scholarly journals Slack And Crash Risk

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Theodore Goodman ◽  
Volkan Muslu ◽  
Hyungshin Park
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Adverse Events ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Working Capital ◽  
Current Income ◽  
Administrative Expenses

We examine how a firm’s operational slack is associated with current income and future stock price crash risk. By doing so, we test the validity of a firm’s alternative motivations for holding operational slack. We show that Supply Chain Slack, which is based on excess working capital, is associated with higher current profits and higher future crash risk. This evidence is consistent with the firm hoarding bad news. In contrast, SG&A Slack, which is based on excess selling, general, and administrative expenses, is associated with lower current income and lower future crash risk. This evidence is consistent with the firm insuring against rare and adverse events. Furthermore, a firm’s stock price crash risk is lower when a slack type is more costly, consistent with both motivations. Overall, our findings suggest a stronger profit-crash risk tradeoff when firms hold more operational slack.

Capital Market Consequences of Audit Office Size: Evidence from Stock Price Crash Risk

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Callen ◽  
Xiaohua Fang ◽  
Baohua Xin ◽  
Wenjun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Capital Market ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Public Firms ◽  
Big 4 ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Office Size ◽  
Market Consequences ◽  
Robust Evidence

SUMMARY This study examines the association between the office size of engagement auditors and their clients' future stock price crash risk, a consequence of managerial bad news hoarding. Using a sample of U.S. public firms with Big 4 auditors, we find robust evidence that local audit office size is significantly and negatively related to future stock price crash risk. The evidence is consistent with the view that large audit offices effectively detect and deter bad news hoarding activities in comparison with their smaller counterparts. We further explore two possible explanations for these findings, the Auditor Incentive Channel and the Auditor Competency Channel. Our empirical tests offer support for both channels. JEL Classifications: G12; G34; M49.

Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dichu Bao ◽  
Yongtae Kim ◽  
Lixin (Nancy) Su
Keyword(s):  
Stock Price ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Public Disclosure ◽  
Litigation Risk ◽  
External Monitoring ◽  
Future Performance ◽  
Equity Incentives

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests, if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers’ private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news.

Does negative information in MD&A can reduce stock crash risk?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianmai Liu
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Information Disclosure ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

Purpose As an important part of the disclosure of listed companies' annual reports, MD&A will disclose some "bad news" about the company. The purpose of this paper is to study whether such "bad news" can reduce information asymmetry and alleviate the risk of stock price crash remains to be seen. Design/methodology/approach Based on the sample of A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2016, the authors examine whether the negative information in MD&A could reduce stock price crash risk. Findings It is found that the negative information in MD&A does not reduce future crash, which indicates that the negative information in MD&A does not alleviate the information asymmetry. Further, it is also found this is due to the low readability of negative information which leads to the negative information not successfully released into the market timely. Only highly readable negative information can alleviate information asymmetry and suppress crash risk. In addition, the authors also find in the companies with more investor surveys negative tone is negatively correlated with crash risk, which means that investor surveys could help investors interpret the negative information in MD&A and alleviate stock price crash risk. Practical implications The practical significance of this article: this paper suggests that investors should carefully identify the quality of negative information in MD&A and pay attention to other quality characteristics besides credibility. This paper suggests that the regulator should pay attention not only to whether to disclose and the amount of disclosure but also to the quality of information disclosure, such as readability, so as to restrict management's strategic behavior in information disclosure. Originality/value First, different from previous studies on the impact of information disclosure on crash risk, this paper directly explores the impact of information in MD&A on stock price crash risk from the perspective of negative information disclosure that management most want to hide. It supplements the literature on the impact of information disclosure on stock price crash risk. Second, this paper studies the interaction between information tone and readability and its impact on the risk of stock price crash. Some studies believe that the credibility of negative news is higher and investors' reaction may be stronger. However, this paper finds that the disclosure of negative information may not be absorbed by the market because of the low readability. Third, this paper finds that investor surveys can help information users to interpret negative information and alleviate the risk of stock price crash, which shows that information disclosure of different channels will complement each other and improve information efficiency. Therefore, it advocates different information disclosure channels which has important practical significance for improving market pricing efficiency and reducing investment decision-making risk.

scholarly journals Multinational Corporations and Stock Price Crash Risk

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-63
Author(s):  
Anthony May ◽  
Rodney Boehme
Keyword(s):  
Asymmetric Information ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Agency Problems ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Governance Mechanisms ◽  
Tail Risk ◽  
Domestic Firms ◽  
Market Participants

A nascent literature in finance and accounting on tail risk in individual stock returns concludes that bad news hoarding by corporate managers engenders sudden, extreme crashes in a firm’s stock price when the bad news is eventually made public. This literature finds that firm-specific crash risk is higher among firms with more severe asymmetric information and agency problems. A hitherto disjointed literature spanning the fields of international business, finance, and accounting suggests that geographic dispersion in a firm’s operations, and especially dispersion across different countries, gives rise to organizational complexities and greater costs of monitoring that can exacerbate asymmetric information and agency problems. Motivated by the confluence of arguments and findings from these two strands of literature, this paper examines whether stock price crash risk is higher among multinational firms than domestic firms. Using a large sample of U.S. headquartered firms during 1987-2011, we find robust evidence that multinational firms are significantly more likely to crash than domestic firms. Moreover, we show that the difference in crash risk between multinational and domestic firms is most acute among firms with weaker corporate governance mechanisms, including weaker shareholder rights, less independent boards, and less stable institutional ownership. Our analysis indicates that stronger monitoring from each of these three governance mechanisms significantly attenuates the positive relation between crash risk and multinationality. Our findings are robust to the use of alternative measures of crash risk and to controlling for known determinants of crash risk identified in prior studies. Our study offers new insights that should hold value for scholars and market participants interested in understanding the implications of heighted agency problems that multinational firms are likely to encounter and scholars and market participants interested in developing models that more accurately predict tail risk in the equity returns of individual firms.

Managerial ownership and stock price crash risk: a case of Iranian firms

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Ali Haghighi ◽  
Mehdi Safari Gerayli
Keyword(s):  
Stock Price ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Managerial Ownership ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Hypothesis ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Increasing managerial ownership gives rise to the managerial opportunistic behaviors, among which bad news hoarding has attracted a lot of attention. Nevertheless, there always exists a threshold level at which the accumulated bad news releases abruptly, thereby resulting in corporate stock price crash risk. On the above arguments, this study aims to investigate the impact of managerial ownership on stock price crash risk of the firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Design/methodology/approach Sample includes the 485 firm-year observations from companies listed on the TSE during the years 2012-2016 and the research hypothesis was tested using multivariate regression model based on panel data. Findings The results reveal that managerial ownership increases the corporate stock price crash risk. These findings are robust to an alternative measure of stock price crash risk, individual analysis of the research hypothesis for each year and endogeneity concern. Originality/value The current study is almost the first study, which has been conducted in emerging capital markets, so the findings of the study not only extend the extant theoretical literature concerning the stock price crash risk in developing countries including emerging capital market of Iran but also help policymakers, regulators, investors and users of financial reports to make informed decisions.

Do statutory internal auditors influence stock price crash risk? Firm-level evidence from Korea

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-237
Author(s):  
Soo Yeon Park ◽  
Hyun-Young Park
Keyword(s):  
Stock Price ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Internal Auditors ◽  
Financial Expertise

Purpose Based on 1,798 firm-year observations from 2009 to 2013, using publicly available disclosure data for Korean listed firms, this study aims to examine whether statutory internal auditors influence firm-level stock price crash risk. Design/methodology/approach Based on the bad news hoarding theory of crash risk, the authors investigate the association between the quality of statutory internal auditors and one-year-ahead stock price crash risk. The quality of statutory internal auditors is measured as the compensation of statutory internal auditors and the financial expertise of statutory internal auditors. Stock price crash risk is measured as an indicator variable whether a firm experiences one or more crash weeks during the fiscal year period. Findings The authors find that higher quality of statutory internal auditors – measured through greater compensation and greater financial expertise – is associated with lower possibilities of future stock price crash risk. These results indicate that high-quality statutory internal auditors mitigate bad news hoarding of managers because of their greater capability and stronger incentive to lower litigation risk and preserve their reputation. The results are mostly robust to different measures for stock price crash risk and the quality of statutory internal auditors. Practical implications The findings of this study regarding stock price crash risk are important for investors because such risk can significantly affect investor welfare. The results indicate that statutory internal auditors play an important role in controlling future stock price crash risk and maintaining stability in the equity market. Originality/value This study adds to the extant literature on the determinants of stock price crash risk and is the first to examine the impact of internal auditors on stock price crash risk. Moreover, this study also contributes to the existing literature on internal auditor quality by showing that high-quality statutory internal auditors reduce risks in financial markets.

scholarly journals OPAQUE FINANCIAL REPORTS AND STOCK PRICE CRASH RISK IN INDONESIA

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Purwoto ◽  
Eduardus Tandelilin
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Information Disclosure ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Binary Outcome ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Lack Of Information

Stock price crash risk is explained in perspective of corporate governance which refers to the lack of information disclosure. This research investigates the effects of opaque financial reports on stock price crash risk of Indonesia-listed firms from 2005 to 2008.The results show that the degree of crash risk is high. Analyses of binary outcome models, which are controlled by company characteristics, show that crash risk is higher in firms with more opaque financial reports. These results of analysis validate the findings of Hutton et al. (2009) so consistent that insiders or managers hide bad news or negative information when submitting poor financial reports.

scholarly journals Seasoned Equity Offerings and Stock Price Crash Risk

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Rodney D. Boehme ◽  
Veljko Fotak ◽  
Anthony May
Keyword(s):  
Stock Price ◽  
Seasoned Equity Offerings ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Good News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Equity Offerings ◽  
Jump Risk ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Secondary Shares ◽  
Robust Evidence

Using a large sample of U.S. firms during 1987–2011, we find robust evidence that the issuance of seasoned equity is associated with abnormally high future stock price crash risk. The association between seasoned equity offerings and crash risk is stronger among offerings that involve the sale of secondary shares (existing shares sold by insiders or large blockholders). We also find that recent seasoned equity issuers are far less likely to experience sudden positive price jumps relative to firms that have not recently issued equity. Our findings of elevated crash risk and diminished jump risk, when taken together, are consistent with a heightened propensity for firms to hoard bad news but not good news when issuing equity.

scholarly journals Aftershock: CEO Great Famine Experience and Stock Price Crash Risk

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Cheng ◽  
Wenjuan Ruan ◽  
Guoliang Huang ◽  
Liangliang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Traumatic Event ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
Great Famine

This study examines the effect of CEOs’ early-life traumatic experience on firm-specific stock price crash risk. Drawing on the idea of natural experiments, we take the Great Famine in China as an external traumatic event which cannot be selected or controlled by human. The analysis points out that compensation psychology and irrational defense psychology after the trauma of Great Famine are important factors that cause CEOs to hoard bad news. Based on a large sample of Chinese companies from 2007 to 2017, we find evidence that CEOs who experienced the Great Famine during early-life tend to hoard bad news, which result in higher stock price crash risk. The more severe and prolonged the Great Famine that the CEOs experienced, the greater the effect of this traumatic experience. CEOs decision-making power enhances the adverse effect of CEOs’ early-life traumatic experiences on crash risk. Findings of this study contributes to the literature by providing a new explanation for the stock price crash risk, which is of great significance for the sustained and healthy development of capital markets.

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