Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Vol. 61 No. 4 2026
Insiders’ Information Advantage: Evidence from Competition with Short Sellers
Abstract
We study the information content of corporate insiders’ trades after earnings announcements. We find little evidence that insiders trade on foreknowledge of material information in the post-SOX period. Conditioning on short-selling activity as a proxy for demand of arbitrageurs who exploit short-term mispricing, we show that insiders profit from selling because of their ability to exploit short-term mispricing after earnings releases. In contrast before SOX, insiders do take advantage of foreknowledge of material information while selling. Insider purchases are based on foreknowledge of material information both before and after SOX, but they are rare and have small economic magnitude.
- DOI
- 10.1017/s0022109025102287
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1841-1880
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref