IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v48y2018icp112-128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Insider trading in Australia: Contrarianism and future performance

Author

Listed:
  • Katselas, Dean

Abstract

This paper examines, within the Australian market, the extent to which legal insider trades are information driven, premised on a disconnect between the market's assessment of firm value, and that of more informed insiders. I address the notion that insiders, endowed with superior information about their firm, are contrarian, reflecting disagreement with the market's current perception of firm value, and also use this knowledge by trading in advance of future performance indicators not known to the market. I find that insiders, directors in particular, are contrarian traders; they buy when their firm is in the bottom tercile according to prior returns (losers), and sell if their firm is a prior winner. Further, this behaviour is exacerbated if the firm is a value (glamour) stock. Finally, I show that even after controlling for the aforementioned factors, directors engage in net buying prior to positive accounting performance changes in the subsequent and following 12 month periods.

Suggested Citation

  • Katselas, Dean, 2018. "Insider trading in Australia: Contrarianism and future performance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 112-128.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:48:y:2018:i:c:p:112-128
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2018.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X17302895
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2018.01.004?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patell, Jm, 1976. "Corporate Forecasts Of Earnings Per Share And Stock-Price Behavior - Empirical Tests," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 246-276.
    2. Allan Hodgson & Bart Van Praag, 2006. "Information trading by corporate insiders based on accounting accruals: forecasting economic performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 46(5), pages 819-842, December.
    3. Jaffe, Jeffrey F, 1974. "Special Information and Insider Trading," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(3), pages 410-428, July.
    4. Newey, Whitney K & West, Kenneth D, 1987. "Hypothesis Testing with Efficient Method of Moments Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(3), pages 777-787, October.
    5. Seyhun, H Nejat, 1990. "Overreaction or Fundamentals: Some Lessons from Insiders' Response to the Market Crash of 1987," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1363-1388, December.
    6. Meulbroek, Lisa K, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1661-1699, December.
    7. Bettis, J. C. & Coles, J. L. & Lemmon, M. L., 2000. "Corporate policies restricting trading by insiders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 191-220, August.
    8. 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.
    9. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P. & Rayburn, Judy Dawson, 1987. "Firm size and the information content of prices with respect to earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 111-138, July.
    10. Lakonishok, Josef & Lee, Inmoo, 2001. "Are Insider Trades Informative?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 79-111.
    11. Leslie A. Jeng & Andrew Metrick & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Estimating the Returns to Insider Trading: A Performance-Evaluation Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 453-471, May.
    12. 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.
    13. Aslan, Hadiye & Easley, David & Hvidkjaer, Soeren & O'Hara, Maureen, 2011. "The characteristics of informed trading: Implications for asset pricing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 782-801.
    14. Collins, Daniel W. & Kothari, S. P., 1989. "An analysis of intertemporal and cross-sectional determinants of earnings response coefficients," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 143-181, July.
    15. Michael S. Rozeff & Mir A. Zaman, 1998. "Overreaction and Insider Trading: Evidence from Growth and Value Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(2), pages 701-716, April.
    16. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    17. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    18. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    19. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    20. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    21. Huddart, Steven & Ke, Bin & Shi, Charles, 2007. "Jeopardy, non-public information, and insider trading around SEC 10-K and 10-Q filings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 3-36, March.
    22. Chang, Millicent & Watson, Iain, 2015. "Delayed disclosure of insider trades: Incentives for and indicators of future performance?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 182-197.
    23. Seyhun, H. Nejat, 1986. "Insiders' profits, costs of trading, and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 189-212, June.
    24. 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.
    25. Katherine Uylangco & Steve Easton & Robert Faff, 2010. "The equity and efficiency of the Australian share market with respect to director trading," Accounting Research Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(1), pages 5-19, July.
    26. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    27. Lin, Ji-Chai & Howe, John S, 1990. "Insider Trading in the OTC Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1273-1284, September.
    28. Chang, Millicent & Wee, Marvin, 2016. "The effect of voluntary versus mandatory adoption of trading policies on the returns to insider trades," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 76-87.
    29. Bhushan, Ravi, 1989. "Firm characteristics and analyst following," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 255-274, July.
    30. Finnerty, Joseph E, 1976. "Insiders and Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1141-1148, September.
    31. 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.
    32. Ke, Bin & Huddart, Steven & Petroni, Kathy, 2003. "What insiders know about future earnings and how they use it: Evidence from insider trades," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 315-346, August.
    33. Dirk Jenter, 2005. "Market Timing and Managerial Portfolio Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1903-1949, August.
    34. Piotroski, Joseph D. & Roulstone, Darren T., 2005. "Do insider trades reflect both contrarian beliefs and superior knowledge about future cash flow realizations?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 55-81, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dean Katselas & Baljit K. Sidhu & Chuan Yu, 2021. "Liquidity and information asymmetry around unscheduled mining announcements," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(2), pages 3053-3087, June.
    2. Dean Katselas, 2020. "Strategic insider trading around earnings announcements in Australia," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3709-3741, December.
    3. Zou, Gaofeng & Du, Shuchang & Yang, Yulong & Huang, Zuo, 2022. "The effect of realized future growth opportunities on insider trading," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    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. Ozlem Akin & Nicholas S. Coleman & Christian Fons‐Rosen & José‐Luis Peydró, 2021. "Political connections and informed trading: Evidence from TARP," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 619-644, September.
    2. Ozlem Akin & Nicholas S. Coleman & Christian Fons-Rosen & José-Luis Peydró, 2016. "Political Connections: Evidence From Insider Trading Around TARP," Working Papers 935, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Partha Gangopadhyay & Ken C. Yook & Joseph D. Haley, 2019. "Bank bailouts and corporate insider trading during the financial crisis of 2007–2009," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 35-83, January.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Aktas, Nihat & de Bodt, Eric & Van Oppens, Hervé, 2008. "Legal insider trading and market efficiency," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1379-1392, July.
    8. Foley, Sean & Kwan, Amy & McInish, Thomas H. & Philip, Richard, 2016. "Director discretion and insider trading profitability," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 28-43.
    9. Foley, Sean & Kwan, Amy & McInish, Thomas H. & Philip, Richard, 2017. "Reprint of Director discretion and insider trading profitability," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 52-67.
    10. 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.
    11. Chu, Chien Chi & Chang, Chiao Yi & Zhou, Rui Jie, 2021. "The nonlinear connection between 52-week high and announcement effect of insider trading — Evidence from mainland China and Taiwan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1043-1057.
    12. Van Geyt, Debby & Van Cauwenberge, Philippe & Vander Bauwhede, Heidi, 2014. "Does high-quality corporate communication reduce insider trading profitability?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-14.
    13. Semih Tartaroglu & Michael Imhof, 2017. "Insider trading and response to earnings announcements: the impact of accelerated disclosure requirements," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 315-336, August.
    14. Michael Firth & T. Y. Leung & Oliver M. Rui, 2011. "Insider Trading in Hong Kong: Tests of Stock Returns and Trading Frequency," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 14(03), pages 505-533.
    15. Adriana Korczak & Piotr Korczak & Meziane Lasfer, 2010. "To Trade or Not to Trade: The Strategic Trading of Insiders around News Announcements," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3‐4), pages 369-407, April.
    16. Lambe, Brendan & Li, Zhiyong & Qin, Weiping, 2022. "Uncertain times and the insider perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Biggerstaff, Lee & Cicero, David & Wintoki, M. Babajide, 2020. "Insider trading patterns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    18. George P. Gao & Qingzhong Ma & David T. Ng & Ying Wu, 2022. "The Sound of Silence: What Do We Know When Insiders Do Not Trade?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 4835-4857, July.
    19. 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.
    20. Contreras, Harold & Marcet, Francisco, 2021. "Sell-side analyst heterogeneity and insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    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:pacfin:v:48:y:2018:i:c:p:112-128. 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/pacfin .

    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.