scholarly journals Who Are Better Informed Before Analysts’ Forecast Changes?

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 223
Author(s):  
Tae-Jun Park ◽  
Sujin Yi ◽  
Kyojik “Roy” Song

Using Korean data, we investigate information asymmetry among investors before analysts change their stock recommendations. By comparing trading activities between individuals, institutions, and foreign investors, we find that there is information asymmetry before analysts change their recommendations. Institutional investors buy/sell the stock before recommendation upgrades/downgrades, but individuals and foreign investors do not anticipate the upcoming news. We also document that the trade imbalance of institutional investors are associated with stock returns upon the announcements of recommendation changes. This result indicates that institutions take advantage of their superior information around the recommendation changes.      

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (03) ◽  
pp. 505-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Firth ◽  
T. Y. Leung ◽  
Oliver M. Rui

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the legal insider trading activities by directors of companies listed on the Hong Kong Exchange over the period 1993 to 1999. One characteristic of insider trading in Hong Kong is the high frequency of transactions and the large amounts of money involved. Inside purchases appear to signal and correct undervaluation and inside sales appear to signal and correct overvaluation. In contrast to research from Britain and the United States, insider sales are more informative than purchases. On average, insiders earn HK$91,297 per trade, while outsiders who mimic insiders' transactions earn minimal returns. Many firms suffer from infrequent trading and our results are consistent with directors engaging in inside transactions so as to help create a market for the shares. In additional tests, we find that the frequency of insider trading is a function of information asymmetry.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 701
Author(s):  
Gyungmin Pyo ◽  
Yerim Chung

<p>In this paper, we examine how inventory changes are related to the trading patterns of foreign and institutional investors, especially in firms with information asymmetry. Prior researchers report that inventory changes could be associated with firm performance, earnings management, stock returns, and incentive contracts. In this study, we focus on the relationship between trading patterns of informed traders and changes in inventory, testing how inventory changes are associated with the investment decision-making of informed traders. After controlling for firm-specific factors, we find a significant relationship between changes in inventory and trading patterns of institutional and foreign investors. Under conditions of high information asymmetry, the negative relation between institutional trading and inventory changes is enhanced. However, the amounts invested by foreign traders are negatively associated with increases in inventory even in firms with low information asymmetry. We infer that foreign traders exhibit more conservative trading patterns than institutional investors.</p>


Author(s):  
Simi Kedia ◽  
Laura Starks ◽  
Xianjue Wang

Abstract Hedge fund activists have ambiguous relationships with the institutional shareholders in their target firms. While some support their activities, others counter their actions. Due to their relatively small holdings in target firms, activists typically need the cooperation of other institutional shareholders that are willing to influence the activists’ campaign success. We find the presence of “activism-friendly” institutions as owners is associated with an increased probability of being a target, higher long-term stock returns, and higher operating performance. Overall, we provide evidence suggesting the composition of a firm’s ownership has significant effects on hedge fund activists’ decisions and outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Boubekeur Baba ◽  
Güven Sevil

AbstractThis study discusses the trading behavior of foreign investors with respect to economic uncertainty in the South Korean stock market from a time-varying perspective. We employ a news-based measure of economic uncertainty along with the model of time-varying parameter vector autoregression with stochastic volatility. The empirical analysis reveals several new findings about foreign investors’ trading behaviors. First, we find evidence that positive feedback trading often appears during periods of high economic uncertainty, whereas negative feedback trading is exclusively observable during periods of low economic uncertainty. Second, the foreign investors’ feedback trading appears mostly to be well-timed and often leads the time-varying economic uncertainty except in periods of global crises. Third, lagged negative (positive) response of net flows to economic uncertainty is found to be coupled with lagged positive (negative) feedback trading. Fourth, the study documents an asymmetric response of foreign investors with regard to negative and positive shocks of economic uncertainty. Specifically, we find that they instantly turn to positive feedback trading after a negative contemporaneous response of net flows to shocks of economic uncertainty. In contrast, they move slowly toward negative feedback trading after a positive response of net flows to uncertainty shocks.


2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn McLaughlin ◽  
Assem Safieddine

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the potential for regulation to reduce information asymmetries between firm insiders and outside investors.Design/methodology/approachExtensive prior research has established that there are substantial effects of information asymmetry in seasoned equity offers (SEOs). The paper tests for a mitigating effect of regulation on such information asymmetries by examining differences in long‐run operating performance, changes in that performance, and announcement‐period stock returns between unregulated industrial firms and regulated utilities that issue seasoned equity. The authors also segment the samples by firm size, since smaller firms are likely to have greater asymmetries.FindingsConsistent with regulated utility firms having lower levels of information asymmetry, they have superior changes in abnormal operating performance than industrial firms pre‐ to post‐issue and their announcement period returns are significantly less negative. These findings are most pronounced for the smallest firms, firms likely to have the greatest information asymmetries and where regulation could have its greatest effect.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not examine costs of regulation. Thus, future research could seek to measure the cost/benefit trade‐off of regulation in reducing information asymmetry. Also, future research could examine cross‐sectional differences between different industries and regulated utilities.Practical implicationsRegulation reduces information asymmetry. Thus, regulation or mandated disclosure may be appropriate in industries/markets where information asymmetry is severe.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to compare the operating performance of regulated and unregulated SEO firms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-171
Author(s):  
Ganesh R. ◽  
Naresh Gopal ◽  
Thiyagarajan S.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine industry herding among the institutional investors and to find whether their herding behaviour is intentional or unintentional. Design/methodology/approach The study uses Lakonishok et al. (1992) model to examine the presence of industry herding behaviour among institutional investors. To determine whether the herding observed is intentional or unintentional, herding measure is regressed with volatility, volume, beta and return. The period of the study is from 1 April 2005-31 March 2015. Findings The findings of the study showed that though institutional investors have herding tendency towards most of the industries, in the overall period industry herding was not significant. The herding found in some industrial sectors was linked to economic performance of those sectors in India during the period of study and hence the herding was unintentional in nature. Research limitations/implications This is the first attempt to study industry herding among institutional investors and their intent in Indian market ever since the country opened its market to foreign investors in a big way. Present study is limited to the use of only bulk/block data instead of the entire trading data for the period. Originality/value This study is the first attempt to investigate industry herding behaviour of institutional investors in the market using their bulk and block trading data. The herding observed in well performing industries has been shown to be unintentional and hence rational. The results indicate that the entry of big institutional investors, including foreign institutions into the Indian market has not destabilised the market by irrational herding.


Fractals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (06) ◽  
pp. 2050126
Author(s):  
QINGSONG RUAN ◽  
JIARUI ZHANG ◽  
YAPING ZHOU ◽  
DAYONG LV

Using multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MF-DCCA) and nonlinear Granger causality test, this paper examines the return predictability of margin-trading activities. Results show that the predictive power of margin-trading activities on subsequent stock returns varies with respect to the different aspects of margin trading. In line with previous studies, we find no significant correlation between margin-buying amount and subsequent stock returns. However, the margin-covering amount is negatively associated with subsequent stock returns; and margin debt is positively associated with the future stock returns. In general, our findings suggest that margin traders may have no positive information when they conduct a margin-buying position, but may possess negative information when covering their positions.


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