature, we also find that media's negative tone has a positive correlation with future insider trading profitability, which is consistent with the media predictive power argument. In addition, we find that media's predictive power is amplified by a firm's good governance structure and low level of information asymmetry. Our study shows news media's effectiveness in predicting opportunistic insider trading in China.     

An Experiment Testing the Determinants of Non-Compliance with Insider Trading Laws

Recent stories of corporate insiders avoiding losses and, in some cases, generating enormous personal profits as their companies crumbled have led investors to question the integrity of American business and the fairness of the United States stock markets. The SEC tries to ensure the fairness of the stock markets by making and enforcing laws against unfair practices such as insider trading. In the United States, when insiders trade stock based on non-public information, they have broken the law and betrayed the trust that has been placed in them.This study used student subjects to test the relationship between the likelihood of trading based on insider information and subjective probabilities of deterrents and motivations for insider trading. Expected gain, guilt, cynicism, and fairness of laws were the determinants that had a significant relationship with the intent to trade based on insider information. This study also found support for prospect theory with regard to insider trading. The results indicate that subjects are more likely to trade based on insider information to avoid a loss than to achieve an abnormal gain. The study also finds evidence of social desirability response bias.Additional findings of the study were that subjects did not view the determinants for themselves in a manner consistent with how they viewed those same deterrents and motivations for other people. Also, a test of the effects of gender found that certainty and social stigma were significantly higher for female respondents than for male respondents.     

Applying Ethics to Insider Trading

Insider trading has received a bad name in recent decades. The popular press makes it sound like an evil practice where those who engage in it are totally devoid of ethical principles. Yet not all insider trading is unethical and some studies have concluded that certain kinds of insider trading are actually beneficial to the greater investment community. Some scholars in philosophy, law and economics have disputed whether insider trading should be punished at all while others assert that it should be illegal in all cases. This paper explores the nature of insider trading and analyzes the issues to determine the positive and negative aspects of insider trading, and how policy should be changed. The best hope would be for studies to be made that isolate the individuals or groups who are fraudulently harmed by insider trading. If any such groups exist, then clearly worded legislation could be passed to prevent any fraud from being committed against these individuals and groups, while allowing non-fraudulent transactions to be completed without fear of prosecution. Until it can be clearly determined that someone is fraudulently harmed by insider trading, there should be no law or regulation restricting the practice, since such restrictions violate individual rights and will likely have a negative market reaction. Robert W. McGee is a professor at the Andreas School of Business, Barry University in Miami, Florida, USA. He has published more than 50 books and more than 400 scholarly papers in the fields of accounting, taxation, economics, law, philosophy and ethics. He holds doctorates in several fields, including accounting, economics, law and philosophy. He is an attorney and a certified public accountant (CPA).     

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 market response of insider transferring trades and firm characteristics in Taiwan

This paper reports the announcement effects of insider transfer trades and relates these with firms' characteristics. Regulations in Taiwan specify that insiders give three days prior notice to the competent authority of stock transfers and this news can stimulate market participants' investment decisions. We find both the positive and negative abnormal returns exist following insider transfer trade announcements, especially for smaller firm. However, smaller firm sizes associate with larger magnitudes of negative abnormal returns. Furthermore, the connection between smaller firms and those with higher book-to-market ratios strengthens for larger negative abnormal returns.     

外部投资者情绪会驱动内部人交易吗？--来自中国A股市场的经验证据

本文基于Probit和Tobit模型检验了投资者情绪是否是内部人交易的信息来源。结果显示：投资者情绪越高,内部人卖出倾向增加、卖出强度增大,内部人买入倾向降低、买入强度减小。投资者情绪对内部人卖出的影响大于其对内部人买入的影响效应。在控制投资者情绪后,公司未公开的季度业绩变化信息并未对内部人的卖出交易产生显著的影响,这一现象符合“前景理论”的“确定效应”。     

论“市场欺诈理论”与证券内幕交易民事责任因果关系的确立及借鉴

目前内幕交易民事责任因果关系问题是我国立法中的一个空白点。理论界对此问题做过大量探讨,但涉及内幕交易因果关系的理论基础和发展趋势及我国应采用的基本观点还缺乏必要的认识,为此从我国相关立法实践出发,借鉴"市场欺诈理论"和西方国家立法、司法实践,对完善我国证券内幕交易民事责任的因果关系问题提出建设性意见。     

The Issue of Insider Trading in Law and Economics: Lessons for Emerging Financial Markets in the World

Growth of the private sector and privatization of state companies around the world have led to the emergence of various stock markets, some of which are depicted by insider trading. Law literature uses the arguments of unfairness, breach of fiduciary rights and damage to others to define and rule against insider trading. Economic literature can be used to interpret insider trading from other perspectives. This study argues that the question of insider trading in developing markets can be resolved by the extent stock markets generate externalities and are public goods. It advocates structural changes in the developing markets and examines the conditions under which the Coase Theorem would work.     

Ethical Reasoning and the Use of Insider Information in Stock Trading

The cognitive developmental theory of ethics suggests that there is a positive relationship between ethical reasoning and ethical behavior. In this study, we trained a sample of accounting and finance students in performing competitive stock trading in our state-of-the-art trading room. The subjects then performed trading of stocks under two experimental conditions: insider information, and no-insider information where significant performance-based financial awards were at stake. We also administered the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Ethical behavior, as the dependent variable was measured in a binary scale: whether the subjects used insider information for trading of stocks or not. Ethical reasoning as measured by the DIT P-score indicated statistically significant effect on ethical behavior. The results have important implications for recruitment and training of professionals engaged in the use of financial markets for securities trading.     

The Economics of Insider Trading: A Free Market Perspective

We deny that asymmetrical information is a market failure. In order to make this case, we subject to critical scrutiny the strongest case for this thesis: the view that laws prohibiting insider trading are viable, necessary, or compatible with the rule of law.     

控制权转移的市场反应——基于私有收益视角

控制权转移可以引起公司股票价格以及股东财富的变化,国内外学者对此进行了大量研究,但鲜有结合控制权私有收益的分析。本文从私有收益视角出发,从事件期的累积超常收益、超常换手率、内幕交易指标、长期购买持有收益以及国有和民营买家超常收益的比较等方面进行了实证研究,结果表明:上市公司的控制权转移在很大程度上是新控股股东通过内幕交易获取私有收益的行为,并未真正为股东创造价值。     

The Ethics of Insider Trading Revisited

Following Manne (1966, Insider Trading and the Stock Market (New York, Free Press)) we introduce a distinction between insider trading and market manipulation on the one hand and corporate insiders versus misappropriators on the other hand. This gives rise to four types of alleged inside transactions. We argue that the literature on insider trading has often targeted inside transactions type II, III and IV but that these arguments do not necessarily hold for type I transactions. We look for consequentionalist as well as non-consequentionalist arguments against type I transactions and demonstrate that these are hard to find. Throughout the article we refer extensively to the economic literature on insider trading in order to overcome a relative divide between the economic, legal, and philosophical discussion on insider trading.

Merger waves,entry-timing,and cross-border acquisition completion: A frictional lens perspective

We study the impact of deal announcement and entry-timing within a cross-border acquisition (CBA) wave on the likelihood of acquisition completion. Drawing upon the frictional lens perspective, we identify two types of frictional forces- wave-friction and partner-friction within merger waves. We follow a simulation-based methodology and identify three CBA waves for Indian acquirers between 1995 and 2015. Our findings suggest that acquisition announcement within a merger wave as compared to outside of a wave is negatively related to the likelihood of deal completion. Further, within a merger wave, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between entry-timing and the likelihood of deal completion.     

What drives informed trading before public releases? Evidence from natural gas inventory announcements

This paper shows evidence of informed trading in the natural gas futures market before gas inventory announcements. We examine whether traders can predict the upcoming announcement by processing public information. The results show that the difference between the median forecast of analysts with high historical forecasting accuracy and the consensus forecast can be used to predict inventory surprises. This predictor explains some of the pre‐announcement price drift, suggesting that informed trading before the announcement is likely to be driven by superior forecasting rather than by information leakage. A simple trading strategy conditioned on the predictor would have generated an annualized Sharpe ratio of 1.26.     

Stock price behavior between the base,announcement, and consummation dates of the merger

This study examines stock price behavior between the base, announcement, and actual dates of the merger. It also traces the stock price behavior after the actual date of the merger in order to detect market inefficiency with respect to mergers. The empirical results were found to be consistent with both the existence of gains from mergers and market efficiency with respect to mergers. The findings also suggest that in testing for market efficiency, the “zero” date should be the actual rather than the announcement date in the case of mergers, unlike other types of corporate events.     

中国上市公司违规处理信息提前泄露了吗——来自股票流动性和融券交易的证据

本文从股票流动性和融券交易的视角出发,实证检验我国上市公司违规处理信息提前泄露的可能性。研究发现:(1)违规处理公告之前,股票超额非流动性水平和超额融券量显著为正,且与违规处理公告日的超额收益率显著负相关;(2)公告日超额收益率最低组股票的公告前超额非流动性更高,而公告日超额收益率最高组股票的公告前超额融券量更少;(3)当违规处理文件的下批日期与公告日期间隔超过10日时,公告日超额收益率较高的公司股票,其公告前的相对超额融券量显著减少,表明知情交易者占据了主导地位,处理公告的提前泄露更可能解释以上发现。本文的结果表明,监管部门应加强内部管理和提升工作效率,及时公布违规公司处理文件以减少信息提前泄露的可能性,从而有利于股票市场的健康发展。