Note(s): This table reports the correlation coefficients among the main variables. The lower left triangle presents Pearson correlation coefficients, while the upper right triangle presents Spearman correlation coefficients. The dependent variable is the residual value estimated based on the model of Huang et al. (2014). These residuals do not reflect objective expectations of the company’s actual operations or future development but rather capture the results of managerial tone manipulation. The key explanatory variable is the exit threat of blockholders. Following Dou et al. (2018), we employ the interaction between blockholder competition and stock liquidity to capture the intensity of exit threat. Other variables are defined in Table 1. ***, ** and * indicate significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% levels, respectively