IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v76y2025ics1544612325001631.html

Common institutional ownership and abnormal stock trading halts

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Zhibo
  • Yan, Siyu
  • Gan, Zhongxin

Abstract

Using data from Chinese listed firms over 2007–2023, we identify a new economic benefit of common institutional ownership: reduced abnormal trading halts. Results remain robust across various checks. Mechanism analysis reveals that the information advantage and the internalization of governance externalities by common institutional ownership are key drivers of this effect. We also provide evidence that common institutional ownership can impose ex-ante restrictions and employ ex-post “exit threats” to discipline insiders, thereby reducing abnormal trading halts. Overall, our results indicate that common institutional ownership curbs abnormal trading halts, offering an alternative perspective in the policy debate on its anti-competitive effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Zhibo & Yan, Siyu & Gan, Zhongxin, 2025. "Common institutional ownership and abnormal stock trading halts," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001631
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.106899
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325001631
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.106899?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. José Azar & Martin C. Schmalz & Isabel Tecu, 2018. "Anticompetitive Effects of Common Ownership," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(4), pages 1513-1565, August.
    2. Joel Peress, 2010. "Product Market Competition, Insider Trading, and Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 1-43, February.
    3. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    4. Greenwald, Bruce C & Stein, Jeremy C, 1991. "Transactional Risk, Market Crashes, and the Role of Circuit Breakers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 443-462, October.
    5. He, Jie (Jack) & Huang, Jiekun & Zhao, Shan, 2019. "Internalizing governance externalities: The role of institutional cross-ownership," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 400-418.
    6. Chen, Yangyang & Li, Qingyuan & Ng, Jeffrey & Wang, Chong, 2021. "Corporate financing of investment opportunities in a world of institutional cross-ownership," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    7. Sreedhar T. Bharath & Sudarshan Jayaraman & Venky Nagar, 2013. "Exit as Governance: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2515-2547, December.
    8. Jie (Jack) He & Jiekun Huang, 2017. "Product Market Competition in a World of Cross-Ownership: Evidence from Institutional Blockholdings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(8), pages 2674-2718.
    9. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2005. "On the Industry Concentration of Actively Managed Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1983-2011, August.
    10. Omesh Kini & Sangho Lee & Mo Shen, 2024. "Common Institutional Ownership and Product Market Threats," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(5), pages 2705-2731, May.
    11. Brooks, Chris & Chen, Zhong & Zeng, Yeqin, 2018. "Institutional cross-ownership and corporate strategy: The case of mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 187-216.
    12. David L. Dicks, 2012. "Executive Compensation and the Role for Corporate Governance Regulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(6), pages 1971-2004.
    13. Di Giuli, Alberta & Laux, Paul A., 2022. "The effect of media-linked directors on financing and external governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 103-131.
    14. Mark R. DesJardine & Jody Grewal & Kala Viswanathan, 2023. "A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: The Effects of Common Ownership on Corporate Social Responsibility," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(5), pages 1716-1735, September.
    15. Jiang, Guohua & Lee, Charles M.C. & Yue, Heng, 2010. "Tunneling through intercorporate loans: The China experience," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 1-20, October.
    16. Yin, Wenjing & Li, Weiping & Yu, Yumiao, 2024. "The effect of institutional cross-ownership on corporate risk-taking in a transitional economy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    17. Park, Jihwon & Sani, Jalal & Shroff, Nemit & White, Hal, 2019. "Disclosure incentives when competing firms have common ownership," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 387-415.
    18. Basu, Sudipta, 1997. "The conservatism principle and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 3-37, December.
    19. McDonald, Cynthia G. & Michayluk, David, 2003. "Suspicious trading halts," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 251-263, July.
    20. Chen, Shenglan & Ma, Hui & Wu, Qiang & Zhang, Hao, 2023. "Does common ownership constrain managerial rent extraction? Evidence from insider trading profitability," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    21. Jie (Jack) He & Lantian Liang & Hui (Grace) Wang & Han Xia, 2024. "Networking Behind the Scenes: Institutional Cross-Industry Holdings and Corporate Loan Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(7), pages 4932-4952, July.
    22. Wen Wen & Xiaoqing Feng, 2023. "Multiple large shareholders and abnormal stock trading halts," China Journal of Accounting Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 795-825, October.
    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. Xu, Zhibo & Padmanabhan, Prasad & Huang, Chia-Hsing, 2025. "Does institutional cross-ownership reduce corporate shadow banking activities? Evidence from Chinese firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Anting Li & Jianqiong Wang & Yaru Yang, 2026. "Dose common institutional ownership constrain tunneling?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1193-1228, April.
    3. Zeyu Wang & Qingze Wang, 2026. "Common ownership and corporate green innovation efficiency-based on a two stage value chain perspective," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-35, March.
    4. Dai, Jingwen & Xu, Rong & Zhu, Tianqi & Lu, Chao, 2024. "Common institutional ownership and opportunistic insider selling: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Liu, Xutang & Boubaker, Sabri & Liao, Jing & Yao, Shouyu, 2025. "The rise of common state ownership and corporate environmental performance," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(5).
    6. Chen, Shenglan & Ma, Hui & Wu, Qiang & Zhang, Hao, 2023. "Does common ownership constrain managerial rent extraction? Evidence from insider trading profitability," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Wang, Zhiwen, 2025. "The impact of common ownership between banks and firms on corporate ESG performance: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Tian, Haowen & Wang, Junkai & Wu, Sirui, 2024. "Supply chain vertical common ownership and cost of loans," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Qian Ding & Jinyu Chen & Wu Chen, 2026. "Can Common Institutional Ownership Govern CSR Decoupling? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 204(2), pages 309-334, March.
    10. Chen, Yangyang & Li, Qingyuan & Ng, Jeffrey & Wang, Chong, 2021. "Corporate financing of investment opportunities in a world of institutional cross-ownership," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    11. Zhang, Han & Li, Minghui & Yang, Yujie, 2024. "Does common institutional ownership constrain related party transactions? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PB), pages 1015-1042.
    12. Mou, Shaobo & Yi, Sijia & Zhang, Qiufeng & Liu, Danping, 2025. "Common institutional ownership and executive pay-performance sensitivity: Mediating role of information transparency and fund occupation," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    13. Chen, Zhen & Tang, Xudong & Wang, Yanying, 2025. "Punish one, teach a hundred: The impact of punishments on ex-post misconduct of unpunished firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PB).
    14. Yao, Rongrong & Xiao, Min, 2025. "Common ownership and corporate violations: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    15. Wang, Shuangjin & Zhang, Xiaoqian & Cebula, Richard J. & Foley, Maggie, 2024. "Cross-shareholding, Managerial capabilities, and Strategic risk-taking in enterprises: A game or a win-win?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    16. Hamza Nizar & Taher Hamza & Faten Lakhal, 2024. "How does institutional cross‐ownership affect firm productivity? The importance of the corporate social responsibility channel," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 1988-2010, April.
    17. Zhou, Wei & Liu, Baohua & Chen, Tao & Chen, Yining, 2025. "Institutional investors' cross-ownership and internal control quality," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    18. Liu, Wenhua & Sun, Bohong & Zhao, Lili & Zhu, Pingheng, 2025. "Does common ownership affect stock price synchronicity?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(PB).
    19. Wang, Qingjuan & Bai, Keke & Li, Yang, 2025. "Institutional cross-ownership and M&A premiums: Micro evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Liu, Huan & Hou, Canran, 2023. "The external effect of institutional cross-ownership on excessive managerial perks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 483-501.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:finlet:v:76:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001631. 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/frl .

    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.