Idiosyncratic Volatility and the Timing of Corporate Insider Trading

This paper addresses the question of how the timing of corporate insider trading is related to the level of information asymmetry in a stock price. Our empirical analysis shows that, when buying their firm’s shares, corporate insiders are likely to exploit their informational advantage through trading at times of high information asymmetry, while their selling appears more cautious because of reputational costs. Trading at times of high informational asymmetry pays off as abnormal returns increase in abnormal informational asymmetry. Further, we find that outside blockholdings, as a proxy for monitoring, can alleviate the exploitative behavior of insiders.