The impact of the French Tobin tax

We analyze the impact of the introduction of the French Tobin tax on the turnover and measures of the liquidity and volatility of the affected stocks with nonparametric tests on individual stocks, difference-in-difference tests and other robustness checks controlling for simultaneous month-of-the-year and size effects. Our findings indicate that the tax produces a significant reduction in turnover and volatility (measured in terms of stock price volatility and the high–low price range) and inconclusive effects on liquidity when the latter is evaluated under the two dimensions of the estimated bid–ask spread and the Amihud (2002) price impact ratio.     

Implied liquidity: Model sensitivity

The concept of implied liquidity originates from the conic finance theory and more precisely from the law of two prices where market participants buy from the market at the ask price and sell to the market at the lower bid price. The implied liquidity λ of any financial instrument is determined such that both model prices fit as well as possible the bid and ask market quotes. It reflects the liquidity of the financial instrument: the lower the λ, the higher the liquidity. The aim of this paper is to study the evolution of the implied liquidity pre- and post-crisis under a wide range of models and to study implied liquidity time series which could give an insight for future stochastic liquidity modeling. In particular, we perform a maximum likelihood estimation of the CIR, Vasicek and CEV mean-reverting processes applied to liquidity and volatility time series. The results show that implied liquidity is far less persistent than implied volatility as the liquidity process reverts much faster to its long-run mean. Moreover, a comparison of the parameter estimates between the pre- and post-credit crisis periods indicates that liquidity tends to decrease and increase for long and short term options, respectively, during troubled periods.     

Time to Slow Down for High-Frequency Trading? Lessons from Artificial Markets

In this paper, we focus on the French cancel order tax implemented on 1 August 2012. We question the effectiveness of the modified tax with no exemptions and we analyze its impact on market quality, measured by liquidity, volatility and efficiency. Additionally, this paper raises the question whether this tax leads to a reduction of high-frequency trading (HFT) activities and a decline in trading volume. Based on our findings we report that introduction of cancel order tax only slightly reduces HFT activities, but it significantly affects market liquidity, increases market volatility and leads to deteriorating market efficiency. We conclude that it is difficult to dissuade investors from entering into unproductive trades and eliminate negative outputs of HFT (such as price manipulations) through tax, without altering the benefits of HFT like liquidity provision and efficient price discovery.     

Volatility spreads and earnings announcement returns

Prior research documents that volatility spreads predict stock returns. If the trading activity of informed investors is an important driver of volatility spreads, then the predictability of stock returns should be more pronounced during major information events. This paper investigates whether the predictability of equity returns by volatility spreads is stronger during earnings announcements. Volatility spreads are measured by the implied volatility differences between pairs of strike price and expiration date matched put and call options and capture price pressures in the option market. During a two-day earnings announcement window, the abnormal returns to the quintile that includes stocks with relatively expensive call options is more than 1.5% greater than the abnormal returns to the quintile that includes stocks with relatively expensive put options. This result is robust after measuring volatility spreads in alternative ways and controlling for firm characteristics and lagged equity returns. The degree of announcement return predictability is stronger when volatility spreads are measured using more liquid options, the information environment is more asymmetric, and stock liquidity is low.     

REIT Stock Splits and Liquidity Changes

This study examines the motive of stock splits made by REITs. We find that REIT liquidity increases after the split announcement. However, the increase in liquidity is limited to days around the split announcement. After the ex-date, the liquidity tends to revert back to the pre-split level. We find that the positive market reaction around the announcement date is positively related to the change in short-term liquidity but not to the change in long-term liquidity. The announcement effect is also not correlated with future changes in operating performance. Overall, our results suggest that REITs split their share to attract investors’ attention rather than to signal or to improve trading liquidity in the long run.     

Stock liquidity and dividend policy: Evidence from an imputation tax environment

This paper investigates the impact of stock market liquidity on firms' dividend payout policy in the Australian market. The finding suggests that stock liquidity positively relates to firm dividend payouts. The result holds after controlling for different model estimations and different measures of stock liquidity/dividend. To address endogeneity issue, I use the removal of broker identities by the ASX in 2005 as an exogenous shock to stock liquidity. The result suggests that there is an increase in stock liquidity around this shock, leading to an increase in firm dividend, suggesting a causal effect of stock liquidity on firm dividend. I further document that stock liquidity enhances firm dividend through reducing cash-flow volatility and the effect of stock liquidity on firm dividend is weaker for firms reporting imputation tax credit.     

Did the 1986 Tax Reform Act Affect Market Reactions to Stock Splits?: A Test of the Tax-Option Hypothesis

This paper tests the prediction of the tax-option hypothesis that the market impact of stock splits would be reduced by the 1986 Tax Reform Act which eliminated the difference between long- and short-term capital gains tax rates. The results show significant excess returns on stock split announcement and ex-days even after 1986. The announcement and ex-day excess returns are similar in different periods before and after the Act. Further, there is no significant relationship between announcement excess returns and increase in returns volatility following splits. These findings are inconsistent with the tax-option hypothesis.     

Impact of warrant introductions on the behaviour of underlying stocks: Australian evidence

The present study examines the impact of first‐time introduction of warrants by third party issuers on the trading behaviour of a sample of underlying stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. We investigate the price, liquidity and volatility impact of underlying stocks after warrant issuance and find considerable differences to those found for option listings. Significant negative abnormal returns on both the announcement and listing date of derivative warrants are reported, followed by a negative price drift. Relative trading volume and price volatility of underlying stocks are found to be significantly higher post‐warrant listing. Interestingly, we find that warrant holders are unable to realize gains for the majority of trading days when they are alive, consistent with the view that banks trade profitability from their issue.     

The Market Reaction to Stock Splits

In this paper, a model of market reaction to stock splits is presented and tested. We argue that the announcement of a split sets off the following chain of events. The market recognizes that, subsequent to the (reverse) split ex-day, the daily number of transactions along with the raw volume of shares traded will increase (decrease). This increase in volume results in an increase in the noisiness of the security's return process. The increase in noise raises the tax-option value of the stock, and it is this value that generates the announcement effect of stock splits. Empirical evidence using security returns, daily trading volume, and shareholder data strongly supports this theory. The evidence, in conjunction with this theory, also agrees with extant literature that splits result in decreased liquidity, but there is no evidence that this reduction in liquidity is priced.     

我国化解流动性过剩的财税政策研究

流动性过剩已经成为当前宏观经济运行中亟待解决的问题。2007年6月13日召开的国务院常务会议首次明确提出,要综合运用金融、财税政策等手段引导资金流动,缓解流动性过剩,可见财税政策在抑制流动性过剩中的重要作用。本文以财税政策作为基点,从贸易顺差、资本流入、外汇占款、进入房市和股市的沉淀资金等方面,分析当前流动性过剩的成因并探讨缓解流动性过剩的财税政策。     

Assessing the impact of an EU financial transactions tax on asset volatility: An event study

Under the context of EMU debt and financial crisis, we assess the impact of EMU's announcement of a Financial Transactions tax (FTT) on bond and equity volatilities for seven countries, namely Germany, France (core EMU), Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain (periphery EMU). In the absence of historical data on volume and volatility of transactions of such a tax, we utilize the event study methodology. The selected event date considering the FTT announcement was found significant for core EMU's equity portfolio and periphery EMU's bond portfolio. Moreover, under GARCH models, we found that the announcement effect of FTT increases the volatility of both core EMU's equity portfolio as well as periphery EMU's bond portfolio.     

The stock market effects of a securities transaction tax: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, in several countries new levies on the financial sector have been proposed and in some cases implemented. We focus in particular on the recent introduction of a securities transaction tax (STT) in Italy. A peculiarity of the Italian STT is that it only concerns stocks of corporations with a market capitalization above € 500 million. We exploit this feature via a differences-in-differences approach – comparing taxed and non-taxed stocks before and after the introduction of the tax – and via a regression discontinuity design – comparing the performance of stocks just above the threshold with those just below. Focusing on the regulated market, we find that the new tax reduced liquidity, but it left transaction volumes and returns substantially unaffected. There is also evidence – although not conclusive – that the tax increased volatility.     

Evolution of market uncertainty around earnings announcements

This paper investigates theoretically and empirically the dynamics of the implied volatility or implied standard deviation (ISD) around earnings announcements dates. The volatility implied by option prices can be interpreted as the level of volatility expected by the market over the remaining life of the option. We propose a theoretical framework for the evolution of the ISD that takes into account two well-known features of the instantaneous volatility: volatility clustering and the leverage effect. In this context, the ISD should decrease after an earnings announcement but the post-announcement ISD path depends on the content of the earnings announcement: good news or bad news. An empirical investigation is conducted on the Swiss market over the period 1989–1998.     

Efficiency and the trading system: The case of SETSmm

This paper studies the impact that a change from a dealer system to a market-maker supported auction system has on market quality. We study the impact that the introduction of SETSmm at the London Stock Exchange had on firm value, price efficiency and liquidity. We discover a small SETSmm return premium associated with the announcement that securities are to migrate to the new trading system. Moreover, securities that migrate to SETSmm are characterized by improvements to liquidity and pricing efficiency. We find that these changes are related to the return premium.     

R&D Progress, stock price volatility, and post-announcement drift: An empirical investigation into biotech firms

I investigate the effects of R&D progress on the dynamics of stock price volatility and the post announcement drift to provide insights into whether or not and how capital markets react to corporate R&D progress in the context of the biotech industry. I find both stock price volatility and the post announcement drift decrease in R&D progress. More importantly, the decrease is proportional to the increase in the drug development success rate driven by R&D progress. Findings suggest that R&D progress conveys useful risk-relevant information, and plays an important role in explaining stock price volatility change and market anomalies.     

Liquidity costs,idiosyncratic volatility and expected stock returns

This paper considers liquidity as an explanation for the positive association between expected idiosyncratic volatility (IV) and expected stock returns. Liquidity costs may affect the stock returns, through bid-ask bounce and other microstructure-induced noise, which will affect the estimation of IV. We use a novel method (developed by Weaver, 1991) to eliminate microstructure influences from stock closing price-based returns and then estimate IV. We show that there is a premium for IV in value-weighted portfolios, but this premium is less strong after correcting returns for microstructure bias. We further show that this premium is driven by liquidity in the prior month after correcting returns for microstructure noise. The pricing results from equally-weighted portfolios indicate that IV does not predict returns either before or after controlling for liquidity costs. These findings are robust after controlling for common risk factors as well as analysing double-sorted portfolios based on IV and liquidity.     

Intraday volatility responses to monetary policy events

This paper explores the effects of US monetary policy events on intraday volatility in the US equity markets. We examine Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements as well as real-time changes in market expectations about future policy announcements and their impact on the intraday volatility dynamics of the S&P 500 index. The analysis shows elevated intraday volatility following FOMC announcements through the market close, with a spike at the time of the announcement. We then differentiate the volatility spike by modeling an asymmetric response based on the direction of the actual target rate change. Our results suggest that the size of the volatility spike is dependent on the direction of the rate change, with expansionary monetary policy actions having a larger spike than contractionary policy actions. The duration of these volatility spikes is relatively short-lived, with the spike dampening out within 15 minutes. A more lasting impact is, however, documented for real-time changes in market expectations where the volatility spike tends to persist for at least one hour.     

Dynamic effects of idiosyncratic volatility and liquidity on corporate bond spreads

We study the dynamic impact of idiosyncratic volatility and bond liquidity on corporate bond spreads over time and empirically disentangle both effects. Using an extensive data set, we find that both idiosyncratic volatility and liquidity are critical mainly for the distress portfolios, i.e., low-rated and short-term bonds; for others only volatility matters. The effects of volatility and liquidity shocks on bond spreads were both exacerbated during the recent financial crisis. Liquidity shocks are quickly absorbed into bonds prices; however, volatility shocks are more persistent and have a long-term effect. Our results overall suggest significant differences between how volatility and liquidity dynamically impact bond spreads.     

Free Cash Flow,Shareholder Value,and the Undistributed Profits Tax of 1936 and 1937

In 1936, the Federal Government unexpectedly imposed a tax on undistributed corporate profits. Despite the direct costs of the tax, its announcement produced a positive revaluation of corporate equity, particularly among lower-payout firms. We interpret this as evidence of a divergence between managerial and shareholder preferences regarding dividend payout policies, consistent with the presence of agency costs. We also find that despite the incentives created by the tax, the actual growth in dividends during 1936 was lower among firms judged more likely to be subject to higher agency costs after controlling for liquidity, debt, and the growth in earnings.     

The impact of the French securities transaction tax on market liquidity and volatility

In this paper, we assess the impact of the securities transaction tax (STT) introduced in France in 2012 on market liquidity and volatility. To identify causality, we rely on a distinctive design of the tax, which is imposed on large French firms only, all listed on Euronext. This provides two reliable control groups (smaller French firms and foreign firms listed on Euronext) and allows us to use a difference-in-difference approach in order to isolate the impact of the tax from the other economic changes that have occurred simultaneously. We find that the STT has reduced stock trading, but we find no significant effect on theoretically based measures of liquidity, such as price impact, and no significant effect on volatility. The results are robust whether we rely on different control groups (German stocks listed on the Deutsche Börse), different datasets (firm-level or aggregated data), different periods (from one to six months), or different methodologies (propensity score matching, regression discontinuity design).