This paper investigates the patterns of directors' trades and returns around takeover announcements. We find that the pre-announcement net value (the difference between buy value and sell value) of directors' trading is positively related to acquirers' announcement period abnormal returns. This...

This study examines how Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have been used as a financing tool for the shipping industry in period 2004-2013. SPACs that focused on acquisitions in the shipping industry statistically have similar characteristics as the population of SPACs that entered...

In this paper I examine the relationship between credit rating and insider trading of 301 firms from 2000-2006 for S&P 500 Index firms. I argue that changes to the firm credit rating may increase (decrease) informed trading activities. This investigation is essential since insiders with private...

We survey the textual sentiment literature, comparing and contrasting the various information sources, content analysis methods, and empirical models that have been used to date. We summarize the important and influential findings about how textual sentiment impacts on individual, firm-level and...

We develop a model where insiders' decision to manipulate earnings is linked both to their stake and to corporate governance. We show how earnings manipulation affects analysts' forecasts and institutional trading. More precisely, whenever there is “excessive” earnings manipulation, we...

Using the split-share structure reform in China as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine the effect of stock liquidity on investment efficiency. Consistent with feedback and incentive theories, investment efficiency increases after the reform but only for under-investing firms. Higher stock...

We study the role of goodwill, an important form of intangible assets arising from merger and acquisitions (M&As), on asset pricing. We find that goodwill-to-sales strongly and negatively predicts the cross-section of U.S. stock returns, especially among firms with cross-industry M&As and firms...

We hypothesize that corporate takeover markets create significant constraints for short sellers. Both short sellers and corporate bidders often target firms with declining economic prospects. Yet, a target firm's stock price generally increases upon a takeover announcement, resulting in losses...

This paper examines changes in Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk after M&A announcement for the companies involved. Existing literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A announcements from the shareholders' perspective, but there is limited...

The paper discovers that firm complexity is negatively priced in cross-section. High/low-complexity conglomerates have 35-50/20-28 bp per month more negative five-factor Fama and French (2015) alphas than single-segment firms, and this effect is stronger in subsamples with low institutional...