This paper investigates the US stock market performance during the crash of March 2020 triggered by COVID-19. We find that natural gas, food, healthcare, and software stocks earn high positive returns, whereas equity values in petroleum, real estate, entertainment, and hospitality sectors fall dramatically. Moreover, loser stocks exhibit extreme asymmetric volatility that correlates negatively with stock returns. Companies react in a variety of different ways to the COVID-19 revenue shock. The analysis of the 8K and DEF14A filings of poorest performers reveals departures of senior executives, remuneration cuts, and (most surprisingly) newly approved cash bonuses and salary increases.

This paper examines the relation between corporate information environment and capital structure decisions, and whether this association changes with cross-country institutional environments. Using earnings management as a measure of the corporate information environment, we find that firms with higher earnings management activities have greater firm leverage ratios. We further document that the effect of earnings management on leverage is more pronounced in countries with weaker institutional environments. Overall, our study adds to the strand of research on imperfect factor markets and verifies the influence of information asymmetry on debt financing choices in a cross-country setting.