Insider trading restrictions and the stock market: Evidence from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange\ud

This paper examines the effect of introducing insider trading restrictions on the behaviour of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. From 1987 on, insiders are no longer allowed to trade two months before an annual earnings announcement. The results indicate that stocks became less liquid (when liquidity is measured by trading volume) when insiders were not allowed to trade. We also find some evidence that the introduction of insider trading restrictions reduced the stock market's speed of adjustment to positive earnings news.\ud \u

Stock Repurchases in Canada: Performance and Strategic Trading

During the 1980s, U.S. firms that announced stock repurchase programs earned favorable long-run returns. Recently, concerns have been raised regarding the robustness of these findings. This comes at a time of explosive worldwide growth in the adoption of repurchase programs. This study provides out-of-sample evidence for 1,060 Canadian repurchase programs announced between 1989 and 1997. As in the U.S., the Canadian stock market seems to discount the information contained in repurchase announcements. Value stocks announcing repurchase programs have particularly favorable returns. Canadian law requires companies to report how many shares they repurchase on a monthly basis. We find that managers are sensitive to mispricing as completion rates are higher in cases where undervaluation may be a more important factor. Moreover, trades are linked to price movements; managers buy more shares when prices fall and reduce their buying when prices rise.

Managerial trustworthiness and buybacks

Working paper available at https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1860/</p

Rights offerings, trading, and regulation: a global perspective

We study rights offerings using a sample of 8,238 rights offers announced during 1995-2008 in 69 countries. Although shareholders prefer having the option to trade rights, issuers deliberately restrict tradability in 38% of the offerings. We argue that firms restrict rights trading to avoid the execution risk associated with strict prospectus requirements, a prolonged and uncertain transaction process, and the potentially negative information signaled via the price of traded rights. In line with this argument, we find that issuers restricting tradability are those with more to lose from reduced participation or that are more likely to face execution risk