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We provide evidence that the profitability of corporate insiders' trading decreases in the degree of asymmetric timely loss recognition (TLR) of their firms' financial reporting. Consistent with TLR reducing insiders' information advantage over outside shareholders regarding future negative news about the firm, we find that reduced insider trading profitability is mainly driven by (a) stock sales, as opposed to purchases; (b) the price change component of trading, as opposed to its volume; and (c) insiders' nonroutine trades, as opposed to less information driven routine trades. Although CEOs/CFOs are more likely to influence TLR, the effect is more pronounced for non-CEO and non-CFO insiders, inconsistent with reverse causality. Overall, our findings suggest that TLR reduces managers' ability to extract rents from investors via insider trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying market abuse activity from data on investors' trading activity is very challenging both for the data volume and for the low signal to noise ratio. Here we propose two complementary unsupervised machine learning methods to support market surveillance aimed at identifying potential insider trading activities. The first one uses clustering to identify, in the vicinity of a price sensitive event such as a takeover bid, discontinuities in the trading activity of an investor with respect to her own past trading history and on the present trading activity of her peers. The second unsupervised approach aims at identifying (small) groups of investors that act coherently around price sensitive events, pointing to potential insider rings, i.e. a group of synchronised traders displaying strong directional trading in rewarding position in a period before the price sensitive event. As a case study, we apply our methods to investor resolved data of Italian stocks around takeover bids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature has established the need to separate insider from expert trading in both financial and betting markets. This type of separation proves difficult to achieve because experts and insiders co‐exist in most market settings. Utilizing novel betting markets in which expert skill bettors are unable to use their expert knowledge, this study uncouples insider from expert betting, and allows more direct measurement of insider trading than in previous empirical tests. Evidence is presented in favor of some predictions from the highly cited Shin model of insider trading. Price setters charge an extra premium in markets with high proportions of insiders when compared to equivalent markets. The insiders accurately predict event outcomes, and their presence exacerbates a well known bias in betting market prices whereby returns on betting favorites is higher than for bets on longshots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Taiwan Law Review is the property of Angle Publishing Co., Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using a novel dataset of US companies' regular board meeting schedules, we find evidence of informed trading by outside directors prior to board meetings. During the days prior to board meetings, when outside directors possess private information, they make more profitable and larger purchases than they do during other periods. We find no such patterns among inside directors who possess private information regardless of the timing of board meetings. We further find that the profitability of outside directors' purchases made prior to board meetings is associated with subsequent news disclosures and is realized shortly after the purchases, consistent with the opportunistic use of private board meeting information. Our findings suggest that providing private information to outside directors in preparation for board meetings—a process deemed necessary for effective board monitoring—can facilitate opportunistic insider trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Identifying market abuse activity from data on investors’ trading activity is very challenging both for the data volume and for the low signal to noise ratio. Here we propose two complementary unsupervised machine learning methods to support market surveillance aimed at identifying potential insider trading activities. The first one uses clustering to identify, in the vicinity of a price sensitive event such as a takeover bid, discontinuities in the trading activity of an investor with respect to her own past trading history and on the present trading activity of her peers. The second unsupervised approach aims at identifying (small) groups of investors that act coherently around price sensitive events, pointing to potential insider rings, i.e. a group of synchronised traders displaying strong directional trading in rewarding position in a period before the price sensitive event. As a case study, we apply our methods to investor resolved data of Italian stocks around takeover bids.

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We examine whether mandatory adoption of say on pay increases executives' incentives to engage in insider trading to compensate for the negative impact of say on pay on the value of their explicit compensation packages. Our empirical design exploits the staggered adoption of say on pay laws across 14 countries over the 2000–2015 period. We find that mandatory adoption is associated with a material increase in insider trading profits, especially in firms where executive pay is most affected. The increase in insider trading profits is driven mostly by more frequent and larger profitable insider sales, consistent with executives' desire to reduce their greater exposure to firm-specific risk while increasing their trading profits. Overall, our results highlight the importance of considering potential effects on insider trading incentives when designing compensation reforms and when assessing their effectiveness. Data Availability: All data used in the paper are available from cited public sources. JEL Classifications: G30; G34; G38; J33; K22; M12; M16. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique setting where stand-alone banks submit filings to bank regulators instead of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), we examine the consequences of fragmented securities regulation for information-processing costs and opportunistic insider trading. We find the market reaction to insider-trading filings on FDICconnect is less timely than to those on SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system, suggesting FDICconnect generates higher information-processing costs. We also find only large investors trade more on insider-trading filings on FDICconnect than on insider-trading filings on SEC EDGAR, thus extracting benefits from the delayed market reaction to insider-trading filings on FDICconnect. Finally, we find increased insider selling in stand-alone banks prior to negative earnings news, suggesting insiders' opportunistic use of private information. These findings collectively suggest regulatory fragmentation undermines market efficiency and distorts the level playing field. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting. Funding: This work was supported by the Eugene Lang Junior Faculty Fellowship. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4903. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas corporate insiders at U.S.-listed, U.S.-domiciled companies must disclose their stock sales electronically within two business days on Form 4, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) exempts insiders at U.S.-listed, foreign-domiciled companies from this requirement. Instead, these "foreign insiders" report their sales on a paper form mail-filed with the SEC. Using a unique data set compiled from digitized versions of thousands of paper forms, we examine the stock sales of foreign insiders and compare their trading to that of their U.S. counterparts. Consistent with a lack of public scrutiny facilitating opportunism, we show that foreign insiders' stock sales are highly opportunistic and opportunistic trading is concentrated in companies that are domiciled in nonextradition countries beyond the reach of U.S. legal authorities: specifically, Russia and China. The average stock sale by foreign insiders affiliated with companies domiciled in these countries is more than four times larger than that of U.S. insiders and occurs prior to stock price declines of at least −18%. In our sample, we estimate that insiders at these companies have traded to avoid losses of more than $9 billion. Collectively, our results suggest that corporate insiders associated with Chinese and Russian companies listed on U.S. exchanges trade in a highly opportunistic and abusive manner. The SEC's decision to exempt these insiders from Form 4 reporting requirements prevents much needed public scrutiny of their trading and, in turn, prevents market forces from disciplining their trading. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting. Funding: We thank our schools and the Dean's Research Fund at Wharton for financial support. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.02131. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article raises the question of whether the European Insider Trading and Market Manipulation Regulation (Market Abuse Regulation—MAR) affected the behaviour of investors around the date of the final financial report announcement. The MAR is a relatively recent regulation in the European Union and provides stricter rules for information disclosure than the previous Market Abuse Directive. One can expect that this regulation should improve the information flow from companies to investors, lowering the volatility of stock returns and abnormal rate of return around the date of the final report. To verify this hypothesis, the panel regressions and ANOVA analysis were applied to the stock prices of 60 medium and large-size companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the years 2013–2018. The analysis demonstrates that implementing the regulation has increased the average volatility of stock prices, whereas prices in the period before and after the publication period of annual financial reports remained unaffected. It indicates that the information provided was of lower quality, despite the increase in the information available to the public. Therefore, the anti-abusive regulation requires a modification of rules applied to small stock markets as they do not meet their objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine an overlooked type of insider transaction—CEOs' stock gifts to family members. CEOs should prefer to make family stock gifts at relative price minima, consistent with an estate and gift tax planning strategy called an estate freeze. We demonstrate that CEO freeze gifts generally follow temporary price suppressions and precede significant price appreciation, leading to substantial estate tax savings. Further, we find positive market returns one and two years following disclosure of freeze gifts. However, the market response to disclosure of these gifts is confounded by the delayed reporting regime for gifts. We demonstrate additional strategic behavior based on evidence of backdating, timing around earnings announcements, and subsequent sales of gifted shares preceding diminishing stock performance. Our findings suggest CEO family stock gifts credibly signal future price performance, which market participants would benefit from knowing if the information were promptly disclosed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the source of 10b5-1 plan insiders' superior trade performance. Specifically, this article examines whether insiders trade on their private information about the firm's future earnings performance through 10b5-1 sell trades and the features of 10b5-1 plan trades that are exploited to achieve superior trade performance. I find strong evidence that insiders use 10b5-1 plans to sell stock before disappointing earnings results. However, there is no evidence of earnings management around 10b5-1 sales, consistent with insiders' good trade timing deriving from their foreknowledge about unfavorable earnings news rather than their ability to influence the timing and recognition of earnings performance. Restricting the sample to insiders who trade both before and after the implementation of Rule 10b5-1, I find that these insiders traded aggressively on earnings information even in the pre-10b5-1 era, but then shifted aggressive trading into 10b5-1 plans after the availability of planned trading, implying an unintended consequence of Rule 10b5-1. Finally, I document that strategic 10b5-1 trades tend to be infrequent, irregularly timed, close to the plan initiation date, and executed during traditional earnings blackout periods, revealing problematic features within 10b5-1 plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this study is the insider trading behaviors within the US financial markets, with a focus on transactions by politicians and public officials, and their implications for global economic stability. The purpose is to investigate and analyze these transactions for ethical and legal challenges, and to evaluate their potential impact on market integrity and investor trust. The relevance of this research arises from the substantial influence these figures have on market dynamics, the legal nuances involved in their financial activities, and the broader implications for market transparency and fairness. The scientific novelty is established using econometric modeling and data analytics, particularly the analysis of trading behavior that potentially circumvents the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. The methods employed include a Python tool to extract data from financial disclosures and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to analyze key indicators of insider behavior. The results indicate a significant proportion of trades, approximately 86.67%, were conducted by politicians with noted STOCK Act violations, highlighting a potential gap in the enforcement of current laws and reporting standards. The authors concluded that the findings call for stricter law enforcement, a reevaluation of reporting standards, and comprehensive financial disclosures to maintain market integrity, alongside an urgent need for improved regulatory measures and enhanced transparency mechanisms to mitigate the risks associated with insider trading by individuals in positions of power.

This study assesses the level of potential insider trading on the Saudi stock market (Tadawul) before and after the introduction of financial reforms. The level of potential insider trading is estimated by employing the market cleanliness measure (MCM) which determines the proportion of significant announcements (SAs) that were preceded by abnormal pre-announcement price movements (APPMs). The analysis was carried out using an event study approach to gauge the impact of an event on a security return. The market model is used to estimate the expected return which is subsequently compared with the actual return. The findings suggest the existence of significant abnormal returns surrounding 128 out of 1,958 unscheduled announcements made by firms listed on Tadawul from 2011 to 2020. The MCM shows that 56.36% of SAs were preceded by APPMs during the pre-financial reforms period whereas the ratio dropped to 45.2% over the post-financial reforms period. Although the findings suggest a reduction in the MCM by 11.16%, the statistics for the subsequent period was not statistically lower than the preceding period. The present study establishes a fundamental basis for tracking the efficacy of new regulations in deterring insider trading activities. This study provides empirical evidence and implications that can be taken into consideration by all parties concerned with illegal insider trading and market integrity.

Criminal practices in the capital market are commonly known by the terminology insider trading, a long-standing crime that is not well-known to the public. Insider trading constitutes a legal violation as well as an ethical breach that can pose serious risks to market integrity and harm investors who do not have specific information access. This journal will explore the legal protection and enforcement framework that explains the Indonesian legal framework governing transactions in the capital market in an effort to protect the public from insider trading. Legal protection includes the enforcement of provisions found in laws, regulations, and supervisory mechanisms applied by financial authorities, which is essential to create a fair and efficient market. Therefore, understanding the effectiveness of existing laws and enforcement of rules is crucial to protecting the public from insider trading crimes. This journal is expected to provide knowledge to enhance and develop legal science, particularly related to the analysis of insider trading law enforcement in the capital market in Indonesia. This journal is hoped to provide input and recommendations for authorities and stakeholders involved in providing legal protection to the public for the enforcement of laws in accordance with the provisions of the Indonesian Capital Market Law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of URVIO - Revista Latinoamericana de Seguridad Ciudadana is the property of FLACSO - Ecuador (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We find that insiders adopt dissimulation strategies to conceal their informational advantage and trade profitably when their firms' stock prices reach 52‐week highs and lows, exploiting the anchoring biases of uninformed investors. Insiders' trading profitability depends on their firms' future stock returns, operating efficiency, and investment sentiment, but not on earnings surprises. We document that male board members and insiders with long investment horizons are more likely to use dissimulation strategies. Overall, we provide evidence that insiders benefit from these price extremes, despite their status as publicly available, irrelevant, historical price levels that normally should not predict future stock returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the first comprehensive evidence of insider trading patterns and abnormal profits in the Turkish stock market using almost 65,000 insider transactions for the period of 2008–2019. Our findings show that insiders earn a significant 6.58% abnormal profit during the one year following insider trading. Officers, directors, and institutional investors earn even more. Both purchases and sales are profitable. Top executives, major shareholders, and institutional investors earn significant dollar profits. Additionally, uninformed investors can beat the market by mimicking the portfolios of insiders, while evidence shows that regulatory changes do not reduce insiders' profits. Finally, this study provides important trading implications for investors and regulatory implications for policymakers everywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a closed-form solution connecting the probability of informed trading ($PIN$ PIN) to the overlooked parameter that signaling private information is good or bad. Estimating $PIN$ PIN using illegal insider trading data, we find it sensitive to the certainty of positive private information in addition to the existed explanations, offering a new explanation for $PIN$ PIN 's limitations in prior literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derivatives are increasingly used by managers not only to hedge risks but also to pursue nonhedging activities for fulfilling opportunistic incentives. The Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 161 (SFAS 161) requires firms to disclose their objectives and strategies for using derivatives. Using the adoption of this standard, we examine whether and how derivative disclosures influence managerial opportunistic behavior. We employ insider trades and stock price crash risk to capture managerial opportunism. Applying a difference‐in‐differences research design with hand‐collected data on derivative designations, we find that, after the implementation of SFAS 161, derivative users that comply with SFAS 161 experience a significantly greater decrease in both insider trades and stock price crash risk, compared with a matched control sample of nonderivative‐users. We further provide evidence to suggest that SFAS 161 curbs managerial opportunism via reducing information asymmetry between corporate insiders and outside investors and enhancing the effectiveness of derivative hedging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sudden and exogenous nature of the COVID-19 crash provides a unique identification opportunity to study insiders' informational advantages. We find that the sales of insiders at firms with connections to China were significantly more profitable during the COVID-19 crisis than the sales of insiders at firms without connections to China. Consistent with greater attentiveness to public information about the COVID-19 pandemic, this result is driven by China connected insiders executing larger (smaller) sales in the early (late) COVID-19 period than non–China connected insiders. We find our results are driven by trades that are not preplanned under Rule 10b5–1 and are consistent with anticipation of the systematic market effects of COVID-19 on an insider's firm as opposed to firm-specific effects. Aggregate China connected insider trades also predict market returns during the COVID-19 period. Our study contributes to the insider trading literature by introducing geographic connection to market-wide information as a source of public information advantage and to regulatory efforts to investigate and understand corporate insider behavior related to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objetivo: Este estudo tem por objetivo analisar a relação entre a repercussão do insider trading ilegal no mercado de capitais e o grau de penalidade em companhias brasileiras e norte americanas. Método: Essa pesquisa se caracteriza como descritiva, com análise quantitativa, por meio dos testes estatísticos do Qui-quadrado de Pearson e Mann-Whitney. O levantamento de dados foi realizado por meio de busca de casos de insider trading em sites governamentais do Brasil e Estados Unidos, CVM e SEC, respectivamente, além de pesquisas em sites de notícias. O período investigado considerou os anos entre 2000 até 2021, cujo amostra consiste em cento e trinta casos de insider trading ilegal. Originalidade/relevância: Este trabalho se diferencia por mostrar as consequências do insider trading em comparação às penalizações desse ato ilegal em ambientes institucionais distintos. Resultados: Os achados deste estudo mostram que a relação entre a repercussão do insider trading no mercado de capitais com a penalidade é maior em países com menor proteção ao acionista, não se rejeitando a hipótese do estudo, corroborando com a literatura teórica. Adicionalmente, observou-se que há diferença estatística na penalidade aplicada, já que nos Estados Unidos existe um maior enforcement do que no Brasil, influenciada pela realidade institucional diferenciada destes dois países. Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas/práticas: As evidências apresentadas sinalizam aos órgãos reguladores brasileiros a importância de dar uma maior atenção quanto ao conteúdo das leis e a qualidade de sua aplicação com o intuito de aumentar a confiabilidade dos investidores. Como sugestão para futuras pesquisas, recomenda-se aumentar a quantidade de casos investigados ou outro critério diferenciador, como o período e a quantidade de países.

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cel artykułu. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie kluczowych wniosków z analizy orzecznictwa, w tym definicji oraz najczęstszych modus operandi sprawców oraz charakterystycznych cech przestępstw manipulacji, wykorzystywania oraz ujawniania informacji poufnych. Przestępstwa te (klasyfikowane zgodnie z Rozporządzeniem MAR jako nadużycia na rynku) są szczególnie szkodliwe dla polskiego rynku kapitałowego, ponieważ naruszają zaufanie inwestorów do rynku i niszczą jego efektywność. Metodyka. Autorzy, bazując na literaturze, raportach organu nadzoru nad polskim rynkiem kapitałowym (KPWiG / KNF) oraz wyrokach sądowych, stworzyli pierwsze w polskiej literaturze kompleksowe opracowanie orzecznictwa dla nadużyć na rynku. Wyniki badania. Czas trwania procesu prokuratorsko-sądowego dla wykorzystywania lub ujawniania informacji poufnych trwał 6,5, a w przypadku manipulacji, aż 7,8 razy dłużej od przeciętnego procesu karnego. W przypadku wykorzystywania i ujawniania informacji poufnych skuteczność orzekania była zdecydowanie niższa (7% zawiadomień do prokuratury zakończyło się wyrokami skazującymi), niż w przypadku manipulacji (46%). Statystyki te wynikają głównie ze skomplikowanej materii nadużyć na rynku. Typowym modus operandi manipulacji był sztuczny jednoosobowy handel „sam ze sobą” lub ściśle powiązana ze sobą aktywność kilku osób (wash trade). Sprawcami nadużyć były przeważnie osoby o dużej wiedzy o funkcjonowaniu giełdy, które w toku postępowania próbowały zasłaniać się niewiedzą czy spekulacją, jednak często uczestnicy rynku nie byli świadomi bezprawności podejmowanych działań.

Copyright of Lex Humana is the property of Lex Humana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines whether board social networks are associated with executive trading profitability. Using a sample of US public firms with a history of executive trading from years 2000 to 2015, we find robust evidence that the profitability of executive trading is significantly lower in firms with higher levels of board social networks. The evidence is consistent with our view that board social networks effectively curb executives' private information advantage over outsiders, thus leading to a lower level of managerial rent‐seeking. Our research has policy implications for regulators concerned about the role of corporate board in capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore insider trading at multinational firms and find multinational firm insiders make larger trades followed by larger abnormal returns relative to those at domestic firms. Multinational firm insiders profitably purchase underpriced, value stocks with low past returns. They trade more profitably, not only because of market pricing opportunities, but also because of the advantageous timing of informed trades before earnings announcements. Insider trading profits are highest at multinational firms with foreign sales in regions culturally and linguistically distinct from the United States. These findings are consistent with opportunistic insiders strategically profiting from difficult to process foreign information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

822 In an ever more globalized financial market, investors are increasingly exposed to regulation and enforcement by multiple jurisdictions with varying rules, including different insider trading regimes. From a European perspective, potential exposure to the U. S. insider trading regime is particularly challenging. Especially for the non-U. S. practitioner, the U. S. insider prohibition is very complex and offers little legal certainty. And this uncertainty is all the more problematic for Europeans because the U. S. insider ban applies extraterritorially. Even more worrying, violations of the U. S. insider trading regime are often met with harsh consequences, ranging from stiff prison sentences to ruinous financial penalties. First, this article broadly outlines the contours of the U. S. insider trading regime as well as the current state of play for insider trading enforcement under U. S. law. Second, it outlines the fearsome (extra-) territorial reach of the U. S. insider trading ban, to allow a better assessment of a European's potential exposure to the U. S. insider trading regime in different situations. Third, it highlights the main differences between the U. S. and the EU insider trading regulations, to identify the areas in which market participants on both sides of the Atlantic should be particularly cautious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Finance & Financial Law / Finanse i Prawo Finansowe is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We study insider trading in a jump-binomial model of the financial market that is based on a marked binomial process and that serves as a suitable alternative to some classical trinomial models. Our investigations focus on the two main questions: measuring the advantage of the insider's additional information and stating a closed form for her hedging strategy. Our approach is based on the results of enlargement of filtration in a discrete-time setting stated by Blanchet-Scalliet and Jeanblanc (in: From probability to finance, Springer, Berlin, 2020) and on a stochastic analysis for marked binomial processes developed in the companion paper (Halconruy in Electron J Probab 27:1–39, 2022). Our work provides in a discrete-time and an incomplete market setting the analogues of some results of Amendinger et al. (Stoch Process Appl 89(1):101–116, 2000; Finance Stoch 7(1):29–46, 2003), Imkeller et al. (1998, 2006) and extends in an insider framework some utility maximization results stated in Delbaen and Schachermayer (The mathematics of arbitrage, Springer, Berlin, 2006) and in Runggaldier et al. (in: Seminar on stochastic analysis, random fields and applications III, Springer, Berlin, 2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2002 enactment of Section 403(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX403) made option backdating less viable for firms. I examine whether the loss of the benefits obtained from option backdating is associated with more fraud after the enactment of SOX403. For firms suspected of backdating options (suspect firms), I find an increase in fraudulent financial reporting after the enactment of SOX403. The increase in fraud is more prominent for suspect firms more affected by SOX403. I also find an increase in insider trading profits from fraud for individuals who formerly benefited from option backdating. My study highlights an unintended consequence of SOX403. The opportunistic timing of executive option compensation appears to be replaced with fraudulent activities that are likely more value-destroying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a continuous-time insider trading model is investigated in which an insider is risk-seeking and market makers may receive partial information on the value of a risky asset. With the help of filtering theory and dynamic programming principle, the uniqueness and existence of linear equilibrium is established. It shows that (ⅰ) as time goes by, the residual information decreases, but both the trading intensity and the market liquidity increases, and (ⅱ) with the partial observation accuracy decreasing, both the market liquidity and the residual information will increase while the trading intensity decreases. On the whole, the risk-seeking insider is eager to trade all the trading period, and for market development, it is necessary to increase the insider's risk-preference behavior appropriately.

The regular pattern of quarterly earnings announcements sets up a predictable pattern of information asymmetry in the market. Both regulatory restrictions and voluntary corporate restrictions direct trading to low information asymmetry periods. To understand the effect of these restrictions, this study examines insider trading in three different windows: white windows (3–12 trading days after the earnings announcement, periods with low information asymmetry), black windows (all the other days in the quarter, periods with higher information asymmetry), and the blackest windows (the last 10 trading days of the black window, periods with the highest information asymmetry). First, our results show that a large proportion of insider trading in the United States takes place in the black window. Second, we document that trading in the white period exhibits a strong self-selection bias. We also show that the excess returns earned by black period trades vanish if postponed to the next white period following the earnings announcement. Finally, we show that a relatively large proportion of pre-specified trading under SEC-sponsored 10b5-1 plans are filed for black window periods, but the difference across black and white window plans is a matter of frequency of trade rather than the magnitude of profits. Overall, these results suggest that insiders balance the risk and profitability of their trading in white and black windows and that insider trading restriction in high-information asymmetry periods is not effective in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)