IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v64y2020ics0929119920300985.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Insider trading patterns

Author

Listed:
  • Biggerstaff, Lee
  • Cicero, David
  • Wintoki, M. Babajide

Abstract

We revisit the information content of stock trading by corporate insiders with an expectation that opportunistic insiders will spread their trades over longer periods of time when they have a longer-lived informational advantage, and trade in a short window of time when their advantage is fleeting. Controlling for the duration of insiders' trading strategies, we find robust new evidence that both insiders' sales and purchases predict abnormal stock returns. In addition, we provide evidence that insiders attempt to preserve their informational advantages and increase their trading profits by disclosing their trades after the market has closed. When insiders report their trades after business hours, they are more likely to engage in longer series of trades, they trade more shares overall, and their trades are associated with larger abnormal returns. Finally, we show how accounting for these trading patterns sharpens screens for corporate insiders who trade on infor- mation.

Suggested Citation

  • Biggerstaff, Lee & Cicero, David & Wintoki, M. Babajide, 2020. "Insider trading patterns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:64:y:2020:i:c:s0929119920300985
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101654
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119920300985
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101654?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. Skinner, Dj, 1994. "Why Firms Voluntarily Disclose Bad-News," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 38-60.
    2. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Watts, Ross L., 1992. "The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-292, 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. Alldredge, Dallin M. & Cicero, David C., 2015. "Attentive insider trading," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 84-101.
    5. Meulbroek, Lisa K, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1661-1699, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Jose M. Marin & Jacques P. Olivier, 2008. "The Dog That Did Not Bark: Insider Trading and Crashes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2429-2476, October.
    8. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    9. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    10. Ali, Usman & Hirshleifer, David, 2017. "Opportunism as a firm and managerial trait: Predicting insider trading profits and misconduct," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 490-515.
    11. Lakonishok, Josef & Lee, Inmoo, 2001. "Are Insider Trades Informative?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 79-111.
    12. Barclay, Michael J & Smith, Clifford W, Jr, 1995. "The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 609-631, June.
    13. Lauren Cohen & Christopher Malloy & Lukasz Pomorski, 2012. "Decoding Inside Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 1009-1043, June.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    17. Alan D. Jagolinzer & David F. Larcker & Daniel J. Taylor, 2011. "Corporate Governance and the Information Content of Insider Trades," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(5), pages 1249-1274, December.
    18. Heron, Randall A. & Lie, Erik, 2007. "Does backdating explain the stock price pattern around executive stock option grants?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 271-295, February.
    19. David C. Cicero, 2009. "The Manipulation of Executive Stock Option Exercise Strategies: Information Timing and Backdating," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2627-2663, December.
    20. Seyhun, H. Nejat, 1986. "Insiders' profits, costs of trading, and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 189-212, June.
    21. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    22. Agrawal, Anup & Cooper, Tommy, 2015. "Insider trading before accounting scandals," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 169-190.
    23. Finnerty, Joseph E, 1976. "Insiders and Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1141-1148, September.
    24. Dhaliwal, Dan & Erickson, Merle & Heitzman, Shane, 2009. "Taxes and the backdating of stock option exercise dates," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 27-49, March.
    25. 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.
    26. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    27. 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.
    28. Qiang Cheng & Kin Lo, 2006. "Insider Trading and Voluntary Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 815-848, December.
    29. Roni Michaely & Amir Rubin & Alexander Vedrashko, 2014. "Corporate Governance and the Timing of Earnings Announcements," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2003-2044.
    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. Li, Tao & Ji, Yu, 2021. "Institutional ownership and insider trading profitability: Evidence from an emerging market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. 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.
    3. Altanlar, Ali & Amini, Shima & Holmes, Phil & Eshraghi, Arman, 2023. "Opportunism, overconfidence and irrationality: A puzzling triad," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    4. Millicent Chang & John Gould & Yuyun Huang & Sirimon Treepongkaruna & Joey Wenling Yang, 2022. "Insider trading and the algorithmic trading environment," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 725-750, December.
    5. Weiwei Gao & Jiarui Yang & Zhen Huang, 2022. "Does feedback effect exist in firms' investment decisions? From the perspective of equity liquidity," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 2225-2236, September.
    6. Neupane, Biwesh & Thapa, Chandra & Marshall, Andrew & Neupane, Suman, 2021. "Mimicking insider trades," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    7. Jiang, Chao & Wintoki, M. Babajide & Xi, Yaoyi, 2021. "Insider trading and the legal expertise of corporate executives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    8. Soufiene Assidi, 2020. "The effect of voluntary disclosures and corporate governance on firm value: a study of listed firms in France," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 168-179, September.
    9. Avijit Bansal & Balagopal Gopalakrishnan & Joshy Jacob & Pranjal Srivastava, 2022. "Impact of operational fragility on stock returns: Lessons from COVID‐19 crisis," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 365-398, June.
    10. Li, Tao & Wang, Yan & Li, Haomin, 2023. "Corporate social responsibility and insider trading profitability: Evidence from an emerging market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Hoang, Lai T. & Wee, Marvin & Yang, Joey Wenling, 2023. "Strategic trading by insiders in the presence of institutional investors," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Dinis Santos & Paulo Gama, 2021. "Is Insider Trading Successful? An Extensive Analysis with Buying and Selling Evidence," Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences 12513376, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.

    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. 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.
    2. Rahman, Dewan & Kabir, Muhammad & Oliver, Barry, 2021. "Does exposure to product market competition influence insider trading profitability?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Ferhat Akbas & Chao Jiang & Paul D. Koch, 2020. "Insider Investment Horizon," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1579-1627, June.
    4. Irene Karamanou & Grace Pownall & Rachna Prakash, 2021. "Asymmetric information consolidation and price discovery: Inferring bad news from insider sales," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1-2), pages 230-268, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Katselas, Dean, 2018. "Insider trading in Australia: Contrarianism and future performance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 112-128.
    7. Jonathan A. Milian, 2016. "Insider sales based on short-term earnings information," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 109-128, July.
    8. Kallunki, Jenni & Kallunki, Juha-Pekka & Nilsson, Henrik & Puhakka, Mikko, 2018. "Do an insider's wealth and income matter in the decision to engage in insider trading?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 135-165.
    9. Feng Gu & John Q. Li, 2007. "The Credibility of Voluntary Disclosure and Insider Stock Transactions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 771-810, September.
    10. Contreras, Harold & Marcet, Francisco, 2021. "Sell-side analyst heterogeneity and insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. 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.
    12. Cheng, Lin & Jin, Qinglu & Ma, Hui, 2023. "Tone emphasis and insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. 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.
    14. Joseph, Kissan & Wintoki, M. Babajide, 2013. "Advertising investments, information asymmetry, and insider gains," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 1-15.
    15. Ali, Usman & Hirshleifer, David, 2017. "Opportunism as a firm and managerial trait: Predicting insider trading profits and misconduct," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 490-515.
    16. 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.
    17. Skaife, Hollis A. & Veenman, David & Wangerin, Daniel, 2013. "Internal control over financial reporting and managerial rent extraction: Evidence from the profitability of insider trading," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 91-110.
    18. Lee, Inmoo & Lemmon, Michael & Li, Yan & Sequeira, John M., 2014. "Do voluntary corporate restrictions on insider trading eliminate informed insider trading?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 158-178.
    19. Guanming He & Helen Mengbing Ren & Richard Taffler, 2021. "Do corporate insiders trade on future stock price crash risk?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1561-1591, May.
    20. Hillier, David & Korczak, Adriana & Korczak, Piotr, 2015. "The impact of personal attributes on corporate insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 150-167.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Insider trading; Informed trading; Executive trading; Trade patterns; Trading;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:corfin:v:64:y:2020:i:c:s0929119920300985. 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/jcorpfin .

    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.