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| Can Pre-announcement Reduce the Profitability of Insider Selling？ Evidence from the “New Regulation of Insider Selling” in China |
| ZHANG Cheng, ZENG Qingsheng, HE Huiyu
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School of Accountancy, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics;
Institute of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics;
School of Accountancy, Singapore Management University |
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Abstract Can pre-announcement reduce the information advantage of insider trading？ This question has been discussed deeply in analytical research. In 2000, Fried proposed that pre-announcement can effectively reduce the profitability of insider trading, and as a regulatory method, it has the benefit of lower implementation costs. Subsequently, several papers used theoretical models to show that pre-announcement reduces the probability of insider trading by reducing insiders' information advantages (Huddart et al., 2000; Lenkey, 2014). However, there is no direct empirical evidence to answer this question, as few countries have issued regulations requiring pre-announcement of insider trading.
The “New Regulation of Insider Selling”, implemented by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in May 2017, provides a unique study setting for the empirical test of this question. The new regulation requires an insider to disclose the selling plan 15 days before the first sale of shares. The pre-announcement should include but is not limited to the number, source, time interval, type, price interval, and reasons for the selling of the shares. The new regulation also requires that the selling period of each pre-announcement should not exceed six months, the progress of the insider selling should be disclosed when more than half of the shares are sold or the selling time is more than half over, and the specific selling condition should be disclosed within two trading days after the implementation of the selling plan or the expiration of the disclosed selling period.
We focus on the selling behavior of directors, supervisors, and senior managers who sell their company's stock in the secondary market as disclosed by the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges from June 1, 2016, to April 25, 2018. Our sample includes 3,792 observations before the new regulation (June 1, 2016-May 26, 2017) and 2,522 observations after the new regulation (May 27, 2017-April 25, 2018). By using the event study method, we study insider selling before and after the implementation of the “New Regulation”, and examine whether pre-announcement of the selling plan weakens insiders' information advantage.
The empirical results show that the short-term abnormal return of insider selling after the implementation of the new regulation is significantly lower than before, which indicates that pre-announcement inhibits the timing advantage of insider trading. Further research shows that pre-announcement reduces insider selling's profitability more strongly when the information quality is poor, the degree of marketization is low, the growth opportunity is high, the scale of insider selling is large, or the interval between the pre-announcement date and insider selling date is short.
The contributions of this paper are as follows. First, by taking advantage of the unique research background of China's “New Regulation of Insider Selling”, it provides empirical evidence on the regulatory effect of pre-announcement on insider trading, which strongly supports and expands the existing theory. Second, unlike previous studies, which focused directly on the profitability of insider trading, this paper examines the weakening effect of pre-announcement on the profitability of insider trading and provides indirect evidence that insiders gain stock returns by using their information advantage. This result provides a useful supplement to the literature. Finally, by examining the effect of the “New Regulation of Insider Selling” on the trading of insiders with different characteristics, the conclusions of this study will help market regulators evaluate the effectiveness of their policies and further improve the efficiency of the capital market.
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Received: 10 September 2018
Published: 30 March 2020
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