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Full-Text Articles in Business
Can Shorts Predict Returns? A Global Perspective, Ekkehart Boehmer, Zsuzsa R. Huszar, Yanchu Wang, Xiaoyan Zhang, Xinran Zhang
Can Shorts Predict Returns? A Global Perspective, Ekkehart Boehmer, Zsuzsa R. Huszar, Yanchu Wang, Xiaoyan Zhang, Xinran Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Using multiple short-sale measures, we examine the predictive power of short sales for future stock returns in 38 countries from July 2006 to December 2014. We find that the days-to-cover ratio and the utilization ratio measures have the most robust predictive power for future stock returns in the global capital market. Our results display significant cross-country and cross-firm differences in the predictive power of alternative short-sale measures. The predictive power of shorts is stronger in countries with nonprohibitive short sale regulations and for stocks with relatively low liquidity, high shorting fees, and low price efficiency.
Is The Synthetic Stock Price Really Lower Than Actual Price?, Jianfeng Hu
Is The Synthetic Stock Price Really Lower Than Actual Price?, Jianfeng Hu
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Conventional wisdom suggests synthetic stock prices are lower than actual prices due to short‐sale constraints and voting premiums. This study finds that such underpricing of the synthetic midquote disappears if arbitrageurs face security borrowing costs. The synthetic spread predominantly contains the actual spread. Synthetic stock overpricing is as common as underpricing but the former is more persistent and more profitable. The difference between synthetic and actual quotes is significantly affected by options market makers' hedging costs and investors' demand for leverage.
What Do Short Sellers Know?, Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones, Juan (Julie) Wu, Xiaoyan Zhang
What Do Short Sellers Know?, Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones, Juan (Julie) Wu, Xiaoyan Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Using NYSE short-sale order data, we investigate whether short sellers' informational advantage is related to firm earnings and analyst-related events. With a novel decomposition method, we find that while these fundamental event days constitute only 12% of sample days, they account for over 24% of the overall underperformance of heavily shorted stocks. Importantly, short sellers use both public news and private information to anticipate news regarding earnings and analysts. Shorting's predictive ability remains significant after controlling for information in analyst actions and displays no reversal patterns, indicating that short sellers know more than analysts, and the nature of their information …
Do Short Sellers Use Textual Information? Evidence From Annual Reports, Hung Wan Kot, Frank Weikai Li, Ming Liu, K.C. John Wei
Do Short Sellers Use Textual Information? Evidence From Annual Reports, Hung Wan Kot, Frank Weikai Li, Ming Liu, K.C. John Wei
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
We examine short-sellers’ use of textual information in annual reports for shorting activities. We find that more uncertainty and negative words in annual reports are associated with greater abnormal shorting volume. Short selling motivated by textual information negatively predicts stock price reaction around the filing date of 10-K reports. We further provide some evidence that textual information used by short-sellers are related to revisions of analysts’ earnings forecasts, changes in firm fundamentals, and increasing crash risk subsequently. Our results suggest that textual information in annual reports forms an important part of short-sellers’ information advantage.
The Trend In Short Selling And The Cross Section Of Stock Returns, Zhaobo Zhu, Xinrui Duan, Jun Tu
The Trend In Short Selling And The Cross Section Of Stock Returns, Zhaobo Zhu, Xinrui Duan, Jun Tu
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
This paper documents that stocks with a decreasing (increasing) trend in their short selling as proxied by the long-term change in short interest experience significant and positive (negative) abnormal returns. Moreover, the positive abnormal returns have larger absolute values and are more persistent. The return predictability of the trend in short selling is not subsumed by the level of short interest and other well-known determinants of stock returns. Investor sentiment does not affect the profitability of the trend strategy. Our results suggest that market participants underreact to public information on short interest and that short sellers are sophisticated investors.
Momentum And Reversal: The Role Of Short Selling, Zhaobo Zhu, Xinrui Duan, Licheng Sun, Jun Tu
Momentum And Reversal: The Role Of Short Selling, Zhaobo Zhu, Xinrui Duan, Licheng Sun, Jun Tu
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
This paper investigates the relation between short selling and momentum. We document that a consistent momentum strategy that buys lightly shorted winners and sells heavily shorted losers exhibits strong short-term momentum and no long-term reversal. In contrast, an inconsistent momentum strategy that buys heavily shorted winners and sells lightly shorted losers experiences weak short-term momentum and persistent long-term reversal. Our results are robust after controlling for firm characteristics, proxy for short-sale constraints, and investor sentiment, as well as an exogenous shock (the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997). These findings present a new challenge to existing theories of momentum that rely …
Short Selling And Economic Policy Uncertainty, Xiaping Cao, Yuchen Wang, Sili Zhou
Short Selling And Economic Policy Uncertainty, Xiaping Cao, Yuchen Wang, Sili Zhou
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
We study the trading behavior of short sellers in the presence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Daily short selling activity at either the aggregate level or the individual stock level is increasing in the EPU index (Baker, Bloom and Davis, 2016). EPU has great explanatory power for short trading. Cross-sectional tests show that the increase in short interest under high political uncertainty is from shorting stocks characterized by higher mispricing, greater policy sensitivity, higher illiquidity, greater volatility or analyst dispersion. Short sellers earn abnormal profits by trading on public information related to EPU.
Are Shorts Equally Informed? A Global Perspective, Ekkehart Boehmer, Zsuzsa R. Huszar, Yanchu Wang, Xiaoyan Wang
Are Shorts Equally Informed? A Global Perspective, Ekkehart Boehmer, Zsuzsa R. Huszar, Yanchu Wang, Xiaoyan Wang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
Short selling predicts future stock returns globally. We use 11 short-sale measures to examine the informativeness of short sales in 38 countries for the July 2006 to December 2014 period. We find that different short-sale measures display different return predictability. The days-to-cover ratio and loan supply measures have the most robust predictive power in the global capital market. We also document significant cross-country differences in the predictive power of the short selling measures and find that return predictability is stronger in countries with mild forms of short-sale restrictions, better market quality, and more developed markets.
Short Selling Meets Hedge Fund 13f: An Anatomy Of Informed Demand, Yawen Jiao, Massimo Massa, Hong Zhang
Short Selling Meets Hedge Fund 13f: An Anatomy Of Informed Demand, Yawen Jiao, Massimo Massa, Hong Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
The existing literature treats the short side (i.e., short selling) and the long side of hedge fund trading (i.e., fund holdings) independently. The two sides, however, complement each other: opposite changes in the two are likely to be driven by information, whereas simultaneous increases (decreases) of the two may be motivated by hedging (unwinding) considerations. We use this intuition to identify informed demand and document that it exhibits highly significant predictive power over returns (approximately 10% per year). We also find that informed demand forecasts future firm fundamentals, suggesting that hedge funds play an important role in information discovery. (C) …
Competition Of The Informed: Does The Presence Of Short Sellers Affect Insider Selling?, Massimo Massa, Wenlan Qian, Weibiao Xu, Hong Zhang
Competition Of The Informed: Does The Presence Of Short Sellers Affect Insider Selling?, Massimo Massa, Wenlan Qian, Weibiao Xu, Hong Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
We study how the presence of short sellers affects the incentives of the insiders to trade on negative information. We show it induces insiders to sell more (shares from their existing stakes) and trade faster to preempt the potential competition from short sellers. An experiment and instrumental variable analysis confirm this causal relationship. The effects are stronger for "opportunistic" (i.e., more informed) insider trades and when short sellers' attention is high. Return predictability of insider sales only occurs in stocks with high short-selling potential, suggesting that short sellers indirectly enhance the speed of information dissemination by accelerating trading by insiders. …
Which Shorts Are Informed?, Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones, Xiaoyan Zhang
Which Shorts Are Informed?, Ekkehart Boehmer, Charles M. Jones, Xiaoyan Zhang
Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business
We construct a long daily panel of short sales using proprietary NYSE order data. From 2000 to 2004, shorting accounts for more than 12.9% of NYSE volume, suggesting that shorting constraints are not widespread. As a group, these short sellers are well informed. Heavily shorted stocks underperform lightly shorted stocks by a risk-adjusted average of 1.16% over the following 20 trading days (15.6% annualized). Institutional nonprogram short sales are the most informative; stocks heavily shorted by institutions underperform by 1.43% the next month (19.6% annualized). The results indicate that, on average, short sellers are important contributors to efficient stock prices.