manipulation. The lower the stock price is, the less the value after conversion. A conversion with premium means a further reduction of value after conversion. In fact, investors might influence the stock price in the opposite direction to avoid conversion. However, it is more difficult to push up the stock price if the issuer is in distress.
Another commonly suggested way of preventing market manipulation is to determine the conversion price as the average of the past n days' stock price prior to the conversion. McDonald (2011) and Flannery (2009) suggested that this feature makes it more difficult for manipulation due to the lengthened period of holding short positions. The disadvantage of this structure is that the conversion might be delayed. Squam Lake Working Group (2009) also pointed out another possible manipulation: "If the stock price falls precipitously during a systemic crisis, management might intentionally violate the trigger and force conversion at a stale price that now looks good to the stockholders."20
Flannery (2009) and McDonald (2011) also examined the possibility of retiring the contingent capital upon conversion gradually and randomly to avoid a huge gain from price manipulation. As pointed out by Flannery (2009), forbidding holders of contingent capital to short sell the issuer's stock is also a possible solution.
Another potential method of price manipulation is share repurchase. If the conversion is believed to be highly probable to occur, with a material value dilution, the issuer has an incentive to prevent the conversion by putting upward pressure by share repurchase. McDonald (2011) thinks that the impact would be small. If the market thinks that the goal of share repurchase is to avoid conversion, it will have a negative impact on the share price, and so it might not actually happen.