Agency Costs of Overvalued Equity

Jensen’s 1986 Free Cash flow paper showed that too much cash is bad. Now he shows that a stock price can be too high. Why? “A stock price that is overvalued is caused when investors have overly optimistic expectations. Thus, if the investors were to learn the truth, the stock price would fall. This creates an incentive to hide information from investors. Moreover, to keep the stock price high, management may be willing to take more chances and further hide the bad results.” [FinanceProfessor.com Annotation]

Like this content? Why not share it?