Betting on sure things
Revolving doors on Wall Street
Jess Cornaggia, Kimberly Cornaggia & Han Xia
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Credit analysts often leave rating agencies to work at firms they rate. We use benchmark rating agencies as counterfactuals to measure rating inflation in a difference-in-differences framework and find that transitioning analysts award inflated ratings to their future employers before switching jobs. We find no evidence that analysts inflate ratings of other firms they rate. Market based measures of hiring firms' credit quality further indicate that transitioning analysts' inflated ratings become less informative. We conclude that conflicts of interest at the analyst level distort credit ratings. More broadly, our results shed light on the economic consequences of revolving doors.
---------------------
Do Brokers of Insiders Tip Other Clients?
William McNally, Andriy Shkilko & Brian Smith
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine trading activity around insider transactions on the Toronto Stock Exchange and find evidence that some traders mimic insider positions. Our unique data set allows us to establish a direct connection between insiders, their brokerages, and the brokerages' other clients. The findings are consistent with the possibility that some brokerages tip their clients about insider trades. Insiders in our sample have good timing; returns are usually positive (negative) after insider purchases (sales). Insiders' good timing translates to the mimicking transactions, which appear to be profitable net of trading costs. Evidence consistent with tipping is observed mainly for smaller independent brokerages.
---------------------
When does the stock market listen to economic news? New evidence from copulas and news wires
Ivan Medovikov
Journal of Banking & Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study association between macroeconomic news and stock market returns using the statistical theory of copulas, and a new comprehensive measure of news based on textual review and classification of news wires. We find the impact of economic news on equity returns to be nonlinear and asymmetric. In particular, controlling for economic conditions and surprises associated with releases of economic data, we find that the market reacts strongly and negatively to the most unfavourable macroeconomic news, but appears to largely discount the good news. Further, the most-unfavorable news creates price drift, and we document that selling stocks short in the wake of unusually-bad news yields annual abnormal gross returns greater than four percent.
---------------------
Justin Birru & Baolian Wang
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We explore the psychology of stock price levels and provide evidence that investors suffer from a nominal price illusion in which they overestimate the room to grow for low-priced stocks relative to high-priced stocks. While it has become increasingly clear that nominal price levels influence investor behavior, why prices matter to investors is a question that as of yet has gone unanswered. We find widespread evidence that investors systematically overestimate the skewness of low-priced stocks. In the broad cross-section of stocks, we find that investors substantially overweight the importance of price when forming skewness expectations. Asset pricing implications of our findings are borne out in the options market. A zero-cost option portfolio strategy that exploits investor overestimation of skewness for low-priced stocks generates significant abnormal returns. Finally, investor expectations of future skewness increase drastically on days that a stock undergoes a split to a lower nominal price. Empirically, however, future physical skewness decreases following splits.
---------------------
Allison Koester, Russell Lundholm & Mark Soliman
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate why extreme positive earnings surprises occur and the consequences of these events. We posit that managers know before analysts when extremely good earnings news is developing, but can have incentives to allow the earnings news to surprise the market at the earnings announcement. In particular, managers can use an extreme positive earnings surprise to attract investor attention when they believe their stock is neglected and future performance is expected to be strong. Analysts, who must allocate scarce resources across many firms, can also be inattentive and miss signals that suggest good performance is going to be announced. Using various proxies for extreme positive earnings surprises, management expectations for future performance and desire for attention, and analyst neglect, we find evidence that an extreme positive earnings surprise is a predictable event. These findings are incremental to controlling for a firm's information environment, earnings volatility, and operating leverage. Finally, we show that extreme positive earnings surprises are a successful method for attracting attention, with significant increases in the number of institutional owners, the number of analysts, and trading volume during the subsequent three years.
---------------------
Ferhat Akbas
Journal of Finance, February 2016, Pages 225-266
Abstract:
I provide evidence that stocks experiencing unusually low trading volume over the week prior to earnings announcements have more unfavorable earnings surprises. This effect is more pronounced among stocks with higher short-selling constraints. These findings support the view that unusually low trading volume signals negative information, since, under short-selling constraints, informed agents with bad news stay by the sidelines. Changes in visibility or risk-based explanations are insufficient to explain the results. This evidence provides insights into why unusually low trading volume predicts price declines.
---------------------
Yee Cheng Loon & Zhaodong (Ken) Zhong
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines transaction costs and liquidity in the index CDS market by matching intraday quotes to real-time trade reports made available through the Dodd-Frank reforms. We find that the average relative effective spread is 0.27% of price level or 2.73% of CDS spread. Dodd-Frank does affect transaction costs and liquidity. Liquidity improves after the commencement of public dissemination of OTC derivatives trades. Moreover, cleared trades, trades executed on exchange-like venues, end-user trades, and bespoke trades exhibit lower trading costs, price impact, and price dispersion. These findings improve our understanding of the OTC derivatives market that is undergoing fundamental changes.
---------------------
Do stock splits signal undervaluation?
Mohammad Karim & Sayan Sarkar
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
Signaling theory of stock splits postulates that managers use stock splits to convey favorable private information to the market about the fair value of the firm and thus attempts to reduce or eliminate undervaluation. In this paper, we investigate this proposition using three different misvaluation estimates. Contrary to the undervaluation hypothesis, we find that split firms are overvalued, rather than undervalued for the seven years surrounding split announcements. Moreover, the overvaluation reaches its peak in the split announcement year and declines in the post-split period. Overall, our results suggest that firms do not use stock splits to signal undervaluation.
---------------------
Speculative Investors and Transactions Tax: Evidence from the Housing Market
Yuming Fu, Wenlan Qian & Bernard Yeung
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of a policy change in transaction tax on speculators. The policy intervention took place in Singapore's housing market; it effectively raised the transaction cost in a segment favored by short-term speculators. Relative to the unaffected control sample, we find that the rise in transaction cost, equivalent to a two- to three-percentage-point increase in transaction tax, reduced speculative trading in the treatment segment by 75% and raised its price volatility by 18%. It also significantly reduced price informativeness. We further show that the results are likely due to a relatively greater withdrawal by informed speculators than by destabilizing speculators following the transaction cost increase.
---------------------
Firm geographic dispersion and financial analysts' forecasts
Petya Platikanova & Marco Maria Mattei
Journal of Banking & Finance, March 2016, Pages 71-89
Abstract:
Using a text-based measure of geographic dispersion that captures the economic ties between a firm and its geographically distributed economic interests, this study provides evidence that financial analysts issue less accurate, more dispersed and more biased earnings forecasts for geographically dispersed firms. We observe the degree to which a firm has an overlapping distribution of economic centers in comparison to industry competitors and suggest that geographically similar firms have lower information gathering costs and thereby more precise earnings forecasts. Empirical evidence supports this prediction. We further find that the geographic dispersion across the U.S. is less likely to affect forecast precision when a firm has economic activities in states with highly correlated local shocks. Our findings suggest that the effect of geographic dispersion is more pronounced for soft-information environments where information is more difficult to make impersonal by using technological advances. Consistent with the information asymmetry argument, we find that geographically dispersed firms have less comparable and more discretionary managed earnings, have less extensive than industry competitors segment information, are more likely to restate sale segment information, and issue annual and quarterly filings with a delay.
---------------------
Kee-Hong Bae, Jun-Koo Kang & Jin Wang
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, October 2015, Pages 1011-1035
Abstract:
We examine two competing views regarding the impact of competition among credit rating agencies on rating quality: the view that rating agencies do not sacrifice their reputation by inflating firm ratings, and the view that competition among rating agencies arising from the conflict of interest inherent in an "issuer pay" model creates pressure to inflate ratings. Using Fitch's market share as a measure of competition among rating agencies and controlling for the endogeneity problem caused by unobservable industry effects, we find no relation between Fitch's market share and ratings, suggesting that competition does not lead to rating inflation.
---------------------
The Impact of More Frequent Portfolio Disclosure on Mutual Fund Performance
Sitikantha Parida & Terence Teo
Journal of Banking & Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the impact of more frequent portfolio disclosures on performance of mutual funds. Since 2004, SEC requires all U.S. mutual funds to disclose their portfolio holdings on a quarterly basis from semi-annual previously. This change in regulation provides a natural setting to study the impact of frequency of disclosure on performance of mutual funds. Prior to the policy change, we find that successful semi-annual funds outperform successful quarterly funds by 17-20 basis points a month. After 2004, their performance goes down and they no longer outperform successful quarterly funds. This reduction in performance is higher for semi-annual funds holding illiquid assets. These results support our hypothesis that the performance of funds with more frequent disclosure, particularly of those holding illiquid assets, suffer more from front running activities. We also find complementary evidence that the profitability of a hypothetical front running strategy based on public disclosures goes up with the frequency of portfolio disclosures.