This paper hypothesizes that information flows from target firms to large shareholders during activist campaigns and that these flows have governance consequences. Focusing on actively managed mutual fund families, we find that informed trading by large‐holding fund families increases during activist campaigns relative to smaller‐holding fund families invested in the same firms. The effect is stronger for firms that attend more invitation‐only investor events, face greater threats from activist campaigns, and are harder to value. Consistent with information flowing from management to large‐holding fund families, the effect strengthens when Regulation Fair Disclosure enforcement is lax and when the information is favorable to the firm. Furthermore, the increased information advantage is associated with more management‐friendly voting behavior by these investors and a higher likelihood of target firms winning activist campaigns and retaining board seats. Overall, our findings are consistent with a potential quid pro quo in which investors’ access to information from management is associated with more pro‐management behavior.

Crowdsourced financial information platforms often allow content contributors to publish equity research anonymously. This study examines whether investors value or discount information in anonymous equity research. In the short window around research releases, we find that investors’ stock price reaction to anonymous research is muted in comparison to nonanonymous research. Consistent with credibility concerns influencing investor response, we document that this discount to anonymous research dissipates as the monitoring of content contributors intensifies and as authors develop a reputation for high‐quality reporting. In addition, we perform a content analysis on the research reports and find that the muted market reaction to anonymous equity research is robust to controlling for textual attributes of information content, further supporting our inference that investors’ are concerned about the credibility of anonymous equity research.

We study individual investors’ paid news subscriptions. Among individual investors, only 4% of individual-quarters include a news subscription, and 1.2% include a financial news subscription. These low rates mask substantial variation across news sources and over time. Within financial news, approximately 30% of aggregate subscription dollars are spent on crowdsourced news, with the remaining 70% spent on traditional financial news. Subscription dollars vary over time, with crowdsourced news at times matching or exceeding traditional financial news. We also find that subscriptions are correlated with capital market activity. Aggregated payments for subscriptions, particularly for crowdsourced news, are correlated with stock market valuation, trading volume, and investment. Similarly, within individuals, the association between subscriptions and investment is driven primarily by crowdsourced news: subscribing is associated with a $280 increase in quarterly investment. Overall, our findings highlight variation in individual investors’ news subscriptions and their correlated investment activities.