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Activism, Strategic Trading, and Liquidity

Author

Listed:
  • Kerry Back

    (Rice University)

  • Pierre Collin-Dufresne

    (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and Swiss Finance Institute)

  • Vyacheslav Fos

    (Boston College)

  • Tao Li

    (City University of Hong Kong)

  • Alexander Ljungqvist

    (New York University (NYU), National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), and Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

Abstract

We analyze dynamic trading by an activist investor who can expend costly effort to affect firm value. We obtain the equilibrium in closed form for a general activism technology, including both binary and continuous outcomes. Variation in parameters can produce either positive or negative relations between market liquidity and economic efficiency, depending on the activism technology and model parameters. Two results that contrast with the previous literature are that (a) the relation between market liquidity and economic efficiency is independent of the activist's initial stake for a broad set of activism echnologies and (b) an increase in noise trading can reduce market liquidity, because it increases uncertainty about the activist's trades (the activist trades in the opposite direction of noise traders) and thereby increases information asymmetry about the activist's intentions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kerry Back & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos & Tao Li & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2018. "Activism, Strategic Trading, and Liquidity," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 18-42, Swiss Finance Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp1842
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. Cookson, J. Anthony & Fos, Vyacheslav & Niessner, Marina, 2021. "Does Disagreement Facilitate Informed Trading? Evidence from Activist Investors," SocArXiv q8xvc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Huang, Sheng & Maharjan, Johan & Nanda, Vikram, 2024. "Liquid stock as an acquisition currency," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Gu, Lifeng & Wang, Yixin & Yao, Wentao & Zhang, Yilin, 2018. "Stock liquidity and corporate diversification: Evidence from China’s split share structure reform," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 57-80.
    4. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Alon Brav & Wei Jiang & Thomas Keusch, 2019. "Dancing With Activists," NBER Working Papers 26171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Corum, Adrian Aycan, 2021. "Fighting Fire with Fire: Optimality of Value Destruction to Mitigate Short-Termism," OSF Preprints xhwmg, Center for Open Science.
    6. Habibi Khalaj, Ali & Halgamuge, Saman K., 2017. "A Review on efficient thermal management of air- and liquid-cooled data centers: From chip to the cooling system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1165-1188.
    7. Dasgupta, Amil & Fos, Vyacheslav & Sautner, Zacharias, 2021. "Institutional investors and corporate governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112114, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Meirowitz, Adam & Pi, Shaoting, 2022. "Voting and trading: The shareholder’s dilemma," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1073-1096.
    9. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2022. "Activism and Takeovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1868-1896.
    10. Shreya Bose & Ibrahim Ekren, 2020. "Kyle-Back Models with risk aversion and non-Gaussian Beliefs," Papers 2008.06377, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    11. Johnson, Travis L. & Swem, Nathan, 2021. "Reputation and investor activism: A structural approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 29-56.
    12. Ordóñez-Calafi, Guillem & Bernhardt, Dan, 2022. "Blockholder Disclosure Thresholds and Hedge Fund Activism," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(7), pages 2834-2859, November.
    13. Han, Jinhui & Li, Xiaolong & Ma, Guiyuan & Kennedy, Adrian Patrick, 2023. "Strategic trading with information acquisition and long-memory stochastic liquidity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 480-495.
    14. Dumitrescu, Ariadna & Zakriya, Mohammed, 2022. "Governance, information flow, and stock returns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    15. Asadul Islam, 2017. "Cross-modal Computer Games as an Interactive Learning Medium," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5007280, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    16. Jin Hyuk Choi & Heeyoung Kwon & Kasper Larsen, 2022. "Trading constraints in continuous-time Kyle models," Papers 2206.08117, arXiv.org.
    17. Wassim Daher & Harun Aydilek & Elias G. Saleeby, 2020. "Insider trading with different risk attitudes," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 123-147, October.
    18. Doruk Cetemen & Gonzalo Cisternas & Aaron Kolb & S Viswanathan, 2022. "Leader-Follower Dynamics in Shareholder Activism," Staff Reports 1030, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    19. Schroth, Enrique & Albuquerque, Rui & Fos, Vyacheslav, 2020. "Value creation in Shareholder Activism: A Structural Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 14995, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Li, Tao, 2022. "Comments on “Dynamic noisy rational expectations equilibrium with insider information: Welfare and regulation,” by Jerome Detemple, Marcel Rindisbacher and Scott Robertson," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    21. Fos, Vyacheslav & Kahn, Charles, 2019. "The Threat of Intervention," CEPR Discussion Papers 13654, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Brav, Alon & Jiang, Wei & Keusch, Thomas, 2020. "Dancing with activists," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 1-41.
    23. Albuquerque, Rui & Fos, Vyacheslav & Schroth, Enrique, 2022. "Value creation in shareholder activism," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 153-178.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Kyle model; insider trading; strategic trading; asymmetric information; liquidity; price impact; market depth; activism; unobservable effort; economic efficiency; continuous time;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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