Private Intermediary Innovation and Market Liquidity: Evidence from the Pink Sheets Tiers of the OTC Market

In 2007, OTC Markets Group assigned each Pink Sheets company to a disclosure tier and on its websites affixed a colorful graphic to its stock symbol signifying the company’s public disclosure level. This unique innovation allows us to investigate the impact of increased salience of disclosure practices on liquidity. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find evidence that firms that are categorized and labeled as Current Information experience an increase in liquidity while firms categorized and labeled as No Information experience a decrease in liquidity, both relative to other OTC firms. This suggests that increases in the salience of disclosure practices via assignment to disclosure tiers with labels and graphics affects investors’ attention, leading to changes in trading behavior that ultimately translate into liquidity changes in the Pink Sheets market. We also provide evidence that some investors anticipated the resulting liquidity changes because stock returns around a key event date leading up to the release of the disclosure tiers are positively associated with subsequent liquidity changes.