Stock Price Efficiency Research Articles

Do Short-Sale Constraints Inhibit Information Acquisition? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments

This study examines how short-sale constraints affect investors’ information acquisition and thereby shape stock price efficiency. We exploit two quasi-natural experiments that relax short-sale constraints in the US and China, respectively. We find that the removal of short-sale constraints increases investors’ information acquisition in both markets, but the effect is more prompt in China, where short selling was permitted for the first time. Investors acquire value-relevant information, primarily good news in the US and bad news in China, and improve trading profits. Lastly, information acquisition induced by the removal of short-sale constraints improves price efficiency in both markets. Our study provides direct empirical evidence that short-sale constraints affect stock prices by influencing the production of information.

Does Algorithmic Trading Affect Corporate Innovation: Evidence From the Tick Size Pilot

Does the stock price efficiency, i.e. the speed and the extent with which prices reflect public information, affect corporate innovation? Using the intensity of algorithmic trading (AT) to capture price efficiency and the Tick Size Pilot experiment setting, we establish a causal positive relation between AT and innovation measured by patents. The relation is stronger for firms where managerial compensation is more closely linked to the share price performance and for more opaque firms where managerial effort is more difficult to observe from financial information. Our results generalize to other measures of innovation such as R&D spending and the number of citations.

US Cross-Listing and Domestic High-Frequency Trading: Evidence from Canadian Stocks

We find that US cross-listing of Canadian stocks enhances domestic high-frequency trading (HFT) activity in the form of both opportunistic trading and market-making. First, US cross-listing boosts HFT low-latency cross-border arbitrage. This highly correlated HFT arbitrage activity across markets enhances stock price efficiency by correcting mispricing. Second, US cross-listing leads to an increase in news trading activity by high-frequency traders around US public macro-news releases. Finally, cross-listing increases a stock’s reliance on high-frequency market makers to provide liquidity. Yet, we find no evidence of higher fragility in liquidity supply after cross-listing.

Does corporate online interaction activeness affect investors’ perceptions of earnings information? Evidence from China

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effect of corporate online interaction activeness on investors’ perceptions of earnings information. Using a large sample of Chinese listed firms for the period 2010–2019, we find that investors’ perceptions of earnings information, measured by earnings response coefficients (ERCs), increase with the level of corporate online interaction activeness, and the effect is more pronounced in firms with a larger retail investor base and higher stock illiquidity. Our results suggest that social media interaction helps to improve stock price efficiency.

Stock Market Efficiency in the Time of COVID-19: Evidence from Industry Stock Returns

Using industry portfolios as test assets and a battery of statistical tests, we study if the informational efficiency of stock prices has declined after the COVID-19 crisis began. The results suggest that the predictability of stock returns in some industries has increased during the COVID-19 period. Markets appear to have become less informationally efficient during the COVID-19 crisis.
 JEL Classification Code: C58, G01, G10, G14.

Discussion of “ETFs and information transfer across firms”

Bhojraj, Mohanram, and Zhang (2020) examine how the presence of different types of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) affects information transfer across firms. Using earnings announcements as an information event, the authors document that sector ETFs improve informational efficiency by better facilitating information transfer across firms. Furthermore, sector ETFs reduce post-earnings announcement drift. However, the findings using broad ETFs are mixed. In this discussion, I first place the paper within the broader literature that investigates the informational efficiency of stock prices. Second, I highlight the key insights and contributions of the paper. Third, I discuss empirical design issues and the interpretation of findings. Lastly, I suggest areas for future research.

Does low latency trading improve market efficiency? A discussion

Chordia and Miao (2020) provide evidence that low-latency trading (LLT) improves the long-term informational efficiency of stock prices. This discussion raises two primary concerns with their analysis. First, the mechanism through which LLT enhances long-term efficiency is unclear. Second, CM's measure of LLT trading activity is correlated with non-LLT trading activity, which may in turn cause the documented improvements in efficiency. We close by proposing an alternative explanation—changes in market microstructure have had a bifurcated impact on liquidity, enhancing efficiency for large and liquid stocks, but not for small and illiquid stocks.

Does Low Latency Trading Improve Market Efficiency? A Discussion

Chordia and Miao (2020) provide evidence that low-latency trading (LLT) improves the long-term informational efficiency of stock prices. This discussion raises two primary concerns with their analysis. First, the mechanism through which LLT enhances long-term efficiency is unclear. Second, CM's measure of LLT trading activity is correlated with non-LLT trading activity, which may in turn cause the documented improvements in efficiency. We close by proposing an alternative explanation—changes in market microstructure have had a bifurcated impact on liquidity, enhancing efficiency for large and liquid stocks, but not for small and illiquid stocks.

Stock market liberalization, foreign institutional investors, and informational efficiency of stock prices: Evidence from an emerging market

AbstractThis study investigates the effects of investments by qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) on the informational efficiency of stock prices in Chinese A‐share stock markets. Employing a large sample of listed firms from 2004 to 2012, we document a significant and positive relationship between stock price informativeness and stock ownership by foreign institutional investors. We also use the instrument‐variable approach, propensity‐score matching method, as well as an alternative measure of informational efficiency to ensure the robustness of our findings. We document that the effects of foreign ownership on informational efficiency is stronger for firms with lower levels of assets intangibility and in regions with less developed institutions. In addition, we document that the effects of foreign ownership on informational efficiency is more pronounced when QFIIs have better local information and more incentives to monitor.

Free trade and the efficiency of financial markets

Prior research has found that countries with freer trade have a lower chance of extreme stock price movements. We develop and test the hypothesis that free trade can also improve the overall informational efficiency of financial markets. Using a broad sample of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), we show that free trade has a positive association with the efficiency of stock prices. To alleviate endogeneity concerns and strengthen causal inferences we utilize two exogenous events that improved the levels of free trade in various home countries. A difference-in-difference analysis suggests that, relative to control stocks, the price efficiency of treated stocks increased after the liberalization of trade.

The Impact of Margin-Trading and Short-Selling on Stock Price Efficiency—Evidence from the Fifth-Round Ban Lift in the Chinese Stock Market

This article investigates how margin-trading and short-selling affect stock price efficiency in the Chinese stock market. Using a sample of 205 stocks that are allowed to do margin-trading/short-selling in China after the fifth-round ban lift in 2014, we conducted fixed-effect panel regressions with three proxies for stock price efficiency. The findings support that price efficiency for these stocks is much higher than those that are not. The stocks that are newly added to the list of margin-trading and short-selling also see their price efficiency improve after the event compared to before the event. During a bull market, short selling improves stock price efficiency possibly through increasing liquidity, less information asymmetry, and broader investor base. On the other hand, during a bear market, margin-trading improves efficiency possibly through only liquidity and ownership breadth channels.

GOVERNANCE THROUGH STOCK TRADING IN BRAZIL: EVIDENCE WITH INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS

ABSTRACT Purpose: This paper analyses the viability of stock trading as a mechanism to promote corporate governance, addressing its effects on abnormal returns, information, and firm performance. Originality/value: The study indicates that competition among institutional investors is important to raise stock price efficiency. Policies that allow capital inflow, increase in liquidity, and a link between managers’ salaries and stock performance are beneficial to reinforce the stock market efficiency. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses testing using panel data regressions of 233 stocks between December 2009 to December 2017 from Thomson Eikon, Economatica and ComDinheiro. Findings: The results indicate that the number of institutional investors is not related to abnormal returns. On the other hand, the number of institutional investors increases the amount of firm-specific information into stock prices, rising stock market price efficiency. This relationship is stronger among the preferred stocks (PN), but this mechanism is still not valid to increase firms’ operational performance. Despite the possible increase in stock price efficiency, the investors cannot adopt such a mechanism to exercise governance if there is no remuneration linked to performance.

Insider Trading, Informativeness, and Price Efficiency Around the World

AbstractThis paper provides the first direct evidence of the impact of enforcing insider regulations on the informativeness of insider trades and stock price efficiency across 44 countries with varying levels of insider trading regulations. Results suggest that insider purchases earn abnormal profits, especially in countries with active enforcement of insider trading regulations. We further show that while insiders trade less before earnings announcements in countries with active enforcement, their stock prices react more to earnings news than those in countries without active enforcement. Overall, our results support the view that effective insider trading regulation promotes price efficiency.

The real effects of stock prices: learning, disclosure and corporate social responsibility

AbstractThis paper develops a tractable model to study the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on real decisions (i.e., production and disclosure decisions) of a firm which can learn from the stock price. Firms with high CSR disclose more precise information, improving the stock liquidity and price efficiency, which also benefit liquidity traders and consumers. Interventions by regulators in firms’ disclosure decisions, such as mandatory disclosure, can improve social welfare, but their effectiveness depends on the degree of CSR. We also discuss the implications of learning from the price.

Heterogeneous Interpretations of Public Disclosure, Price Efficiency, and Keynesian Beauty Contest

This paper examines how public information about the fundamental value of a firm affects the firm’s stock price behavior and efficiency in the presence of Keynesian beauty contests when such information is heterogeneously interpreted by investors. In an overlapping generations rational expectations model of capital markets, we show that, if transparency and clarity of a public disclosure are of comparable magnitude, clarity is of first-order importance in improving price efficiency. Moreover, marginally improving transparency can be detrimental to price efficiency if the initial level of transparency is already sufficiently high.

Forecasting price delay and future stock returns: The role of corporate social responsibility

AbstractThis paper investigates the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in forecasting companys' stock prices and future returns. The forecasting analysis identifies a negative association between CSR performance and proxies of price delay. The negative CSR–delay association is weak for state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) because of their politically oriented motivation of CSR activities, but significantly strong for non‐SOEs. Furthermore, we find that forecasting delayed firms is expected to have higher future returns. In particular, the returns premium is most attributable to the CSR component of delay, compared with the non‐CSR component. Taken together, these results suggest that CSR performance plays a positive role in enhancing stock price efficiency, and a potential explanation is that CSR performance can be considered as additional information for equity predictions.

Do Mutual Funds Trade on Earnings News? The Information Content of Large Active Trades

Using monthly holdings data, we show that in contrast to findings in existing literature, mutual fund trades in aggregate do not have predictive power for future earnings information. We identify active trades by mutual funds, i.e., trades not passively driven by fund flows, and show that only large active trades by mutual funds contain information on future earnings. Moreover, we show evidence that large active trades by mutual funds help incorporate future earnings information into stock prices and significantly improve stock price efficiency. Finally, we show that large active trades by mutual funds prior to earnings announcements deliver superior abnormal returns. Mutual fund managers that actively trade on future earnings news are skilled; the top quintile skilled funds on average outperform those in the bottom quintile by 127 bps in four-factor alpha over subsequent four quarters.

Aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity: evidence from China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity.Design/methodology/approachEmploying the special institutional background of China, this study constructs tax aggressiveness and stock price synchronicity measures for a large sample of Chinese stocks spanning the period 2003–2015. The authors employ OLS regression as the baseline methodology, and a fixed effect model, the Fama–Macbeth method and GMM as sensitivity checks. Matched samples and difference-in-difference analyses are used to control for endogeneity.FindingsThe authors find a significant and positive association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity. Because material information about risky tax transactions tends to be hidden in various tax accruals accounts, aggressive tax strategies make financial statements less transparent, thereby, increasing information asymmetry and decreasing stock price informativeness. The authors also find that the firms engaging in aggressive tax planning exhibit relatively high corporate opacity. In addition, the authors find that improvements in the tax enforcement regime, ownership status and high-quality auditors all constrain the adverse effects of tax aggressiveness.Practical implicationsThis study has important practical implications for China’s regulators, who are striving to reduce the tax burden of enterprises. It also helps investors to consider investment decisions more appropriately from a taxation perspective.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the stock price efficiency literature by identifying the effect of a hitherto unexamined factor, namely, firm-level aggressive tax planning, on the efficiency of stock prices. Second, this study provides further empirical evidence to support the agency view of tax aggressiveness, and the informational interpretation of stock price synchronicity. Third, this study helps us better understand the effects of firm-level tax policy on firm-specific information capitalization in an environment where overall country-level investor protection is relatively weak.

10K Complexity and the Market Efficiency and Information Asymmetry Implications of Analysts’ Annual Earnings Forecasts

This paper examines whether 10K complexity has unintended consequences in terms of impairing price discovery in capital markets. More specifically, we examine the impact -- on market efficiency and information asymmetry -- of sell-side financial analysts’ first revised forecasts following publication of high- versus low-complexity 10Ks. We hypothesize that: (1) analyst underreaction to 10K-related information increases with complexity, (2) the impact of analyst underreaction on stock price efficiency increases with 10K complexity, and (3) the generally mitigating effect of analysts’ forecasts on information asymmetry documented in prior literature dissipates with 10K complexity. Our results are consistent with these hypotheses. Together, our results suggest that analyst forecasting behavior in response to complex 10K-related information constrains price discovery by creating market frictions due to market inefficiency and information asymmetry.

Total attention: The effect of macroeconomic news on market reaction to earnings news

Abstract We show evidence that consistent with category-learning behavior, investors allocate more attention to macroeconomic news than to firm-specific news, such as earnings announcements. Despite the distracting effect of macroeconomic news on investor attention, we find that earnings announcements with concurrent macroeconomic news announcements actually have significantly stronger immediate market response and weaker post-earnings announcement drift. We hypothesize that the combined total attention to macroeconomic news and earnings announcements helps investors understand both the systematic and firm-specific components of earnings surprises. Consistent with the hypothesis, our results show that the macroeconomic news effect is mainly driven by firms with high exposure to macroeconomic news. Moreover, we show that the effect is stronger when macroeconomic news contains more information and for firms with greater information uncertainty. Finally, we provide evidence that macroeconomic news helps reduce stock return uncertainty and enhance stock price efficiency.