investors

How Shareholder Democracy Affects Firm Differentiation in Capital Markets

By Hui Chen, Zeqiong Huang and Mingxuan Ma October 15, 2025 by renholding

Over the past decade, the meaning of shareholder democracy has shifted dramatically. Investors are no longer a uniform bloc, focused solely on financial returns, but increasingly diverse. Some press companies to pursue environmental and social goals, while others adhere to …

The ESG Backlash and the Demand for ESG Mutual Funds

By Quinn Curtis October 13, 2025 by renholding

The backlash against environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) investing has been swift and fierce. More than 20 U.S. states have passed laws or taken administrative action targeting ESG considerations in asset management. Flows into ESG funds have slowed, and for …

When Venture Capital’s Speed Runs Ahead of Its Due Diligence

By Yifat Aran and Nizan Geslevich Packin July 17, 2025 by renholding

In recent years, the failure of high-profile startups has drawn renewed attention to a persistent question in the venture capital (VC) world: How much diligence is enough when speed of investment is at a premium? Collapses at the likes of …

Pay-to-Play in Venture Capital Financing

By Gad Weiss May 30, 2025 by renholding

The startup ecosystem fuels America’s economy in ways few other sectors can match. It has also ridden waves of boom and bust, with periods of explosive growth followed by cool-downs. During these market downturns, capital becomes scarce and investors must …

The Market Value of Pay Gaps

By Ferdinand Bratek, April Klein and Yanting (Crystal) Shi January 8, 2025 by renholding

One of the defining social issues of our time is the persistent earnings inequality in the U.S. between men and women and between white and minority workers. Many factors contribute to this inequality, but two stand out: (1) pay gaps, …

SEC Chair Gensler Speaks Before the Investor Advisory Committee

By Gary Gensler December 12, 2024 by renholding

Good morning. I am pleased to meet with the Investor Advisory Committee. As today’s meeting is the last of this Administration, I’d like to share some reflections about this Committee and its importance to everyday investors.

As is customary, I’d

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Revisiting “Truth in Securities Revisited:” The SEC Disclosure Regime in the New Millennium

By J. Robert Brown, Jr. December 4, 2024 by renholding

The system of disclosure for public companies no longer meets the needs of investors and other stakeholders. Largely put in place by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1982, the principles underlying the system have failed to keep pace with …

The Upside for Retail Investors of Ethereum Spot Exchange Traded Funds

By David Krause July 1, 2024 by renholding

Investors and regulators are monitoring the impact of two cryptocurrency spot exchange traded funds (ETFs) approved by the SEC in 2024.[1] The Bitcoin spot ETFs, which began trading in January, have garnered substantial interest from both retail and institutional …

Is DEI Valuable to Investors?

By Hoa Briscoe-Tran June 27, 2024 by renholding

In recent years, corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become a hot topic in boardrooms and beyond. While many companies have embraced these efforts, investors have started to question whether DEI initiatives are truly valuable or merely a …

Davis Polk Discusses Appeals Court Decision Vacating SEC’s Private Fund Advisers Rule

By Leor Landa, Gregory S. Rowland, Michael S. Hong, Sijia Cai and Michael W. Brasher June 11, 2024 by renholding

On June 5, 2024, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously ruled to vacate the SEC’s new rules and amendments under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the Advisers Act) that targeted private …

Do Board Observers Improve Corporate Governance?

By Nizan Geslevich Packin and Anat Alon-Beck May 15, 2024 by renholding

In the complex world of corporate governance, a novel mechanism has reemerged: board observers. Operating without the conventional voting rights of board members, these individuals have become pivotal in bridging the gap between ambitious startups and their venture capital (VC) …

Commissioner Dissents from SEC Rule on Climate-Related Disclosures

By Mark T. Uyeda March 7, 2024 by renholding

Today [March 6], much emphasis will be placed on how this rule has been dialed-back from the proposal, is focused on providing material information to investors, and that the Commission is not a climate regulator. To that, I emphasize the

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How Crypto Fraud Affects Investor Behavior

By Ben Lourie, Alex Nekrasov, Phong Truong and Chenqi Zhu January 8, 2024 by renholding

In the world of financial markets, fraud poses a significant threat, undermining investor trust and leading to misallocation of resources. Cryptocurrency markets present heightened risks of fraud, which draws the attention of regulators, legal experts, and investors. The Securities and …

Visual Information in the Age of AI

By Sean Cao, Yichen Cheng, Meng Wang, Yusen Xia and Baozhong Yang August 17, 2023 by renholding

Information disclosed by corporations plays a fundamental role in shaping asset prices and the expectations of investors. That information typically comes in financial statement releases, conference calls, annual reports, and the news media. In a recent paper, though, we …

The Role of Controlling Shareholders Is Missing from the Debate over Short-Termism

By Tom Vos August 7, 2023 by renholding

The debate over short-term thinking at corporations has so far focused largely on companies in the U.S. and the UK. The fact that controlling shareholders are less common in those countries than in many others may explain why the extensive …

Wachtell Lipton Revisits the “New Paradigm” for Corporate Governance

By Martin Lipton, Steven A. Rosenblum, Karessa L. Cain, Elina Tetelbaum and Carmen X.W. Lu July 21, 2023 by renholding

In view of the attacks on “woke” corporations, ongoing legislative opposition to the consideration by investors and corporations of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, legal challenges to elements of ESG itself (notably, initiatives designed to further diversity, equity and …

SEC Chair Gensler Speaks to Investor Advisory Committee

By Gary Gensler June 23, 2023 by renholding

Good morning. I’m pleased to speak with the Investor Advisory Committee. As is customary, I’d like to note that my views are my own as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and I am not speaking on behalf of

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How Earnings Announcements Discipline Markets Skewed by Media Coverage

By Eric Holzman, Brian Miller and Brady Twedt June 12, 2023 by renholding

Earnings announcements serve a well-recognized role of conveying important information about firm performance to the market. However, an often-overlooked role of earnings releases is their ability to discipline market expectations.

Our study examines this disciplining role in the context of …

On Earnings Calls, It’s How Managers Say It That Can Affect the Market

By Bok Baik, Alex G. Kim, David Sunghyo Kim and Sangwon Yoon June 6, 2023 by renholding

Corporate disclosures increasingly include multimedia content such as audio, images, and videos. In fact, as of 2022, 83 percent of U.S. public firms used graphics in annual reports and various other communications. Additionally, companies commonly provide their earnings calls, shareholder …

How Corporate Investments in Fintech Startups Affect the Performance of the Startups and the Corporations

By Thomas Chemmanur, Harshit Rajaiya, Michael Imerman and Qianqian Yu June 1, 2023 by renholding

Financial Technology, or “fintech,” is one of the fastest growing sectors in finance. In 2010, the total amount of funding raised by fintech firms was just over $1 billion dollars, while in 2018, total funding was around $40 billion. In …