Stockholders Research Articles

Do Robinhood investors care about ESG?

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate whether Robinhood investors consider environmental, social and governance issues in their investment decisions. Based on stock holdings from May 2018 to August 2020, we find that Robinhood investors hold stocks with high ESG risk and low ESG performance relative to the benchmark. The findings reveal a clear difference in ESG preference between Robinhood investors and other retail investors. Moreover, we find that Robinhood investors tend to increase stock holdings around negative ESG incidents. Nevertheless, we show that the increase in stock holdings is mainly driven by the high intensity of social media coverage in the stocks. The findings suggest that Robinhood investors, while not pro-ESG, are not necessarily anti-ESG as they herd on speculative and high-attention stocks.

Technology rhetoric and institutional ownership

Abstract This article compares actual R&D spend with the managerial rhetoric around technology and innovation contained within corporate disclosures of US-listed firms. We find that, whilst actual R&D spend and patents do not entice institutional investors to increase their stock holdings, firms that espouse technology and innovation in their corporate disclosures are quite successful in drawing in short-term investors. We frame this investor behaviour within the economics of expectation literature. While managers are incentivised to draw in capital, short-horizon investors are less likely to exert due diligence and are rather persuaded by a technology narrative—that is, a ‘gold rush’ effect. This explains our finding that when there is a sudden downturn with stock price crashes, short-term investors rush to withdraw their money from firms that ‘talk tech’. Our findings have implications for managerial rewards systems, especially when these encourage managerial hype.

China’s public long-term care insurance and risky asset allocation among elderly households

China’s elderly households are characterized by higher holdings of cash and cash equivalents and lower holdings of stocks and bonds in their financial portfolios. We utilize the public Long-term Care Insurance (LTCI) reform and data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine how LTCI coverage affects risky asset holdings among newly insured elderly households. Employing a difference-in-differences methodology, our findings reveal that LTCI significantly increases the share of risky assets in the financial portfolios of older families. The increased preference for risky assets may be a result of a weakening incentive for precautionary savings. Decomposing risky assets into bonds and stocks, we find that the increase in the share of risky assets following the LTCI pilot comes mainly from bond investments rather than stocks, which indicates that LTCI has a limited effect on risk asset holdings among the Chinese elderly. Our study contributes to understanding the economic impacts of China’s public LTCI by showing that LTCI may lead to changes in asset allocation strategies among elderly households.

Cognitive Ability and Stock Investment among Chinese Middle-aged and Older Population

This study uses the Wave 2 (2013), Wave 3 (2015) and Wave 4 (2018) released by Harmonized China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine the effect of cognitive ability on stock investment in the middle-aged and older populations in China. This study investigates the relationship between subjective and objective aspects of cognitive ability on stock ownership and shares of stock holdings in financial investment over time. We further compare this relationship between subsamples (older adults vs. middle-aged adults). The findings in this study will provide implications for policymakers, financial professionals as well as investors.

Impact of corporate governance on tax avoidance

In light of the pivotal role that taxes play as a primary source of income, particularly within developing economies, this study aims to examine the influence of various corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on tax avoidance. We employ three proxies to measure tax avoidance or tax management within companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The CG mechanisms under scrutiny encompass board size and independence, CEO duality, auditor type, common stock ratio of at least 5% to total stock, managers' common stock holdings about total stock, gender diversity, manager ownership value, board meeting frequency, CEO stock ownership percentage, institutional shareholders' stock holdings, audit committee membership, and financial specialization. This research investigates 192 companies listed on the TSE, utilizing data available on the TSE website from 2011 to 2021. Our findings indicate that while several CG mechanisms, such as board size and independence, audit firm size, gender diversity, institutional ownership, and the specialization of audit committee members, serve to reduce tax avoidance, CEO duality exacerbates it. Moreover, profitability, financial leverage, and capital significantly inhibit tax avoidance. In contrast, the return on assets (ROA), economic growth, and inflation have a pronounced positive association with tax avoidance. A notable constraint of this study lies in its exclusive focus on publicly listed firms, driven by the availability of relevant information. This study offers valuable insights into the three dimensions of tax avoidance and their interaction with CG mechanisms, with implications for performance monitoring.

The first is free: do employee stocks incentivize stock market participation?

Relatively few people participate in the stock market. We investigate whether getting employee stocks as part of one’s compensation makes people more likely to actively invest in stocks. We find the probability of actively participating in the stock market increases by 15% for those who have been given employee stocks. This lends strong support to cognitive costs in stock market entry. We further find that people predominantly increase direct stock holdings as opposed to indirect holdings via mutual funds. Despite the significant spillover effects from holding employee stocks and an overall larger fraction of individual wealth being invested into stocks, it does not result in well diversified investing.

Performance measure skewness and the structure of CEO compensation: Theory and evidence

AbstractWhile research has analyzed how the structure of incentive pay relates to the dispersion of the performance measure distribution, as measured by its variance or volatility, we examine how it relates to the asymmetry of the distribution, as measured by its skewness. In contrast to the variance, skewness affects the relative informativeness of high and low performance about the agent's effort, which determines the relative efficiency of providing rewards and punishments for incentive purposes. Therefore, skewness is an important determinant of compensation convexity, which is determined by the relative holdings of stock and options. Consistent with our analytical and numerical results, we find that the skewness of expected earnings is negatively associated with the convexity of CEO compensation. Our results are economically significant, robust to alternative specifications, and do not appear to be driven by reverse causality. In addition, we find that earnings skewness is negatively associated with total CEO compensation and that this association is driven by lower options‐based compensation. These findings are consistent with CEOs preferring positively skewed performance metrics. Overall, we provide theoretical, numerical, and empirical evidence suggesting that skewness is a more important determinant of the convexity and structure of CEO compensation than volatility.

Momentum trading: How it differs among investor segments

ABSTRACT This study explores the momentum trading behaviours across different investor segments in the Turkish stock market. The empirical analysis confirms the positive return of the momentum strategy both in absolute terms and relative to the market benchmark, and the results support distinctive trading patterns among different investor segments. Specifically, foreign investors follow momentum trading, while domestic individuals lean towards contrarian trading. Further analysis shows that domestic individual investors exhibit a propensity to sell stocks with unrealised capital gains and to increase holdings of stocks with unrealised capital loss consistent with the disposition effect. Nevertheless, the trading behaviour of domestic individual investors could not be explained solely by the disposition effect. In contrast, foreign investors increase ownership share in stocks with unrealised capital gains but their momentum trading behaviour is confirmed even after controlling for disposition effect. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of investor trading behaviour within an emerging market context and provide valuable insights into the applicability of results from developed markets.

Climate change and commercial property markets

AbstractThe economic effect of climate hazard events varies by time and by location. This paper investigates how climate shocks to local property markets transmit to capital markets and provides evidence of the extent to which forward‐looking climate risk is capitalized into the public valuations of those property markets. We first quantify the exposure of real estate portfolios to locations that recently experienced climate events (Event Exposure). Using an event study framework, we find that, in the post‐event period, a one‐standard‐deviation increase in ex‐ante Event Exposure is associated with a 0.2–1.4 percentage points decrease in quarterly stock returns. Cross‐sectional analyses reveal that differences in return effects can be explained by variation in the extent to which the area focuses on climate change. Similarly, we find that forward‐looking climate risk assessment negatively affects firm valuations only in markets with a focus on climate change. Consistent with these findings, we provide evidence that climate events (shocks) induce retail investors (noise traders) to decrease their stock holdings and that blockholders tend to take the opposite side in these transactions. We also show that conditioning on consumer sentiment helps to explain cross‐sectional variation in the response of stock returns to climate events.

Institutional investor network and idiosyncratic volatility of stocks

AbstractThis paper constructs an institutional investor network based on the heavy holdings of the same stock in China and conducts a social network analysis to investigate the influence of this network on stock price volatility from the perspectives of network structure (density) and location (centrality). The study demonstrates that institutional investor network density is negatively related to stock price volatility, while network centrality is positively related to it. Mechanism analyses further reveal that network density reduces stock price volatility by mitigating private information arbitrage behavior among institutional investors, whereas network centrality increases stock price volatility by creating private information arbitrage opportunities within the network. Additionally, the paper finds that information asymmetry enhances the positive effect of network centrality on stock price volatility. These findings are generally consistent across subsample analyses for different market states, reactions to good and bad news, and types of equity ownership, as well as in other robustness tests. The practical implications of these findings are significant for market stability regulation.

Portfolio risk and return between energy and non-energy stocks

This paper aims to examine the potential for portfolio returns by adding together conventional and energy stocks with varying proportions. We examine the risk and return characteristics of a portfolio comprising energy and non-energy stocks from twenty countries. The period for daily data ranges from 2nd July 1999 to 2nd July 2021. We use multiscale Sharpe and VaR ratios to examine the risk and returns behaviour of a portfolio with varying composition between energy and non-energy stocks across different investment periods. Our results highlight optimal returns for the equally weighted portfolio during normal and crisis periods except COVID-19 during which more proportion of conventional stocks is preferred. Risk estimates advocate an equally weighted portfolio for all periods however risk varies with the holding period. These results carry useful investment implications during short- and long-run holdings of conventional and energy stocks in a portfolio.

Gradual information diffusion across commonly owned firms

This paper studies how common institutional ownership (CIO) affects information diffusion in the stock market. My findings suggest that CIO can exacerbate the slow spread of information across firms. With over 50% of institutional investors holding concentrated stock portfolios, I infer a fundamental connection among firms with CIO. These firms exhibit cross-predictability in monthly stock returns, leading to a CIO-based peer momentum strategy that outperforms Ali and Hirshleifer's (2020) shared-analyst momentum strategy. This anomaly stems primarily from institutional investors with fewer stock holdings, who employ passive asset management characterized by lower portfolio turnover and more delegated investment.

Countercyclical Income Risk and Portfolio Choices: Evidence from Sweden

ABSTRACTUsing Swedish administrative panel data, we document that workers facing higher left‐tail income risk when equity markets perform poorly have lower portfolio equity share. In line with theory, the relationship between cyclical skewness and stock holdings increases with the share of human capital in a worker's total wealth and vanishes as workers get closer to retirement. Cyclical skewness also predicts portfolio differences within pairs of identical twins. Our findings show that households hedge against correlated tail risks, an important mechanism in asset pricing and portfolio choice models.

Sustainability or performance? Ratings and fund managers’ incentives

We explore how mutual fund managers and investors react when the tradeoff between a fund's sustainability and performance becomes salient. Following the introduction of Morningstar's sustainability ratings (the “globe” ratings), mutual funds increased their holdings of sustainable stocks to attract flows. Such sustainability-driven trades, however, underperformed, impairing the funds’ overall performance. Consequently, a tradeoff between sustainability and performance emerged. In the new equilibrium, the globe ratings do not affect investor flows and funds no longer trade to improve their globe ratings.

The Impact of Australian Bushfires on Asthma Medicine Prescription Dispensing.

Air pollution can cause numerous health problems and increase the need for medicines to treat and prevent asthma in affected areas. There is limited evidence about the association between airborne particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or smaller (PM2.5) and asthma medicine usage. This study examined the potential association between the levels of PM2.5 and the supply of prescription asthma medicines in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Australia, during the severe bushfire season between November 2019-January 2020. Daily data was obtained from an ACT air quality monitoring station from November 2019 to January 2020 (study period) and November 2018 to January 2019 (control period, no bushfire). The number and types of government-funded asthma medicine prescriptions were obtained from the Services Australia (government) website by searching under 'Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Item Reports' and using relevant item codes during the study and control periods. The medians for PM2.5 levels for the study period were significantly higher than those for the control period (p < 0.001). There were increases in the number of dispensed prescriptions of short-acting beta-2 agonists (SABA), inhaled corticosteroids, and long-acting beta-2 agonists combined with inhaled corticosteroids. The greatest difference was seen with the inhaled corticosteroids: a 138% increase. The increase in the number of dispensed asthma prescriptions during the bushfire season should be used to inform the stock holdings of these medicines in preparation for future events to ensure access to lifesaving asthma medicines.

Trading behavior by foreign and domestic investors

Purpose- Momentum, a well-known anomaly in financial markets, has garnered considerable attention from both academicians and market participants due to its implications for the market efficiency hypothesis and investment plans of investors. While momentum trading can yield excess returns, it is not a possible strategy for all investors because if one segment of investors employs a momentum trading strategy to profit from their trades, it requires another type of investor to take the opposite position to clear the market. Methodology- I investigate the momentum trading behavior of investors in different segments of Borsa İstanbul. Specifically, I focus on the momentum trading behavior among local and foreign investors and private and institutional investors. Findings- The results show that foreign investors’ stock holdings are positively associated with past returns inferring momentum trading while domestic investors are contrarians. Further analysis of domestic investors’ investing strategies reveals that the contrarian trading of domestic investors is mainly driven by individual investors. Conclusion- The results show that foreign investors’ stock holdings are positively associated with past returns inferring momentum trading while domestic investors are contrarians. Also, the contrarian trading of domestic investors is mainly driven by indvidual investors. Keywords: Momentum trading, investor behavior, foreign investor, domestic investor, panel data JEL Codes: G40, G11, G14

The impact of imperfect financial markets and stock holdings on corporate innovation: Evidence from China

According to previous research on developed countries, companies engaged in more corporate innovation are likely to have larger stock holdings. Companies are more likely to reserve stock holdings in a transitioning economy like China due to the prevalence of financial market flaws. This research suggests stock ownership and banking ties to the government as two alternative credit financing channels that Listed Chinese companies may employ to mitigate the effects of market imperfections by attracting foreign investment. Financial limitations can be efficiently mitigated through external finance facilitation channels (EFFCs) by lowering debtors and businesses have different levels of knowledge. However, the EFFC effect is diminishing due to the improved market environment brought about by China's ongoing financial reform. This research, therefore, considers potential avenues for reducing the EFFC effect, with practical policy implications for reforming China's financial markets to lower corporate innovation costs.

Influence of Bid-Ask Spread, Market Value, Variance Return, and Stock Trading Volume on the Stock Holding Period on the SRI-KEHATI Index listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2018-2022

The increasing awareness of society to play a role in preserving the environment has encouraged more and more investors to choose environmentally friendly stocks. One of the environmentally friendly stock indexes in Indonesia is the SRI-KEHATI Index. This research aims to determine the factors that influence the holding period of SRI-KEHATI Index stocks. Thus, this research examines the influence of bid-ask spread, market value, return variance, and stock trading volume on the stock holding period. The research focuses on the SRI-KEHATI Index listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2018-2022. The research uses quantitative methods with descriptive and associative approaches. The population in this study was 41 companies. Sampling used a purposive sampling technique with a total sample of 13 companies so 65 observation data were obtained. The data analysis technique uses panel data regression analysis. Partial test results show that the bid-ask spread and return variance do not affect the stock holding period. Market value and stock trading volume positively affect the stock holding period. Simultaneous testing shows that bid-ask-spread, market value, return variance, and stock trading volume impact the stock holding period.

Bid-Ask Spread, Market Value, and Return Risk on Stock Holding Period in the Banking Sector Listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) from 2018 to 2022

This research is of high relevance as it provides new insights in the context of shareholding duration in the banking sector on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) over the period 2018-2022. Factors such as bid-ask spread, market value, and return risk have been analyzed to understand their influence on the stock holding period. The implications of the research findings can be used by practitioners, regulators, and academics in finance to develop more effective investment policies and risk management strategies. The results showed that simultaneously, bid-ask spread, market value, and return risk affect the holding period of banking stocks on the IDX during the period February 2018-January 2022. Partially, bid-ask spread and market value have a positive but insignificant effect on the holding period. Conversely, return risk has a negative and significant effect on the holding period of banking stocks. These findings contribute to the development of financial theory and industry practice, paving the way for further research. Therefore, this study has important value in the context of investment decision-making, risk management, and understanding investor behavior in the banking sector.

Familiarity bias in direct stock investment by individual investors

PurposeThis study examines the relationship between investors' familiarity bias, including the home bias and endowment bias, and their financial situations, expectations and personal characteristics.Design/methodology/approachUsing the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances, the authors utilize an ordinary least squares regression to identify the presence of endowment bias and home bias in individual investors' direct stock holdings and use a Heckman selection model to examine determinants of the extent of endowment bias and home bias.FindingsThis study finds that investors with higher income and more education, men, non-white investors and people with greater risk tolerance are actually at a greater risk of endowment bias. This study also identifies a profile of investors that are more likely to have a home bias: with less financial sophistication, lower net worth, older, female, more risk-averse, with a positive expectation about the domestic economy and a relatively shorter investment horizon.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first to use US investors' directly reported stock holdings to examine the individual characteristics that are correlated with greater familiarity bias, providing financial professionals with information about how to allocate their limited time in providing education to a variety of clients.