ABSTRACT We examine ex‐dividend date trading of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) using a sample of 1,043 dividends over the period 1988 to 1995. ADR dividends are often subject to foreign withholding taxes, creating incentives for certain investors to avoid the distribution. ADRs exhibit negative abnormal ex‐dividend day returns, and their prices behave consistently with their related withholding taxes. Abnormal trading volume for taxable issues exceeds 130 percent and 300 percent of normal volume on the cum‐ and ex‐dates, respectively. Abnormal volume is an increasing function of foreign withholding tax rates and decreasing function of transactions costs. This abnormal ex‐date trading activity is consistent with tax‐motivated trading.

ABSTRACT We investigate whether executive stock option repricings are systematically timed to coincide with favorable movements in the company's stock price. For a sample of 236 repricing events, we observe sharp increases in stock price in the 20‐day period following the repricing date. In addition, repricing dates tend to either precede the release of good news or follow the release of bad news in the quarterly earnings announcements. Since information about stock option repricing is not generally released to the public around the repricing date, these findings suggest that CEOs opportunistically manage the timing of the option repricing date.