IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finsta/v26y2016icp45-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does it help firms to secretly pay for stock promoters?

Author

Listed:
  • Massoud, Nadia
  • Ullah, Saif
  • Scholnick, Barry

Abstract

We examine deals between listed firms and promoters who have been secretly hired to increase their stock prices. This behavior by the secret promoter is illegal (and leads to prosecution) but the actions of the hiring firm are legal. We use data from these prosecutions to analyze the behavior and motivations of the hiring firms. We find that secret promotion leads to an initial increase in the price and trading volume of the firms on the date that the secret promotion started. Subsequently, however, we find that this increase in price is reversed when regulators (e.g. SEC or NASD) take action against these promoters for not disclosing their relationships with the hiring firms. We find that the main motives behind these relationships are to maximize the private benefits of the firm’s managers and owners through pumping the share prices and subsequently dumping their shareholdings.

Suggested Citation

  • Massoud, Nadia & Ullah, Saif & Scholnick, Barry, 2016. "Does it help firms to secretly pay for stock promoters?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 45-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finsta:v:26:y:2016:i:c:p:45-61
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2016.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1572308916300870
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfs.2016.08.002?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. Kirk, Marcus, 2011. "Research for sale: Determinants and consequences of paid-for analyst research," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 182-200, April.
    2. Womack, Kent L, 1996. "Do Brokerage Analysts' Recommendations Have Investment Value?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 137-167, March.
    3. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:3:p:633-46 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kenneth Lehn & Annette Poulsen, 1989. "Free Cash Flow and Stockholder Gains in Going Private Transactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 771-787, July.
    5. Diamond, Douglas W & Verrecchia, Robert E, 1991. "Disclosure, Liquidity, and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1325-1359, September.
    6. Borio, Claudio & Tsatsaronis, Kostas, 2004. "Accounting and prudential regulation: from uncomfortable bedfellows to perfect partners?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 111-135, September.
    7. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    8. Bhattacharya, Utpal & Spiegel, Matthew, 1991. "Insiders, Outsiders, and Market Breakdowns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(2), pages 255-282.
    9. Efendi, Jap & Srivastava, Anup & Swanson, Edward P., 2007. "Why do corporate managers misstate financial statements? The role of option compensation and other factors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 667-708, September.
    10. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    11. Chan, Su Han & Martin, John D. & Kensinger, John W., 1990. "Corporate research and development expenditures and share value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 255-276, August.
    12. McDonald, Robert L., 2013. "Contingent capital with a dual price trigger," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 230-241.
    13. Hong, Harrison & Huang, Ming, 2005. "Talking up liquidity: insider trading and investor relations," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-31, January.
    14. Danielsson, Jon & Taylor, Ashley & Zigrand, Jean-Pierre, 2005. "Highwaymen or heroes: Should hedge funds be regulated?: A survey," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 522-543, October.
    15. Michael J. Fishman & Kathleen M. Hagerty, 1989. "Disclosure Decisions by Firms and the Competition for Price Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 633-646, July.
    16. Brad Barber & Reuven Lehavy & Maureen McNichols & Brett Trueman, 2001. "Can Investors Profit from the Prophets? Security Analyst Recommendations and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 531-563, April.
    17. András Marosi & Nadia Massoud, 2008. "“You Can Enter but You Cannot Leave…”: U.S. Securities Markets and Foreign Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2477-2506, October.
    18. Verrecchia, Robert E., 1983. "Discretionary disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 179-194, April.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:44:y:1989:i:3:p:771-87 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Merle Erickson & Michelle Hanlon & Edward L. Maydew, 2006. "Is There a Link between Executive Equity Incentives and Accounting Fraud?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 113-143, March.
    21. H. Baker & Gary Powell & Daniel Weaver, 1998. "The effect of NYSE listing on a firm’s media visibility," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 22(1), pages 19-28, March.
    22. David H. Solomon, 2012. "Selective Publicity and Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 599-638, April.
    23. Ronald W. Masulis & Cong Wang & Fei Xie, 2007. "Corporate Governance and Acquirer Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1851-1889, August.
    24. Verrecchia, Robert E., 1990. "Information quality and discretionary disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 365-380, March.
    25. Peng, Emma Y. & Yan, An & Yan, Meng, 2016. "Accounting accruals, heterogeneous investor beliefs, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 88-103.
    26. Jin, Dawei & Wang, Haizhi & Wang, Peng & Yin, Desheng, 2016. "Social trust and foreign ownership: Evidence from qualified foreign institutional investors in China," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 1-14.
    27. Mary E. Barth & Ron Kasznik & Maureen F. McNichols, 2001. "Analyst Coverage and Intangible Assets," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 1-34, June.
    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. Shaen Corbet & Yang (Greg) Hou & Yang Hu & Les Oxley, 2022. "We Reddit in a Forum: The Influence of Message Boards on Firm Stability," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 151-190, March.
    2. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    3. Oh, Sebeom, 2023. "Market Manipulation in NFT Markets," MPRA Paper 116704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Rouhi, Farhang & Mukherjee, Arghya & Feder, Amir & Moore, Tyler & Vasek, Marie, 2018. "The Economics of Cryptocurrency Pump and Dump Schemes," CEPR Discussion Papers 13404, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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, Mingli & Yang, Wei & Huang, Zhixiong, 2021. "Do investor relations matter in the tourism industry? Evidence from public opinions in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 923-933.
    2. Hong, Harrison & Huang, Ming, 2005. "Talking up liquidity: insider trading and investor relations," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-31, January.
    3. Qiang Cheng & Young Jun Cho & Jae B. Kim, 2021. "Managers’ pay duration and voluntary disclosures," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(7-8), pages 1332-1367, July.
    4. Hope, Ole-Kristian & Huang, Zhongwei & Moldovan, Rucsandra, 2021. "Wall Street analysts as investor relations officers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. G. Andrew Karolyi & Dawoon Kim & Rose Liao, 2020. "The Theory and Practice of Investor Relations: A Global Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4746-4771, October.
    6. Houdou Basse Mama & Alexander Bassen, 2017. "Neglected disciplinary effects of investor relations: evidence from corporate cash holdings," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 221-261, February.
    7. E. Cheynel & M. Liu-Watts, 2020. "A simple structural estimator of disclosure costs," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 201-245, March.
    8. Shan Zhou & Roger Simnett & Wendy Green, 2017. "Does Integrated Reporting Matter to the Capital Market?," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 53(1), pages 94-132, March.
    9. Chaiyasit Anuchitworawong, 2010. "The Value of Principles-Based Governance Practices and the Attenuation of Information Asymmetry," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 17(2), pages 171-207, June.
    10. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    11. Stephanie F. Cheng & Christine Cuny & Hao Xue, 2023. "Disclosure and Competition for Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4312-4330, July.
    12. Ann Ling-Ching Chan & Edward Lee & Jirada Petaibanlue & Ning Tan, 2017. "Do board interlocks motivate voluntary disclosure? Evidence from Taiwan," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 441-466, February.
    13. Wu, Chen-Hui, 2022. "The informativeness of brokerage reports: Privately-circulated versus publicly-disseminated news," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Richard Lambert & Christian Leuz & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2007. "Accounting Information, Disclosure, and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 385-420, May.
    15. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The Endogeneity Bias in the Relation Between Cost-of-Debt Capital and Corporate Disclosure Policy," Discussion Paper 2005-67, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    16. Wen-Chun Lin & Shao-Chi Chang, 2012. "Corporate governance and the stock market reaction to new product announcements," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 273-291, August.
    17. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The Endogeneity Bias in the Relation Between Cost-of-Debt Capital and Corporate Disclosure Policy," Other publications TiSEM 5960a342-0adc-4f85-bf87-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Leonardo Fernandez, 2012. "Price Discovery, Investor Distraction and Analyst Recommendations Under Continuous Disclosure Requirements in Australia," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2012, January-A.
    19. Stephan Hollander & Maarten Pronk & Erik Roelofsen, 2010. "Does Silence Speak? An Empirical Analysis of Disclosure Choices During Conference Calls," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 531-563, June.
    20. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The endogeneity bias in the relation between cost-of-debt capital and corporate disclosure policy," Other publications TiSEM 04869b30-e8a9-4ecf-84ae-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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:finsta:v:26:y:2016:i:c:p:45-61. 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/jfstabil .

    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.