We examine whether firms that imitate peer companies’ strategies (copycats) profit from such behavior and how their success may cause competitive harm to disclosing companies. We identify copycat companies by tracking the digital footprints of investment companies that view disclosures on the SEC EDGAR Web site. We find that copycat companies are able to identify profitable trades that outperform other trades disclosed by the copycatted companies by 5.5% annually. Such stock-screening skills are related to investment sophistication and research intensity. Furthermore, copycats inflict greater damage on the performance of disclosing companies when they possess superior copycat skills, when disclosed trading strategies take longer to complete, and when disclosed stock holdings are characterized by high information asymmetry.

中文翻译：

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模仿技能和披露成本：来自同行公司数字足迹的证据

我们研究模仿同行公司战略（模仿者）的公司是否从这种行为中获利，以及他们的成功如何对披露公司的竞争造成损害。我们通过跟踪在 SEC EDGAR 网站上查看披露信息的投资公司的数字足迹来识别模仿公司。我们发现，模仿公司能够识别出比被模仿公司披露的其他交易每年高 5.5% 的盈利交易。这种股票筛选技巧与投资成熟度和研究强度有关。此外，当模仿者拥有卓越的模仿技巧、披露的交易策略需要更长的时间才能完成时，以及披露的股票持有高度信息不对称时，模仿者对披露公司的业绩造成更大的损害。