Do Short Sale Transactions Precede Bad News Events?

Daske, Holger; Richardson, Scott A.; Tuna, A. Irem

doi:10.2139/ssrn.722242

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Do Short Sale Transactions Precede Bad News Events?

45 Pages Posted: 13 May 2005

See all articles by Holger Daske

Scott A. Richardson

London Business School; Acadian Asset Management

A. Irem Tuna

London Business School

Date Written: May 2005

Abstract

Do short sale transactions precede bad news events? Not recently. This paper examines short sale transactions around significant news events. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset covering daily short sale transactions for 4,193 securities on the New York Stock Exchange for the period April 1, 2004 through March 31, 2005, we find no evidence that short sale transactions are concentrated prior to bad news events. This challenges prior research that has found short sale transactions have tended to precede stock price declines. Additional analysis reveals that there is no reliable evidence of daily changes in short sales transactions leading daily stock returns, inconsistent with the notion that short sale transactions (at least in the aggregate) are based on private information.

Keywords: short selling, sophisticated investors, management forecasts, earnings announcements

JEL Classification: G10, G12, M41, M43

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Daske, Holger and Richardson, Scott Anthony and Tuna, Ayse Irem, Do Short Sale Transactions Precede Bad News Events? (May 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=722242 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.722242