Information Asymmetries and Insider Trading in Swedish Share Repurchasing Firms : A comparison between CEOs and CFOs

Sammanfattning: Prior studies have shown that insiders can make substantial abnormal profits due to their information advantage over the market, which has resulted in insiders becoming more scrutinized. Concurrently, companies that are carrying out share repurchase programs have become increasingly popular and have been proven to have a positive effect on the companies' stock prices and also resulted in abnormal returns. This study combines these findings and examines CEOs’ and CFOs’ insider trading in companies that have conducted open-market repurchases. The result shows that CEOs and CFOs do have some similarities and that it is possible to identify a behavioral pattern. Further, this report examines whether insider trading and share repurchases can be combined and if the result of the two areas gives the same positive abnormal returns as they do separately. My findings show that this is not the case; on the contrary, CEOs and CFOs in these types of companies are underperforming, which is in contrast to the results of previous research.