We identify a new mechanism of opportunistic insider trading linked to attention-driven mispricing. Insiders are more likely to sell their company’s stock during periods of heightened retail attention and more inclined to buy when attention diminishes. The results are particularly pronounced for lottery-type stocks and firms with substantial retail ownership. We demonstrate that our findings—which relate to indicators of mispricing, retail order imbalances, and Robinhood herding episodes—extend to seasoned equity issuances and cannot be solely explained by firm fundamentals. Attention-based insider trading is less likely to result in SEC enforcement actions and persists across different regulatory regimes.

This article proposes an innovative method to assess borrowers’ creditworthiness in consumer credit markets by conducting machine-learning-based analyses on real-time video information that records borrowers’ behavior during the loan application process. We find that the extent of borrowers’ micro-facial expressions of happiness is negatively associated with loan delinquency likelihood, while the degree of fear expressions is positively associated with delinquency risk. These results are consistent with two economic channels relating to the adequacy and uncertainty of borrowers’ future income, drawn from the extant psychology and economics literature. Our study provides important practical implications for fintech lenders and policymakers.