We advance the feedback/cash as ammunition hypothesis, namely that firms hold cash to address feedback from stock prices to cash ows and growth opportunities. Firms with more liquid stocks are expected to hold more cash, the opposite of the prediction from a standard information asymmetry...

We show that enhanced stock liquidity increases a firm’s propensity to hold cash using tick-size decimalization for identification. Our finding is surprising in light of the view that improved stock liquidity reduces financial constraints. As an explanation, we propose that there is a...