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.

scholarly journals Macroeconomic Factors and Stock Price Crash Risk: Do Managers Withhold Bad News in the Crisis-Ridden Iran Market?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3688
Author(s):  
Mahdi Moradi ◽  
Andrea Appolloni ◽  
Grzegorz Zimon ◽  
Hossein Tarighi ◽  
Maede Kamali
Keyword(s):  
Stock Prices ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Stock Exchange ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Purchasing Power ◽  
Macroeconomic Factors ◽  
The People ◽  
The One

The present study aims to investigate the effects of macroeconomic variables on stock price crash risk in the economically uncertain conditions of Iran’s market. This study also seeks to examine whether there is a significant relationship between some firm characteristics and falling stock prices. The sample of the study includes 152 Iranian companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) between 2014 and 2019. Furthermore, the research model has been estimated using a fixed effect pattern, and the DUVOL (down-to-up volatility) measure is defined as a proxy for stock price crash risk. Consistent with our expectations, the results show that there is a positive association between the inflation and unemployment rates and stock price crash risk, whereas the GDP and exchange rates are correlated negatively with crash risk. In fact, with rising inflation and unemployment, on the one hand, the amount of savings and the purchasing power of the people have decreased, and on the other hand, it has reduced the sales of companies due to the increase in the pricing of manufactured products. In Iran’s economically uncertain situation due to sanctions, managers are trying to overstate financial performance and conceal bad news to have better access to financing; so, when the total amount of bad news accumulated over time reaches a tipping point, it leads to a stock crash. It also appears that when the exchange rate rises, Iranian investors prefer to buy companies’ shares to maintain the purchasing power of their money. Outcomes also confirm that larger firms and those with higher Return on Assets (ROA) are more sensitive to crash risk.

Do Managers Disclose or Withhold Bad News? Evidence from Short Interest

2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dichu Bao ◽  
Yongtae Kim ◽  
G. Mujtaba Mian ◽  
Lixin (Nancy) Su
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Voluntary Disclosure ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Bad News ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Litigation Risk ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Conflicting Evidence ◽  
Short Interest

ABSTRACT Prior studies provide conflicting evidence as to whether managers have a general tendency to disclose or withhold bad news. A key challenge for this literature is that researchers cannot observe the negative private information that managers possess. We tackle this challenge by constructing a proxy for managers' private bad news (residual short interest) and then perform a series of tests to validate this proxy. Using management earnings guidance and 8-K filings as measures of voluntary disclosure, we find a negative relation between bad-news disclosure and residual short interest, suggesting that managers withhold bad news in general. This tendency is tempered when firms are exposed to higher litigation risk, and it is strengthened when managers have greater incentives to support the stock price. Based on a novel approach to identifying the presence of bad news, our study adds to the debate on whether managers tend to withhold or release bad news. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.

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.

Related-Party Transactions and Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from China

2021 ◽  
pp. 2150020
Author(s):  
Ahsan Habib ◽  
Haiyan Jiang ◽  
Donghua Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Financial Reporting Quality ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Future Price ◽  
Accounting Data ◽  
Related Party Transactions ◽  
Representational Faithfulness

This paper investigates the association between related-party transactions (RPTs) and stock price crash risk in China. Our investigation is motivated by the controversy in the RPT literature over whether RPTs are value enhancing or opportunistic. Through the lens of stock price crash risk, we reveal that RPTs may violate the arm’s-length assumption of regular market-based transactions, impairing the representational faithfulness and verifiability of accounting data and, consequently, increasing the risk of future price crash. Importantly, we find that this detrimental economic consequence of RPTs is driven by abnormal RPTs that are opportunistic in nature. Our analyses also extend to operating RPTs, related-party loans, and two types of opportunistic RPTs: tunneling and propping. The positive association between RPTs and stock price crash risk is not mediated by financial reporting quality, suggesting that the risk factors associated with RPTs are operational. Our main results remain robust to a series of tests done to address the potential endogeneity between RPTs and stock price crash risk.

scholarly journals Management equity incentives and stock price crash risk: “Golden handcuffs” or “gold watch”

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0249900
Author(s):  
Xiaohua Zhou ◽  
Jinshi Wan ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Xiangyu Gan
Keyword(s):  
Peer Effects ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Mediation Effect ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Mediating Effects ◽  
Equity Incentives ◽  
Region 10 ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
A Share

This paper expands the previous research on management equity incentives (MEIs) and stock price crash risk by distinguishing between the "gold watch" region and the "golden handcuff" regions in MEIs. By using an estimation of the gold watch region and the golden handcuff regions based on 6,675 annual observations of China’s A-share listed companies, the stock price crash risk is found to be negatively correlated with MEIs in the golden handcuff regions (0–10%, 30%-100%) and is positively correlated with MEIs in the gold watch region (10%-30%). A further investigation of the mediating effects of peer effects on MEIs and the stock price crash risk reveals that peer effects have a partial mediation effect at the level of peer managers’ shareholding and mediate the relationship between MEIs and the stock price crash risk.

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 The Information Role of Earnings Conference Call Tone: Evidence from Stock Price Crash Risk

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Fu ◽  
Xiaoxi Wu ◽  
Zhifang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Stock Price ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Conference Calls ◽  
Conference Call ◽  
Public Firms ◽  
Equity Incentives ◽  
Disclosure Tone

Abstract This paper investigates whether and how the disclosure tone of earnings conference calls predicts future stock price crash risk. Using US public firms’ conference call transcripts from 2010 to 2015, we find that firms with less optimistic tone of year-end conference calls experience higher stock price crash risk in the following year. Additional analyses reveal that the predictive power of tone is more pronounced among firms with better information environment and lower managerial equity incentives, suggesting that extrinsic motivations for truthful disclosure partially explain the predictive power of conference call tone. Our results shed light on the long-term information role of conference call tone by exploring the setting of extreme future downside risk, when managers have conflicting incentives either to unethically manipulate disclosure tone to hide bad news or to engage in ethical and truthful communication.

Foreign Investors, External Monitoring, and Stock Price Crash Risk

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-853
Author(s):  
Jeong-Bon Kim ◽  
Xiaoxi Li ◽  
Yan Luo ◽  
Kemin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Reporting Quality ◽  
Crash Risk ◽  
Accrual Quality ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
External Monitoring ◽  
Risk Reducing ◽  
Local Firms

We investigate whether foreign investors help to reduce local firms’ future stock price crash risk through their external monitoring. We find that the entrance of foreign investors is associated with a significant reduction in local firms’ future crash risk. Further investigation reveals that foreign investors help to improve local firms’ financial reporting quality from the perspectives of accrual quality, conservatism, and annual report tone management. The evidence is consistent with our conjecture that foreign investors play an important external monitoring role, which reduces managerial bad-news hoarding and thereby lowers local firms’ future crash risk. We also find that the crash risk–reducing role of foreign investors is more pronounced when foreign investors are more familiar with the institutional background of the host country, when they have stronger incentives to monitor local firms, and when local firms have higher governance efficacy. A variety of robustness checks reveals that our results are unlikely to be driven by potential endogeneity.

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.

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.

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