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Short Selling and Firm Operating Performance

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  • Sanjay Deshmukh
  • Keith Jacks Gamble
  • Keith M. Howe

Abstract

type="main"> While it is well known that short selling predicts future negative stock price performance, it has not been established whether short selling predicts future negative operating performance. We find that firms in the top decile of increases in short interest (an increase of about four percentage points) experience a 21% subsequent decline in operating performance relative to matched control firms. The greater the increase in short interest, the larger the decline in operating performance. The results are robust to alternative performance measures and to sample splits based on firm size. These results suggest that short interest may reflect private information about firm fundamentals rather than other factors that may drive stock price changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanjay Deshmukh & Keith Jacks Gamble & Keith M. Howe, 2015. "Short Selling and Firm Operating Performance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 44(1), pages 217-236, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:finmgt:v:44:y:2015:i:1:p:217-236
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Xu Guo & Chunchi Wu, 2022. "Short Selling Activity and Effects on Financial Markets and Corporate Decisions," Springer Books, in: Cheng-Few Lee & Alice C. Lee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Finance, edition 0, chapter 98, pages 2313-2340, Springer.
    2. Kelley Bergsma & Jitendra Tayal, 2019. "Short Interest and Lottery Stocks," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 187-227, March.
    3. Zhaobo Zhu & Xinrui Duan & Jun Tu, 2019. "The Trend in Short Selling and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 20(2), pages 565-586, November.
    4. Hanauer, Matthias X. & Lesnevski, Pavel & Smajlbegovic, Esad, 2023. "Surprise in short interest," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Haiyan Jiang & Gary Tian & Donghua Zhou, 2021. "The influence of the deregulation of short‐selling on related‐party transactions: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5-6), pages 1022-1056, May.
    6. Deshmukh, Sanjay & Gamble, Keith Jacks & Howe, Keith M., 2017. "Informed short selling around SEO announcements," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 121-138.
    7. He, Jingbin & Ma, Xinru & Wei, Qu, 2022. "Firm-level short selling and the local COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    8. Ning Hu & Siqi Lu & Tao Ma & Jianfang Ye, 2020. "Short‐selling and cost of equity: evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3681-3707, December.
    9. Haiyan Jiang & Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2022. "Short Selling: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Future Research," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-31, January.
    10. Zhu, Zhaobo & Duan, Xinrui & Sun, Licheng & Tu, Jun, 2019. "Momentum and reversal: The role of short selling," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 95-110.

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