IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v40y2021ics1544612320309855.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stock price synchronicity and price informativeness: Evidence from a regulatory change in the U.S. banking industry

Author

Listed:
  • Abedifar, Pejman
  • Bouslah, Kais
  • Zheng, Yeliangzi

Abstract

Whether return synchronicity is associated with higher or lower stock price informativeness is still an ongoing debate in the academic literature. This paper contributes to this debate by exploiting an exogenous shock, provided by a regulatory change introduced by the Federal Reserve in 2015, and examining its impact on return synchronicity using a sample of U.S. listed bank holding companies (BHCs) operating during the period of 2014: Q3 – 2016: Q2. Applying a regression discontinuity design, we find that return synchronicity of treated BHCs decreases after the regulatory change. This finding suggests that lower return synchronicity represents lower stock price informativeness.

Suggested Citation

  • Abedifar, Pejman & Bouslah, Kais & Zheng, Yeliangzi, 2021. "Stock price synchronicity and price informativeness: Evidence from a regulatory change in the U.S. banking industry," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1544612320309855
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2020.101678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612320309855
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2020.101678?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. Laurent Fresard, 2012. "Cash Savings and Stock Price Informativeness," Post-Print hal-01053586, HAL.
    2. Hughes, Joseph P. & Mester, Loretta J. & Moon, Choon-Geol, 2001. "Are scale economies in banking elusive or illusive?: Evidence obtained by incorporating capital structure and risk-taking into models of bank production," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 2169-2208, December.
    3. Donald Morgan & Kevin Stiroh, 2001. "Market Discipline of Banks: The Asset Test," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 20(2), pages 195-208, October.
    4. Flannery, Mark J. & Kwan, Simon H. & Nimalendran, M., 2004. "Market evidence on the opaqueness of banking firms' assets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 419-460, March.
    5. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    6. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    7. Ferreira, Daniel & Ferreira, Miguel A. & Raposo, Clara C., 2011. "Board structure and price informativeness," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 523-545, March.
    8. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    9. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Song, Liang & Yeung, Bernard, 2015. "What determines bank-specific variations in bank stock returns? Global evidence," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 312-324.
    10. Artyom Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung & Paul Zarowin, 2003. "Does Greater Firm‐Specific Return Variation Mean More or Less Informed Stock Pricing?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 797-836, December.
    11. Jin, Li & Myers, Stewart C., 2006. "R2 around the world: New theory and new tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 257-292, February.
    12. Jones, Jeffrey S. & Lee, Wayne Y. & Yeager, Timothy J., 2012. "Opaque banks, price discovery, and financial instability," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 383-408.
    13. Stiroh, Kevin J. & Rumble, Adrienne, 2006. "The dark side of diversification: The case of US financial holding companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 2131-2161, August.
    14. Xing, Xuejing & Anderson, Randy, 2011. "Stock price synchronicity and public firm-specificinformation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 259-276, May.
    15. Fosu, Samuel & Danso, Albert & Agyei-Boapeah, Henry & Ntim, Collins G. & Murinde, Victor, 2018. "How does banking market power affect bank opacity? Evidence from analysts' forecasts," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 38-52.
    16. Patrick J. Kelly, 2014. "Information Efficiency and Firm-Specific Return Variation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-44.
    17. Berger, Allen N. & DeYoung, Robert, 1997. "Problem loans and cost efficiency in commercial banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 849-870, June.
    18. Blau, Benjamin M. & Brough, Tyler J. & Griffith, Todd G., 2017. "Bank opacity and the efficiency of stock prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 32-47.
    19. Flannery, Mark J. & Kwan, Simon H. & Nimalendran, Mahendrarajah, 2013. "The 2007–2009 financial crisis and bank opaqueness," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 55-84.
    20. Chan, Kalok & Hameed, Allaudeen & Kang, Wenjin, 2013. "Stock price synchronicity and liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 414-438.
    21. Antoine Dechezlepretre & Elias Einio & Ralf Martin & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Do tax incentives for research increase firm innovation? An RD design for R&D," GRI Working Papers 230, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    22. Benjamas Jirasakuldech & Donna Dudney & Thomas Zorn & John Geppert, 2011. "Financial disclosure, investor protection and stock market behavior: an international comparison," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 181-205, August.
    23. Dechezlepretre, Antoine & Einiö, Elias & Martin, Ralf & Nguyen, Kieu-Trang & Reenen, John Van, 2016. "Do tax incentives for research increase firm innovation? An RD design for R&D, patents and spillovers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66428, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    24. Bai, Xuelian & Hu, Nan & Liu, Ling & Zhu, Lu, 2017. "Credit derivatives and stock return synchronicity," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 79-90.
    25. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    26. Gul, Ferdinand A. & Kim, Jeong-Bon & Qiu, Annie A., 2010. "Ownership concentration, foreign shareholding, audit quality, and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 425-442, March.
    27. Akhigbe, Aigbe & Martin, Anna D., 2006. "Valuation impact of Sarbanes-Oxley: Evidence from disclosure and governance within the financial services industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 989-1006, March.
    28. Snehal Banerjee & Jesse Davis & Naveen Gondhi, 2018. "When Transparency Improves, Must Prices Reflect Fundamentals Better?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(6), pages 2377-2414.
    29. Chan, Kalok & Chan, Yue-Cheong, 2014. "Price informativeness and stock return synchronicity: Evidence from the pricing of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 36-53.
    30. Shuo Kan & Stephen Gong, 2018. "Does High Stock Return Synchronicity Indicate High or Low Price Informativeness? Evidence from a Regulatory Experiment," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 523-546, December.
    31. Jones, Jeffrey S. & Lee, Wayne Y. & Yeager, Timothy J., 2013. "Valuation and systemic risk consequences of bank opacity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 693-706.
    32. An, Heng & Zhang, Ting, 2013. "Stock price synchronicity, crash risk, and institutional investors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 1-15.
    33. Laurent Fresard, 2012. "Cash Savings and Stock Price Informativeness," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 16(4), pages 985-1012.
    34. Donald P. Morgan, 2002. "Rating Banks: Risk and Uncertainty in an Opaque Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 874-888, September.
    35. Dasgupta, Sudipto & Gan, Jie & Gao, Ning, 2010. "Transparency, Price Informativeness, and Stock Return Synchronicity: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1189-1220, October.
    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. Persakis, Antonios & Iatridis, George Emmanuel, 2023. "How economic uncertainty influences the performance of investor perceptions and behavior," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    2. Li, Xiao & Xing, Yao, 2023. "When stock return synchronicity meets investor sentiment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    3. Chou, Yixuan & Tang, Wenjin, 2023. "Corporate advertising expense and share price synchronization," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    4. Xie, Tao & Li, Yanan, 2023. "Political connections, institutional environment and informativeness of stock price," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PA).

    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. Abedifar, Pejman & Bouslah, Kais & Qamhieh Hashem, Shatha & Song, Liang, 2020. "How informative are stock prices of Islamic Banks?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Joachim Gassen & Hollis A. Skaife & David Veenman, 2020. "Illiquidity and the Measurement of Stock Price Synchronicity," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 419-456, March.
    3. Wei Hao & Andrew Prevost & Udomsak Wongchoti, 2018. "Are Low Equity R2 Firms More or Less Transparent? Evidence from the Corporate Bond Market," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 865-909, December.
    4. Li, Mingsheng & Liu, Desheng & Peng, Hongfeng & Zhang, Luxiu, 2020. "Does low synchronicity mean more or less informative prices? Evidence from an emerging market," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    5. De Cesari, Amedeo & Huang-Meier, Winifred, 2015. "Dividend changes and stock price informativeness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-17.
    6. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Lin, Kun-Li, 2022. "Bank ownership and stock price informativeness. Does politics matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Le, Anh-Tuan & Doan, Anh-Tuan & Lin, Kun-Li, 2024. "CEO overconfidence and the informativeness of bank stock prices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Chue, Timothy K. & Gul, Ferdinand A. & Mian, G. Mujtaba, 2019. "Aggregate investor sentiment and stock return synchronicity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    9. Christina Bui, 2018. "Bank Regulation and Financial Stability," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 5-2018, January-A.
    10. Van Ness, Bonnie & Van Ness, Robert & Yildiz, Serhat, 2021. "Private information in trades, R2, and large stock price movements," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Ahmed Baig & Benjamin M. Blau & Todd G. Griffith, 2021. "Firm Opacity and the Clustering of Stock Prices: the Case of Financial Intermediaries," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 187-206, December.
    12. Xiang Zhang & Han Zhou, 2020. "Leverage structure and stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, July.
    13. Kee-Hong Bae & Jin-Mo Kim & Yang Ni, 2013. "Is Firm-specific Return Variation a Measure of Information Efficiency?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 407-445, December.
    14. Rao, Lanlan & Zhou, Liyun, 2019. "The role of stock price synchronicity on the return-sentiment relation," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 119-131.
    15. Doan, Anh-Tuan & Phan, Thu & Lin, Kun-Li, 2020. "Governance quality, bank price synchronicity and political uncertainty," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 231-262.
    16. Haga, Jesper & Högholm, Kenneth & Sundvik, Dennis, 2022. "Peer firms’ reporting frequency and stock price synchronicity: European evidence," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    17. Meng, Qingbin & Song, Xuan & Liu, Chunlin & Wu, Qun & Zeng, Hongchao, 2020. "The impact of block trades on stock price synchronicity: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 239-253.
    18. Benjamin M. Blau & Todd G. Griffith & Ryan J. Whitby, 2020. "Opacity and the comovement in the stock prices of banks," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3557-3580, December.
    19. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Cosset, Jean-Claude, 2014. "State Ownership, Political Institutions, and Stock Price Informativeness: Evidence from Privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 179-199.
    20. Flood, Mark D. & Kenett, Dror Y. & Lumsdaine, Robin L. & Simon, Jonathan K., 2020. "The Complexity of Bank Holding Companies: A Topological Approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Price informativeness; Stock return synchronicity; Financial regulation; Bank opacity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - 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:finlet:v:40:y:2021:i:c:s1544612320309855. 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.