IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfin/v89y2023ics1042443123001294.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Aggregate insider trading and stock market volatility in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Caporale, Guglielmo Maria
  • Kyriacou, Kyriacos
  • Spagnolo, Nicola

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between aggregate insider trading (AIT) and stock market volatility using monthly data on insider transactions by UK executives in public limited companies for the period January 2002 - December 2020. More specifically, a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model is estimated, and impulse response analysis is carried out. The main finding is that higher AIT (more specifically, insider purchases) leads to a short-run increase in stock market volatility; this can be attributed to a combination of insiders manipulating the timing and content of the information they release and the revelation of new economy-wide information to the market. The UK being a well-regulated market, it is plausible that the main driver of the increase in stock market volatility should be the information effect. These results are shown to be robust to using alternative (direct) measures of AIT.

Suggested Citation

  • Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Kyriacou, Kyriacos & Spagnolo, Nicola, 2023. "Aggregate insider trading and stock market volatility in the UK," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:89:y:2023:i:c:s1042443123001294
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2023.101861
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443123001294
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intfin.2023.101861?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    2. Utpal Bhattacharya & Hazem Daouk, 2002. "The World Price of Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 75-108, February.
    3. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Dirk Jenter, 2017. "Executive Compensation: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 23596, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jana P. Fidrmuc & Marc Goergen & Luc Renneboog, 2006. "Insider Trading, News Releases, and Ownership Concentration," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2931-2973, December.
    5. Francois Brochet, 2019. "Aggregate insider trading and market returns: The role of transparency," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3-4), pages 336-369, March.
    6. Roland Benabou & Guy Laroque, 1992. "Using Privileged Information to Manipulate Markets: Insiders, Gurus, and Credibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 921-958.
    7. Conyon, Martin J & Murphy, Kevin J, 2000. "The Prince and the Pauper? CEO Pay in the United States and United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 640-671, November.
    8. Ernst Konrad, 2009. "The impact of monetary policy surprises on asset return volatility: the case of Germany," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 23(2), pages 111-135, June.
    9. Audrino, Francesco & Sigrist, Fabio & Ballinari, Daniele, 2020. "The impact of sentiment and attention measures on stock market volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 334-357.
    10. Jones, Charles M & Kaul, Gautam & Lipson, Marc L, 1994. "Transactions, Volume, and Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(4), pages 631-651.
    11. Jiang, Xiaoquan & Zaman, Mir A., 2010. "Aggregate insider trading: Contrarian beliefs or superior information?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1225-1236, June.
    12. Meulbroek, Lisa K, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1661-1699, December.
    13. Hamilton, James D & Gang, Lin, 1996. "Stock Market Volatility and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 573-593, Sept.-Oct.
    14. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2007. "Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 129-152, Spring.
    15. Gormley, Todd A. & Matsa, David A. & Milbourn, Todd, 2013. "CEO compensation and corporate risk: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 79-101.
    16. Li, Wanli & Su, Yueying & Wang, Kaixiu, 2022. "How does economic policy uncertainty affect cross-border M&A: Evidence from Chinese firms," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    17. Julan Du & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Does Insider Trading Raise Market Volatility?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(498), pages 916-942, October.
    18. Tavakoli, Manouchehr & McMillan, David & McKnight, Phillip J., 2012. "Insider trading and stock prices," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 254-266.
    19. Peizhi Zhao & Yuyan Wang, 2022. "How Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect Momentum Returns? Evidence from China," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, July.
    20. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    21. Qing He & Bingqian Cheng & Jing Wen, 2019. "Does aggregate insider trading predict stock returns in China?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 922-942, April.
    22. Beltratti, A. & Morana, C., 2006. "Breaks and persistency: macroeconomic causes of stock market volatility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 151-177.
    23. Wang, Sean, 2019. "Informational environments and the relative information content of analyst recommendations and insider trades," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 61-73.
    24. Lakonishok, Josef & Lee, Inmoo, 2001. "Are Insider Trades Informative?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 79-111.
    25. Mei, Dexiang & Zeng, Qing & Zhang, Yaojie & Hou, Wenjing, 2018. "Does US Economic Policy Uncertainty matter for European stock markets volatility?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 512(C), pages 215-221.
    26. H. Nejat Seyhun, 1992. "Why Does Aggregate Insider Trading Predict Future Stock Returns?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1303-1331.
    27. Seyhun, H Nejat, 1988. "The Information Content of Aggregate Insider Trading," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(1), pages 1-24, January.
    28. Chiang, Chin-Han & Chung, Sung Gon & Louis, Henock, 2017. "Insider trading, stock return volatility, and the option market's pricing of the information content of insider trading," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 65-73.
    29. Gospodinov, Nikolay & Jamali, Ibrahim, 2012. "The effects of Federal funds rate surprises on S&P 500 volatility and volatility risk premium," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 497-510.
    30. Białkowski, Jędrzej & Dang, Huong Dieu & Wei, Xiaopeng, 2022. "High policy uncertainty and low implied market volatility: An academic puzzle?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1185-1208.
    31. Mittnik, Stefan & Robinzonov, Nikolay & Spindler, Martin, 2015. "Stock market volatility: Identifying major drivers and the nature of their impact," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-14.
    32. Lee, Bong Soo & Mauck, Nathan, 2016. "Dividend initiations, increases and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 47-60.
    33. Chowdhury, Mustafa & Howe, John S. & Lin, Ji-Chai, 1993. "The Relation between Aggregate Insider Transactions and Stock Market Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 431-437, September.
    34. Leland, Hayne E, 1992. "Insider Trading: Should It Be Prohibited?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 859-887, August.
    35. Pratap Chandra Pati & Prabina Rajib & Parama Barai, 2017. "A behavioural explanation to the asymmetric volatility phenomenon: Evidence from market volatility index," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(1), pages 66-81, November.
    36. Li, Xiao, 2020. "The impact of economic policy uncertainty on insider trades: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 41-57.
    37. Partha Gangopadhyay & Ken Yook & Yoon Shin, 2014. "Insider trading and firm-specific return volatility," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, July.
    38. Utpal Bhattacharya, 2014. "Insider Trading Controversies: A Literature Review," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 385-403, December.
    39. Gider, Jasmin & Westheide, Christian, 2016. "Relative idiosyncratic volatility and the timing of corporate insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 312-334.
    40. Pati, Pratap Chandra & Rajib, Prabina & Barai, Parama, 2017. "A behavioural explanation to the asymmetric volatility phenomenon: Evidence from market volatility index," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 66-81.
    41. Iqbal, Zahid & Shetty, Shekar, 2002. "An investigation of causality between insider transactions and stock returns," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 41-57.
    42. Aaron Gilbert & Alireza Tourani-Rad & Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski, 2007. "Insiders and the law: The impact of regulatory change on insider trading," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 745-766, September.
    43. Palan, Stefan & Stöckl, Thomas, 2017. "When chasing the offender hurts the victim: The case of insider legislation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 104-129.
    44. Cary Deck & Tae In Jun & Laura Razzolini & Tavoy Reid, 2022. "Information Aggregation with Heterogeneous Traders," Working Papers 22-13, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    45. Liu, Li & Zhang, Tao, 2015. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock market volatility," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 99-105.
    46. Miao Li & Gaoqiang Wu, 2020. "The Impact of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Real Estate Development in China," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 10(4), pages 1-2.
    47. Zivanemoyo Chinzara, 2011. "Macroeconomic Uncertainty And Conditional Stock Market Volatility In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 79(1), pages 27-49, March.
    48. Cumming, Douglas & Johan, Sofia & Li, Dan, 2011. "Exchange trading rules and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 651-671, March.
    49. Brandt, Michael W. & Kang, Qiang, 2004. "On the relationship between the conditional mean and volatility of stock returns: A latent VAR approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 217-257, May.
    50. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Stock Market Manipulations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1915-1954, July.
    51. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fershtman, Chaim, 1994. "Insider Trading and the Managerial Choice among Risky Projects," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-14, March.
    52. Yaming Ma & Ziwei Wang & Feng He, 2022. "How do economic policy uncertainties affect stock market volatility? Evidence from G7 countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2303-2325, April.
    53. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Robert Nash & He (Helen) Wang, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and insider trading," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 817-854, December.
    54. Gil Sadka, 2007. "Understanding Stock Price Volatility: The Role of Earnings," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 199-228, March.
    55. Collin-Dufresne, Pierre & Fos, Vyacheslav & Muravyev, Dmitry, 2021. "Informed Trading in the Stock Market and Option-Price Discovery," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(6), pages 1945-1984, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luke M. Bennett & Wei Hu, 2023. "Filtration enlargement‐based time series forecast in view of insider trading," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 112-140, February.
    2. Li, Xiao, 2020. "The impact of economic policy uncertainty on insider trades: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 41-57.
    3. Lambe, Brendan J., 2016. "An unreliable canary: Insider trading, the cash flow hypothesis and the financial crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 151-158.
    4. Cline, Brandon N. & Williamson, Claudia R. & Xiong, Haoyang, 2021. "Culture and the regulation of insider trading across countries," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Hossain, Md Mosharraf & Heaney, Richard & Yu, Jing, 2020. "The information content of director trading: Evidence from acquisition announcements in Australia," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    6. Katselas, Dean, 2018. "Insider trading in Australia: Contrarianism and future performance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 112-128.
    7. Dennis D. Malliouris & Alphons T. Vermorken & Maximilian A.M. Vermorken, 2022. "Aggregate insider trading and future market returns in the United States, Europe, and Asia," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 802-821, January.
    8. Mazza, Paolo & Ruh, Benjamin, 2022. "The performance of corporate legal insider trading in the Korean market," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Millicent Chang & Xiaolin Qian & Jing Yu & Yvonne See, 2017. "Does director trading change the information environment?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(2), pages 205-229, May.
    10. Madura, Jeff & Marciniak, Marek, 2014. "Bidder country characteristics and informed trading in U.S. targets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 256-284.
    11. Cline, Brandon N. & Posylnaya, Valeriya V., 2019. "Illegal insider trading: Commission and SEC detection," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 247-269.
    12. Neupane, Biwesh & Thapa, Chandra & Marshall, Andrew & Neupane, Suman, 2021. "Mimicking insider trades," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    13. Abu Chowdhury & Sabur Mollah & Mir A. Zaman, 2018. "What Motivates CEO and CFO Trading – Contrarian Beliefs or Superior Information?," Working Papers 2018-10, Swansea University, School of Management.
    14. M. Fevzi Esen & Emrah Bilgic & Ulkem Basdas, 2019. "How to detect illegal corporate insider trading? A data mining approach for detecting suspicious insider transactions," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 60-70, April.
    15. Tavakoli, Manouchehr & McMillan, David & McKnight, Phillip J., 2012. "Insider trading and stock prices," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 254-266.
    16. Cumming, Douglas & Dannhauser, Robert & Johan, Sofia, 2015. "Financial market misconduct and agency conflicts: A synthesis and future directions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 150-168.
    17. Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Robert Nash & He (Helen) Wang, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and insider trading," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 817-854, December.
    18. Kusnadi, Yuanto, 2015. "Insider trading restrictions and corporate risk-taking," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 125-142.
    19. Merl, Robert & Palan, Stefan & Schmidt, Dominik & Stöckl, Thomas, 2023. "Insider trading regulation and trader migration," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Tirapat, Sunti & Visaltanachoti, Nuttawat, 2013. "Opportunistic insider trading," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1046-1061.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aggregate insider trading; Stock market volatility; VAR; Impulse responses;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfin:v:89:y:2023:i:c:s1042443123001294. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/intfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.