Using a novel database that tracks web traffic on the Security Exchange Commission's EDGAR server between 2004 and 2015, we show that institutional investors gather information on a very particular ...subset of firms and insiders, and their surveillance is very persistent over time. This tracking behavior has powerful implications for their portfolio choice and its information content. An institution that downloaded an insider trading filing by a given firm last quarter increases its likelihood of downloading an insider trading filing on the same firm by more than 41.3 percentage points this quarter. Moreover, the average tracked stock that an institution buys generates annualized alphas of over 12% relative to the purchase of an average non tracked stock. We find that institutional managers tend to track top executives and to share educational and locational commonalities with the specific insiders they choose to follow. Collectively, our results suggest that the information in tracked trades is important for fundamental firm value and is only revealed following the information-rich dual trading by insiders and linked institutions.
Purpose
The rise in business activities coupled with free trade liberalisation across countries has entailed an increase in securities transaction as well as insider trading (IT). In fact, IT is ...characterised by the influence and usage of some prior knowledge concerning sensitive information of a corporate body which results in a financial benefit to the insider trader. The practice of IT is not only unethical but also illegal and this statement is witnessed by the mushrooming of laws across the globe categorising IT as an offence. However, the type of punishment varies in different countries depending on various factors. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to assess the adequacy and efficiency of IT laws in the context of a developing country being Mauritius.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the research objective, the Mauritian laws on IT were compared with the corresponding laws of some developed countries like the USA and the UK. As such, a qualitative research method was adopted. In particular, the black letter approach was used to examine the relevant laws of Mauritius, UK and USA on IT. A comparative analysis was conducted concerning IT laws for each country with the view of suggesting recommendations for Mauritian stakeholders to adopt to enhance the existing legal and regulatory framework on IT.
Findings
It was found that Mauritian IT laws are largely inspired from both the US and UK corresponding legislation. However, Mauritian laws need to be strengthened by imposing some more severe penalties in terms of fines and terms of imprisonment like the USA has established. The Mauritian Financial Services Commission as the regulator also needs to play a more active role in disseminating particularities of IT laws, offences and penalties to the civil society at large.
Originality/value
At present, this study will be among the first academic writings on the efficiency of IT laws in Mauritius and also, because existing literature is quite scarce on assessing the adequacy of IT legislation in developing countries, this research aims at filling in the gap in literature. The study is carried out with the aim of combining a large amount of empirical, theoretical and factual information that can be of use to various stakeholders and not only to academics.
This paper exploits a novel hand-collected data set to provide a comprehensive analysis of the social relationships that underlie illegal insider trading networks. I find that inside information ...flows through strong social ties based on family, friends, and geographic proximity. On average, inside tips originate from corporate executives and reach buy-side investors after three links in the network. Inside traders earn prodigious returns of 35% over 21 days, with more central traders earning greater returns, as information conveyed through social networks improves price efficiency. More broadly, this paper provides some of the only direct evidence of person-to-person communication among investors.
We predict that accounting conservatism influences insiders' opportunities to speculate on good and bad news, and thus, insider trading profitability. We find that greater conditional (unconditional) ...conservatism is associated with lower (higher) insiders' profitability from sales. We find limited evidence that conservatism influences profitability from purchases. These findings are consistent with our hypotheses on the different informational roles of conditional and unconditional conservatism, and on the asymmetric influence of conservatism over the opportunities to speculate on good versus bad news. Our research design takes into consideration the endogenous nature of insiders' trading and conservatism. The results are robust to different measures of conservatism and a number of additional analyses.
Despite significant interest in corporate culture, there is little empirical research on its role in influencing corporate misconduct. Using cultural background information on key company insiders, I ...construct a measure of corporate corruption culture, capturing a firm's general attitude toward opportunistic behavior. Firms with high corruption culture are more likely to engage in earnings management, accounting fraud, option backdating, and opportunistic insider trading. I further explore the inner workings of corruption culture and find evidence that it operates both as a selection mechanism and by having a direct influence on individual behavior.
Inside brokers Li, Frank Weikai; Mukherjee, Abhiroop; Sen, Rik
Journal of financial economics,
09/2021, Letnik:
141, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We identify the broker each corporate insider trades through, and find that analysts and mutual fund managers affiliated with such “inside brokers” have a substantial information advantage on the ...insider’s firm. Affiliated analysts issue more accurate earnings forecasts, and affiliated mutual funds trade the insider’s stock more profitably than their peers, following insider trades through their brokerage. Notably, this advantage persists well after these insider trades are publicly disclosed. Our results challenge the prevalent perception that information asymmetry arising from insider trading is acute only before trade disclosure, and suggest that brokers facilitating these trades are in a position to exploit this asymmetry.
This paper shows that real decisions depend not only on the total amount of information in prices, but the source of this information—a manager learns from prices when they contain information not ...possessed by him. We use the staggered enforcement of insider trading laws across 27 countries as a shock to the source of information that leaves total information unchanged: enforcement reduces (increases) managers’ (outsiders’) contribution to the stock price. Consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model, enforcement increases investment-q sensitivity, even when controlling for total price informativeness. The effect is larger in industries where learning is likely to be stronger, and in emerging countries where outsider information acquisition rises most post-enforcement. Enforcement does not increase the sensitivity of investment to cash flow, a non-price measure of investment opportunities. These findings suggest that extant measures of price efficiency should be rethought when evaluating real efficiency. More broadly, our paper provides causal evidence that managers learn from prices, by using a shock to price informativeness.
We investigate whether the media plays a role in corporate governance by disseminating news. Using a comprehensive data set of corporate and insider news coverage for the 2001–2012 period, we show ...that the media reduces insiders' future trading profits by disseminating news on prior insiders' trades available from regulatory filings. We find support for three economic mechanisms underlying the disciplining effect of news dissemination: the reduction of information asymmetry, concerns regarding litigation risk, and the impact on insiders' personal wealth and reputation. Our findings provide new insights into the real effect of news dissemination.
We analyze the trading of corporate insiders at leading financial institutions during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. We find strong evidence of a relation between political connections and ...informed trading during the period in which Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds were disbursed, and that the relation is most pronounced among corporate insiders with recent direct connections. Notably, we find evidence of abnormal trading by politically connected insiders 30 days in advance of TARP infusions, and that these trades anticipate the market reaction to the infusion. Our results suggest that political connections can facilitate opportunistic behavior by corporate insiders.
This paper examines the influence of corporate governance systems on insiders' ability to profit from their information advantage and the ways through which corporate governance systems influence ...such ability. We find that corporate governance significantly reduces the profitability of insider sales but not that of insider purchases. Given that sales involve greater legal risk than purchases, the results suggest that well-governed firms restrict informed insider trading mainly to reduce legal risk. We also find that better-governed firms reduce the profitability of insider sales by increasing the likelihood of adopting ex-ante preventive measures (e.g., voluntary insider trading restriction policies), implementing such measures more effectively, and taking ex-post disciplinary actions more actively. These results highlight how better-governed firms are able to restrict insiders from exploiting private information.
•Corporate governance restricts the profitability of insider sales but not that of insider purchases.•Better-governed firms are more likely to adopt voluntary insider trading restriction policies.•Better-governed firms enforce voluntary insider trading restriction policies more effectively.•Better-governed firms are more likely to discipline CEOs who engage in informed insider sales transactions.
PDF
