Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs

Mozaffar N. Khan; Leonid  Kogan; George  Serafeim

Article | Journal of Finance | 2012

Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs

by Mozaffar N. Khan, Leonid Kogan and George Serafeim

Abstract

In tests of the equity market timing theory of external finance, the prior literature has used overvaluation identifiers such as high market-to-book and high prior returns that are likely correlated with other determinants of SEOs. We use price pressure resulting from purchases by mutual funds with large capital inflows to identify overvalued equity. This is a relatively exogenous overvaluation indicator as it is associated with who is buying—buyers with excess liquidity—rather than what is being purchased. Using this indicator we document that 1) inflow-driven buying pressure by mutual funds has a pronounced and persistent stock price impact, 2) the probability of an SEO increases by 59%, 3) insider sales increase by 7%, and 4) the probability of completing a stock-based acquisition increases by 20% in the four quarters following the buying pressure. These results provide new evidence that firm managers are able to identify and exploit overvalued equity.

Keywords: Equity; Market Transactions; Valuation; Capital Structure; Market Timing; Mathematical Methods; Acquisition;

Format: Print

SSRN Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Khan, Mozaffar N., Leonid Kogan, and George Serafeim. "Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs." Journal of Finance 67, no. 4 (August 2012): 1371–1395.

The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between 2000 and 2007, depriving the U.S. Treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Why did this happen inside UBS? What were the incentives and the corporate governance failures that led to these events? How should the board of directors of UBS respond to the requests of the tax and regulatory authorities?

As sustainability issues, also labelled environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, become financially material, companies, investors, and regulators are designing strategies and policies to improve sustainability disclosure and performance. In this paper, we outline a framework of how sustainability issues become financially material arguing that materiality is not a “state of being” but a “process of becoming.” Our framework could assist companies and investors to make resource allocation decisions based on expectations about future materiality, social entrepreneurs and NGOs to develop their theories of social change, and policy makers to design disclosure regulations. Moreover, our framework generates predictions about the conditions under which sustainability issues become financial material that could be empirically tested in the future.

Faculty & Research

Mutual Fund Trading Pressure: Firm-Level Stock Price Impact and Timing of SEOs

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author