IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imd/wpaper/wp2007-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The dog that did not bark: Insider trading and crashes

Author

Listed:
  • José M. Marín

    (IE Business School and IMDEA)

  • Jacques Olivier

    (HEC Paris)

Abstract

This paper documents that at the individual stock level insiders sales peak many months before a large drop in the stock price, while insiders purchases peak only the month before a large jump. We provide a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon based on trading constraints and asymmetric information. A key feature of our theory is that rational uninformed investors may react more strongly to the absence of insider sales than to their presence (the “dog that did not bark” effect). We test our hypothesis against competing stories such as patterns of insider trading driven by earnings announcement dates, or insiders timing their trades to evade prosecution.

Suggested Citation

  • José M. Marín & Jacques Olivier, 2007. "The dog that did not bark: Insider trading and crashes," Working Papers 2007-20, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    • Handle: RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2007-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.imdea.org/pdf/imdea-wp2007-20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kathy Yuan, 2005. "Asymmetric Price Movements and Borrowing Constraints: A Rational Expectations Equilibrium Model of Crises, Contagion, and Confusion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 379-411, February.
    2. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2003. "Beauty Contests, Bubbles and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1406, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 2003. "Differences of Opinion, Short-Sales Constraints, and Market Crashes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 487-525.
    4. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    5. Radner, Roy, 1979. "Rational Expectations Equilibrium: Generic Existence and the Information Revealed by Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 655-678, May.
    6. Basak, Suleyman & Cass, David & Licari, Juan Manuel & Pavlova, Anna, 2008. "Multiplicity in general financial equilibrium with portfolio constraints," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 100-127, September.
    7. Barlevy, Gadi & Veronesi, Pietro, 2003. "Rational panics and stock market crashes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 234-263, June.
    8. Chen, Joseph & Hong, Harrison & Stein, Jeremy C., 2001. "Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 345-381, September.
    9. Meulbroek, Lisa K, 1992. "An Empirical Analysis of Illegal Insider Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1661-1699, December.
    10. Harrison Hong & José Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2006. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1073-1117, June.
    11. Gennotte, Gerard & Leland, Hayne, 1990. "Market Liquidity, Hedging, and Crashes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 999-1021, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Harrison Hong & Jose Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2005. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000861, UCLA Department of Economics.
    14. Allen F. & Morris S. & Postlewaite A., 1993. "Finite Bubbles with Short Sale Constraints and Asymmetric Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 206-229, December.
    15. Romer, David, 1993. "Rational Asset-Price Movements without News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1112-1130, December.
    16. Devenow, Andrea & Welch, Ivo, 1996. "Rational herding in financial economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 603-615, April.
    17. Lakonishok, Josef & Lee, Inmoo, 2001. "Are Insider Trades Informative?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 79-111.
    18. Leslie A. Jeng & Andrew Metrick & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Estimating the Returns to Insider Trading: A Performance-Evaluation Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 453-471, May.
    19. H. Henry Cao & Joshua D. Coval & David Hirshleifer, 2002. "Sidelined Investors, Trading-Generated News, and Security Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 615-648, March.
    20. José M. Marín & Rohit Rahi, 2000. "Information Revelation and Market Incompleteness," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 563-579.
    21. Gary Chamberlain, 1980. "Analysis of Covariance with Qualitative Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 225-238.
    22. Suleyman Basak & David Cass & Juan Manuel Licari & Anna Pavlova, 2006. "Multiplicity and Sunspots in General Financial Equilibrium with Portfolio Constraints," PIER Working Paper Archive 06-012, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    23. Franklin Allen & Douglas Gale, 1998. "Bubbles and Crises The Economic Journal," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 98-01, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    24. Sylvain Friederich & Alan Gregory & John Matatko & Ian Tonks, 2002. "Short‐run Returns around the Trades of Corporate Insiders on the London Stock Exchange," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 8(1), pages 7-30, March.
    25. Conrad, Jennifer & Kaul, Gautam, 1993. "Long-Term Market Overreaction or Biases in Computed Returns?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 39-63, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ouzan, Samuel, 2020. "Loss aversion and market crashes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 70-86.
    2. Lenkey, Stephen L., 2017. "Insider trading and the short-swing profit rule," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 517-545.
    3. David M. Frankel, 2008. "Adaptive Expectations And Stock Market Crashes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(2), pages 595-619, May.
    4. Condie, Scott & Ganguli, Jayant, 2017. "The pricing effects of ambiguous private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 512-557.
    5. Stephen L. Lenkey, 2021. "Informed Trading with a Short-Sale Prohibition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1803-1824, March.
    6. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    7. Hung, Shengmin & Qiao, Zheng, 2017. "Shadows in the Sun: Crash risk behind Earnings Transparency," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-18.
    8. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    9. Ganguli, Jayant & Condie, Scott, 2012. "The pricing effects of ambiguous private information," Economics Discussion Papers 5631, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    10. Jürgen Huber & Matthias Sutter & Michael Kirchler, 2004. "Is more information always better? Experimental financial markets with asymmetric information," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2005-13, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    11. Rajan Sruthi & Santhakumar Shijin, 2020. "Investigating liquidity constraints as a channel of contagion: a regime switching approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    12. Goergen, Marc & Renneboog, Luc & Zhao, Yang, 2019. "Insider trading and networked directors," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 152-175.
    13. Nicolae Gârleanu & Stavros Panageas & Jianfeng Yu, 2015. "Financial Entanglement: A Theory of Incomplete Integration, Leverage, Crashes, and Contagion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 1979-2010, July.
    14. Peter C. B. Phillips & Shuping Shi, 2019. "Detecting Financial Collapse and Ballooning Sovereign Risk," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(6), pages 1336-1361, December.
    15. Qin Lei & Xuewu Wang, 2014. "Time†Varying Liquidity Trading, Private Information and Insider Trading," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(2), pages 321-351, March.
    16. Guanming He & Helen Mengbing Ren & Richard Taffler, 2021. "Do corporate insiders trade on future stock price crash risk?," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1561-1591, May.
    17. Anginer, Deniz & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli, 2014. "Has the global banking system become more fragile over time?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 202-213.
    18. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 552-576, June.
    19. Juan Hatchondo, 2004. "The value of information with heterogeneous agents and partially revealing prices," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 175, Econometric Society.
    20. Peter Cziraki & Peter De Goeij & Luc Renneboog, 2014. "Corporate Governance Rules and Insider Trading Profits," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(1), pages 67-108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    insider trading; rational expectations equilibrium; trading constraints; volatility; crashes; short- sales constraint;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • 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:imd:wpaper:wp2007-20. 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: IMDEA RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icimdes.html .

    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.