Testing the Insider Trading Anomaly in FTSE-350

Abstract

In recent studies, numerous anomalies against the weak and semi-strong-forms of efficient market hypothesis (EMH) have been found insignificant after controlling the small-firm effect. We investigate whether the insider trading anomaly, a major anomaly against the strong-form of EMH, can survive after excluding small firms with a novel data set (FTSE-350) and document several new findings. We find a substantially larger number of insider purchases than sales, while the average volume of insider sales is much higher than the average volume of insider purchases. Echoing recent US studies, we find that insider sales generate more abnormal returns than insider purchases do. We find much lower abnormal returns from insider trading than documented in the literature and the associated trading costs, which suggests that the market efficiency of individual stocks may depend on their sizes, and even the strong-form of EMH holds to a larger extent than previously recognized.