The Behavior of Option Price Around Large Block Transactions in the Underlying Security

This paper investigates the behavior of stock and option prices around block trades in stocks. The results indicate that for both up tick and downtick block trades the stock prices adjust within a fifteen minute period after the block trade. Moreover, for uptick blocks there is no evidence of any stock price reaction before the block trade. However, the adjustment of stock price for downtick blocks begins about fifteen minutes before the block trade. We also find that option price behavior differs considerably from stock price behavior. Specifically, our results suggest that options exhibit abnormal price behavior starting thirty minutes before the block and ending one hour after the block. The pattern is more pronounced for downtick blocks and for put options. We interpret this abnormal price behavior of options before the block trade as consistent with intermarket frontrunning.     

THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZED OPTIONS TRADING ON STOCK PRICE BEHAVIOR FOLLOWING LARGE ONE-DAY STOCK PRICE DECLINES

In this study I examine the effect of organized options trading on stock price behavior immediately following stock price declines of 10 percent or more. A matched-pair sample of National Market System option and nonoption firms are analyzed from June 1985 through December 1992. After controlling for the bid-ask bounce, firm size, share price, return standard deviation, and beta, I find that three-day cumulative abnormal returns for option firms are approximately 1.57 percent less than those for nonoption firms. Thus, options trading enhances stock market efficiency and/or liquidity. However, no profitable trading strategies are indicated.     

Options trading volume and stock price response to earnings announcements

We examine the effect of options trading volume on the stock price response to earnings announcements over the period 1996–2007. Contrary to previous studies, we find no significant difference in the immediate stock price response to earnings information announcements in samples split between firms with listed options and firms without listed options. However, within the sample of firms with listed options stratified by options volume, we find that higher options trading volume reduces the immediate stock price response to earnings announcements. This conforms with evidence that stock prices of high options trading volume firms have anticipated and pre-empted some earnings information in the pre-announcement period. We also find that higher abnormal options trading volume around earnings announcements hastens the stock price adjustment to earnings news and reduces post-earnings announcement drift.     

The Volatility and Price Sensitivities of Managerial Stock Option Portfolios and Corporate Hedging

We use estimates of the Black–Scholes sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility and the sensitivity of managers' stock and stock option portfolios to stock price to test the relationship between managers' risk preferences and hedging activities. We find that as the sensitivity of managers' stock and stock option portfolios to stock price increases, firms tend to hedge more. However, as the sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility increases, firms tend to hedge less.     

Option grant backdating investigations and capital market discipline

Using a large sample of option granting firms, some of which were investigated for option grant backdating, we develop a predictive model for such investigations and examine how the capital market responded as the backdating scandal unfolded. Firms that were investigated experienced significant stock price declines from the beginning of the Wall Street Journal's Perfect Payday series through the end of 2006. Firms predicted to have backdating problems, but not the subject of publicly revealed investigations, experienced stock price performance during the same period that was remarkably similar to that of firms with publicly revealed investigations. In contrast, firms not predicted to have backdating problems experienced normal stock price performance. Our results suggest that capital markets disciplined companies with suspicious option grant histories, often prior to, and irrespective of, any public revelation of an investigation into the matter.     

Informed Trading in Stock and Option Markets

We investigate the contribution of option markets to price discovery, using a modification of Hasbrouck's (1995) "information share" approach. Based on five years of stock and options data for 60 firms, we estimate the option market's contribution to price discovery to be about 17% on average. Option market price discovery is related to trading volume and spreads in both markets, and stock volatility. Price discovery across option strike prices is related to leverage, trading volume, and spreads. Our results are consistent with theoretical arguments that informed investors trade in both stock and option markets, suggesting an important informational role for options.     

An Option-Theoretic Approach to the Valuation of Dividend Reinvestment and Voluntary Purchase Plans

Many firms with dividend reinvestment plans also allow their shareholders to voluntarily invest supplemental funds to purchase additional shares. The purchase price for newly-issued shares often is determined by the average stock price over a prespecified time period preceding the investment date. This gives the firm's shareholders an option to invest in additional shares only when the stock price exceeds the computed average. This paper uses both theoretical and numerical methods to analyze the value of these voluntary purchase options in theory and practice.     

Political Incentives to Suppress Negative Information: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

This paper tests the proposition that politicians and their affiliated firms (i.e., firms operating in their province) temporarily suppress negative information in response to political incentives. We examine the stock price behavior of Chinese listed firms around two visible political events—meetings of the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and promotions of high‐level provincial politicians—that are expected to asymmetrically increase the costs of releasing bad news. The costs create an incentive for local politicians and their affiliated firms to temporarily restrict the flow of negative information about the companies. The result will be fewer stock price crashes for the affiliated firms during these event windows, followed by an increase in crashes after the event. Consistent with these predictions, we find that the affiliated firms experience a reduction (an increase) in negative stock return skewness before (after) the event. These effects are strongest in the three‐month period directly preceding the event, among firms that are more politically connected, and when the province is dominated by faction politics and cronyism. Additional tests document a significant reduction in published newspaper articles about affected firms in advance of these political events, suggestive of a link between our observed stock price behavior and temporary shifts in the listed firms’ information environment.     

The Effect of Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk on Corporate Capital Structure and R&D Investment

In this study we use estimates of the sensitivities of managers' portfolios to stock return volatility and stock price to directly test the relationship between managerial incentives to bear risk and two important corporate decisions. We find that as the sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility increases firms tend to choose higher debt ratios and make higher levels of R&D investment. These results are even stronger in a subsample of firms with relatively low outside monitoring. For these firms, managerial incentives to bear risk play a particularly pivotal role in determining leverage and R&D investment.     

地方官员更替、企业辖区知名度与股价同步性

以2009～2013年我国A股上市公司为研究样本,实证分析地方官员更替、辖区企业知名度与股价同步性的关系,结果表明:地市级政府官员变更所带来的政治不确定性会显著降低辖区企业的股价同步性,并且相对于新任官员来源于本地而言,新任官员来源于异地更能够显著地降低辖区内企业的股价同步性.进一步研究还发现,当地市级政府官员发生变更时,相对于辖区知名度较高的企业而言,辖区知名度较低的企业会披露更多的企业私有信息以应对政治不确定性风险,从而其股价同步性有了更大程度的降低.研究的结论证实了政治不确定风险的增加能够显著降低辖区内企业的股价同步性,客观上有助于提高股价的信息含量.     

CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes

Using a large sample of U.S. firms for the period 1993-2009, we provide evidence that the sensitivity of a chief financial officer's (CFO) option portfolio value to stock price is significantly and positively related to the firm's future stock price crash risk. In contrast, we find only weak evidence of the positive impact of chief executive officer option sensitivity on crash risk. Finally, we find that the link between CFO option sensitivity and crash risk is more pronounced for firms in non-competitive industries and those with a high level of financial leverage.     

The effect of affiliated analysts on stock recommendations: Evidence from share pledges in China

We use the share pledge context in China to examine how affiliated analysts whose securities companies are pledgees of share pledge firms issue stock recommendations on these listed firms. We find that their recommendations are more optimistic than those of non-affiliated analysts, and they are more likely to issue Buy and Add recommendations, suggesting that they issue optimistic rating reports for share pledge firms due to their conflicts of interest. We also find a dynamic adjustment in the stock recommendation behavior of these analysts, and their probability after issuing optimistic stock recommendations is significantly reduced before and after the years that the affiliation relationship between them and share pledge firms both began and ended. These affiliated analysts continue to issue optimistic stock recommendations after visiting the share pledge firms if they work in the same location as the firms, or if they are star analysts among New Fortune’s “top five analysts,” and when the information transparency of the share pledge firms is higher. In addition, the optimistic stock recommendation behavior of affiliated analysts is more significant in our sample of firms with high share pledge ratios and downward stock price pressure. The earnings forecast quality of affiliated analysts is also found to be lower, and they are less inclined to downgrade stock recommendations for these share pledge firms. Buy recommendations issued by both non-affiliated and affiliated analysts can bring cumulative excess returns in the short event window, but those issued by affiliated analysts are significantly negative in the long-term event window, and significantly lower than those issued by non-affiliated analysts. Overall, our study shows that affiliated analysts issue optimistic rating reports on share pledge firms due to conflicts of interest, which leads to decision-making bias in investors and thus decreases the stock price crash risk of the firms. Our findings further reveal the economic consequences of share pledging and extend our understanding of the behavior of analysts in a conflict of interest situation from the share pledge perspective.     

Is there price discovery in equity options?

We use tick-by-tick quote data for 39 liquid US stocks and options on them, and we focus on events when the two markets disagree about the stock price in the sense that the option-implied stock price obtained from the put-call parity relation is inconsistent with the actual stock price. Option market quotes adjust to eliminate the disagreement, while the stock market quotes behave normally, as if there were no disagreement. The disagreement events are typically precipitated by stock price movements and display signed option volume in the direction that tends to eliminate the disagreements. These results show that option price quotes do not contain economically significant information about future stock prices beyond what is already reflected in current stock prices, i.e., no economically significant price discovery occurs in the option market. We also find no option market price discovery using a much larger sample of disagreement events based on a weaker definition of a disagreement, which verifies that the findings for the primary sample are not due to unusual or unrepresentative market behavior during the put-call parity violations.     

金融生态环境、股价波动同步性与上市企业融资约束

我国股票市场股价波动同步性是否正向地反映了股价的信息吸收效率?本文将股价波动同步性作为衡量信息不对称的指标,以2003~2006年我国上市企业为样本,检验在不同金融生态环境下股价波动同步性对企业融资约束的影响。研究发现在交易噪声广泛存在的我国股票市场,股价波动同步性与上市企业融资约束呈负相关关系,且对那些处于发达金融生态环境中的企业而言,这一负相关关系表现得更为明显。研究表明在控制企业规模等因素后,股价包含更多的市场和行业信息本身正向地反映了股价的信息吸收效率,而发达的金融生态环境有助于提高股价对市场和行业信息的吸收。     

Employee Stock Options, Equity Valuation, and the Valuation of Option Grants Using a Warrant-Pricing Model

We investigate the use of a warrant‐pricing approach to incorporate employee stock options (ESOs) into equity valuation and to account for the dilutive effect of ESOs in the valuation of option grants for financial reporting purposes. Our valuation approach accounts for the jointly determined nature of ESO and shareholder values. The empirical results show that our stock price estimate exhibits lower prediction errors and higher explanatory powers for actual share price than does the traditional stock price estimate. We use our valuation approach to assess the implications of dilution on the fair‐value estimates of ESO grants. We find that the fair value is overstated by 6% if we ignore the dilutive feature of ESOs. Furthermore, this bias is larger for firms that are heavy users of ESOs, small, and R&D intensive, and for firms that have a broad‐based ESO compensation plan.     

Managerial Risk-Taking Incentives and Executive Stock Option Repricing: A Study of US Casino Executives

I examine the relation between managerial incentives from holdings of company stock and options and stock option repricing. Because options provide incentives to increase both risk and stock price, firms must realize that as options go underwater, executives might face incentives to invest in risky, negative NPV projects. Repricing may alleviate such incentives. I examine repricing activity by firms in the US gaming industry and find that risk-taking incentives from options are positively related to the incidence of executive option repricing. The results support the hypothesis that repricing assists firms in alleviating excessive risk-taking incentives of senior management.     

Intraday Price Change and Trading Volume Relations in the Stock and Stock Option Markets

This study investigates intraday relations between price changes and trading volume of options and stocks for a sample of firms whose options traded on the CBOE during the first quarter of 1986. After purging the price change series of the effects of bid/ask spreads, multivariate time-series analysis is used to estimate the lead/lag relation between the price changes in the option and stock markets. The results indicate that price changes in the stock market lead the option market by as much as fifteen minutes. The analysis of trading volume indicates that the stock market lead may be even longer.     

Short-sale refinancing and price adjustment speed to bad news: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Short selling may accelerate stock price adjustment to negative news. However, the literature provides mixed evidence for this prediction. Using short-sale refinancing and a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model, this paper explores the effect of short selling on stock price adjustment. Our results show that (1) short-sale refinancing improves the speed of stock price adjustment to negative news. This result holds after we control for endogeneity. (2) The positive relationship between short-sale refinancing and stock price adjustment speed is significant in subsamples of stocks with higher earnings management or lower accuracy of analyst forecasts, indicating that firms with more opaque information are more likely to be targeted by short sellers. In subsamples of stocks with a higher ownership concentration or lower ownership by institutional investors, short selling is more likely to increase the speed of stock price adjustment, indicating that ownership structure may influence negative news mining. (3) As short-sale refinancing exacerbates the absorption of bad news by stock prices, it increases crash risk. This study enriches the research on the economic consequences of short selling and provides empirical evidence supporting regulations on short selling in China.     

Executive stock options and IPO underpricing

In about one-third of US IPOs between 1996 and 2000, executives received stock options with an exercise price equal to the IPO offer price rather than a market-determined price. Among firms with such “IPO options”, 58% of top executives realize a net benefit from underpricing: the gain from the options exceeds the loss from the dilution of their pre-IPO shareholdings. If executives can influence either the IPO offer price or the timing and terms of their stock option grants, there should be a positive relation between IPO option grants and underpricing. We find no evidence of such a relation. Our results contrast sharply with the emerging literature on managerial self-dealing at shareholder expense.     

Are share price levels informative? Evidence from the ownership, pricing, turnover and performance of IPO firms

We ask whether a firm's choice of IPO price is informative in the sense that it relates systematically to the firm's other choices and characteristics. We find that both institutional ownership and underwriter reputation increases monotonically with the chosen IPO price level. We also find that the relationship between IPO price and underpricing is U-shaped. In contrast, post-IPO turnover displays an inverted U-shaped relation to IPO price. Moreover, firms choosing a higher (lower) stock price level experience lower (higher) mortality rates. Our results are robust to controls for market liquidity and firm size, and for partial adjustment of IPO prices based on pre-market information.