Stock liquidity and stock price crash risk

We find that stock liquidity increases stock price crash risk. To identify the causal effect, we use the decimalization of stock trading as an exogenous shock to liquidity. This effect is increasing in a firm’s ownership by transient investors and nonblockholders. Liquid firms have a higher likeliho...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chang, Xin, Chen, Yangyang, Zolotoy, Leon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/90182
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47221
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:We find that stock liquidity increases stock price crash risk. To identify the causal effect, we use the decimalization of stock trading as an exogenous shock to liquidity. This effect is increasing in a firm’s ownership by transient investors and nonblockholders. Liquid firms have a higher likelihood of future bad earnings news releases, which are accompanied by greater selling by transient investors, but not blockholders. Our results suggest that liquidity induces managers to withhold bad news, fearing that its disclosure will lead to selling by transient investors. Eventually, accumulated bad news is released all at once, causing a crash.