The information content of stock split announcements: Do options matter?

We provide a new test of the informational efficiency of trading in stock options in the context of stock split announcements. These announcements tend to be associated with positive abnormal returns. Our traditional event study results show abnormal returns that are significantly lower for optioned than non-optioned stocks, whether traded on the NYSE, Amex, or Nasdaq. After controlling for market returns, capitalization, book-to-market ratio, and trading volume, we find that the abnormal returns are significantly lower for NYSE/Amex optioned than non-optioned stocks. Although the results for Nasdaq stocks are not as clear, the overall effects tend to be lower after optioning. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the prices of optioned stocks embody more information, diminishing the impact of the stock split announcement. They provide new evidence of the beneficial effects of options on their underlying stocks.     

Evidence and Implications of Increases in Trading Volume Around Exchange Listings

After controlling for market volume trends and differences in volume measurement between the Nasdaq and the exchanges, we find that mean trading volumes increase significantly for Nasdaq stocks that list on the Amex or the NYSE. Furthermore, stocks with low (high) pre‐listing volume tend to realize the largest volume increases (decreases) as well as the best (worst) post‐listing performance. Our results support the hypothesis that stocks with high past trading volumes tend to experience lower future returns, and shed new light on the nature and possible causes of poor post‐listing stock performance.     

On the Stability of the Cross‐Section of Expected Stock Returns in the Cross‐Section: Understanding the Curious Role of Share Turnover

In this paper, we shed further light on cross‐sectional predictors of stock return performance. Specifically, we explore whether the cross‐section of expected stock returns is robust within stock groups sorted by past monthly return. We find that the book/market and momentum effects are remarkably robust to sorting on past returns. However, share turnover is negatively related to future returns for stocks with abnormally low stock price performance in the recent past, but postively related to returns for well‐performing stocks. This casts doubt on the use of turnover as a liquidity proxy, but is consistent with turnover being a proxy for momentum trading which pushes prices in the direction of past price movements. Our results are robust to both NYSE/AMEX and Nasdaq stocks, and also robust to stratifying the sample by time period.     

Short selling and trading abuses on Nasdaq

We examine the potential for short-selling trading abuses unique to Nasdaq during a period when there was no up-tick rule and no effective prohibitions against “naked” short selling. We find that (a) short sellers earned significant abnormal returns on Nasdaq securities, but these were smaller than on NYSE/AMEX securities; (b) they did not destabilize markets by selling into falling markets and exacerbating price drops; and (c) Nasdaq short sellers may be more susceptible than NYSE/AMEX shorts to “short squeezes”. Our results cast doubt on the appropriateness of recent regulatory reforms established for Nasdaq and public concern over Nasdaq short-selling abuses.     

The Delisting Bias in CRSP's Nasdaq Data and Its Implications for the Size Effect

We investigate the bias in CRSP's Nasdaq data due to missing returns for delisted stocks. We find that the missing returns are large and negative on average, and that delisted stocks experience a substantial decrease in liquidity. We estimate that using a corrected return of −55 percent for missing performance-related delisting returns corrects the bias. We revisit previous work which finds a size effect among Nasdaq stocks. After correcting for the delisting bias, there is no evidence that there ever was a size effect on Nasdaq. Our results are inconsistent with most risk-based explanations of the size effect.     

Stock splits to profit insider trading: Lessons from an emerging market

Stock splits have long presented financial puzzles: Why are they undertaken? Why are they associated with abnormal returns? Abnormal returns, particularly those coming shortly before a split’s announcement date, should raise strong suspicions of insider trading, particularly in nations with weak regulatory structures. We examined the 718 split events in the emerging stock market of Vietnam from 2007 through 2011. We found evidence consistent with illegal insider trading, particularly in firms that were vulnerable to insider manipulation and, therefore, more likely to split their stocks. When vulnerable firms’ stocks did split, they provided significant excess short-term returns. Tellingly, the abnormal returns on those stocks prior to the split announcements were also extremely high, indeed higher than their abnormal post-announcement returns. Moreover, trading volume increased prior to the split announcement date. This suspicious pattern is what we would expect if insiders were trading on their knowledge. We propose that illegal insider trading in contexts where it is possible to escape serious penalty provides a previously undiscussed and cogent explanation for both stock splits and abnormal short-term returns.     

Local sports sentiment and returns of locally headquartered stocks: A firm-level analysis

We undertake a firm-level analysis of the relation between National Football League (NFL) game outcomes and the return patterns of Nasdaq firms headquartered geographically near the NFL teams. We find that a team's loss leads to lower next-day returns for locally headquartered stocks and that this impact increases for a surprising loss or a critical game loss. The negative effects of game losses are stronger for stocks that are more vulnerable to shifts in sports sentiment. Our results suggest that the game outcomes of local sports teams influence investor sentiment, which significantly affects the returns of localized trading stocks.     

Short Selling and the Weekend Effect in Nasdaq Stock Returns

We examine daily short selling of Nasdaq stocks to explore whether speculative short selling causes a significant portion of the weekend effect in returns. We identify a weekend effect in speculative short selling whereby it constitutes a larger percentage of trading volume on Mondays versus Fridays. We find an opposite effect in dealer short selling, consistent with market makers adding liquidity and stability. Our main finding is that speculative short selling does not explain an economically meaningful portion of the weekend effect in returns, even among the firms most that are most actively shorted. This finding contradicts some prior studies.     

Are chartists artists? The determinants and profitability of recommendations based on technical analysis

The value of technical analysis (TA) has been debated for decades; however, limited evidence exists on the profitability of investment recommendations issued by technical analysts. These ‘chartists’ sometimes claim that TA is an art rather than a science. We evaluated > 5000 TA-based buy and sell recommendations for stocks and a market index in the Netherlands issued during the period 2004–2010. The sign of a recommendation was generally in line with trading signals resulting from technical trading rules. While recommendation levels were positively associated with price trends prior to the recommendation, we did not find evidence of (abnormal) stock returns after the publication of these recommendations. In addition, stop-loss levels did not contain informational value as no meaningful returns were detected after these trigger levels were met. Given that technical recommendations follow well-known trading rules and that these recommendations are not associated with future abnormal returns, we conclude that technical analysts do not exhibit ‘artistic’ skills.     

Short-Selling Prior to Earnings Announcements

This paper examines short‐sales transactions in the five days prior to earnings announcements of 913 Nasdaq‐listed firms. The tests provide evidence of informed trading in pre‐announcement short‐selling because they reveal that abnormal short‐selling is significantly linked to post‐announcement stock returns. Also, the tests indicate that short‐sellers typically are more active in stocks with low book‐to‐market valuations or low SUEs. The levels of pre‐announcement short‐selling, however, mostly appear to reflect firm‐specific information rather than these fundamental financial characteristics. We believe that these results should encourage financial market regulators to consider providing more extensive and timely disclosures of short‐selling to investors.     

Nasdaq Trading and Trading Costs: 1993–2002

Nasdaq spreads decline from 1993 to 2002, largely independently of tick‐size reductions. Trade size declines, consistent with greater retail investor activity. Using the method of Chordia, Roll, and Subrahmanyam (2001), we find that concurrent market returns strongly affect liquidity and trading activity. Liquidity exhibits distinct day‐of‐the‐week patterns. There is little evidence that macroeconomic announcements or changes in key interest rates affect Nasdaq stocks overall; but in the bear market, we find a relation between some of these variables and effective spreads, which we interpret as consistent with Nasdaq participants' paying greater attention to fundamentals after the market crash.     

How common are common return factors across the NYSE and Nasdaq?

We entertain the possibility of pervasive factors that are not common across two (or more) groups of securities. We propose and implement a general procedure to estimate the space spanned by common and group-specific pervasive factors. In our empirical analysis, we study the factor structure of excess returns on stocks traded on the NYSE and Nasdaq using our methodology. We find that there are only two common pervasive factors that govern the returns for both NYSE and Nasdaq. At the same time, the NYSE and Nasdaq each have one more group-specific factor that is not the same across the two exchanges. Our results point to the absence of complete similarity between the factors driving the returns on these exchanges.     

Did institutions herd during the internet bubble?

We examine the trading behavior of institutional investors during the internet bubble and crash of 1998–2001, and its impact on stock prices. Similar to some recent findings concerning the trading behavior of hedge funds and NASDAQ 100 stocks, we find that during the bubble all types of institutions herded with great intensity into internet stocks for a comprehensive sample of institutional investors and internet stocks. In addition to this, we present three entirely new results. First, institutional herding was much greater than what can be explained by momentum trading. Second, institutions as a group continued to increase their holdings of internet stocks for two quarters past the market peak during the first quarter of 2000, and three quarters past the peak for individual stock prices, suggesting that institutions were unable to time the price peaks. Finally and most importantly, we find positive abnormal returns contemporaneous with institutional herding and negative abnormal returns (reversals) at the point that herding ceased. This finding suggests that institutions’ trading created temporary price pressures, and may have contributed to the bubble.     

Can Investors Profit from the Prophets? Security Analyst Recommendations and Stock Returns

We document that purchasing (selling short) stocks with the most (least) favorable consensus recommendations, in conjunction with daily portfolio rebalancing and a timely response to recommendation changes, yield annual abnormal gross returns greater than four percent. Less frequent portfolio rebalancing or a delay in reacting to recommendation changes diminishes these returns; however, they remain significant for the least favorably rated stocks. We also show that high trading levels are required to capture the excess returns generated by the strategies analyzed, entailing substantial transactions costs and leading to abnormal net returns for these strategies that are not reliably greater than zero.     

Short-term predictability of equity returns along two style dimensions

This study uses daily return data on 20 portfolios split along two dimensions, growth/value and market size, over the period of four decades and employs over 12,000 trading rules to investigate the short-term predictability of portfolio returns. It shows that, historically, portfolios of small stocks and value stocks have been more suitable for active trading strategies since returns on value portfolios exhibit more predictability than returns on growth portfolios and returns on portfolios of large stocks appear to be less predictive than returns on portfolios of small stocks. The predictive ability of trading rules is all but gone during the 2000s. Popularization of exchange-traded funds and the introduction of quote decimalization on the exchanges are the most likely reasons behind the lack of predictability.     

The Making of a Dealer Market: From Entry to Equilibrium in the Trading of Nasdaq Stocks

This paper provides an analysis of the nature and evolution of a dealer market for Nasdaq stocks. Despite size differences in sample stocks, there is a surprising consistency to their trading. One dealer tends to dominate trading in a stock. Markets are concentrated and spreads are increasing in the volume and market share of the dominant dealer. Entry and exit are ubiquitous. Exiting dealers are those with very low profits and trading volume. Entering market makers fail to capture a meaningful share of trading or profits. Thus, free entry does little to improve the competitive nature of the market as entering dealers have little impact. We find, however, that for small stocks, the Nasdaq dealer market is being more competitive than the specialist market.     

Which past returns affect trading volume?

Anecdotal evidence suggests and recent theoretical models argue that past stock returns affect subsequent stock trading volume. We study 3,000 individual investors over a 51 month period to test this apparent link between past returns and volume using several different panel regression models (linear panel regressions, negative binomial panel regressions, Tobit panel regressions). We find that both past market returns as well as past portfolio returns affect trading activity of individual investors (as measured by stock portfolio turnover, the number of stock transactions, and the propensity to trade stocks in a given month). After high portfolio returns, investors buy high risk stocks and reduce the number of stocks in their portfolio. High past market returns do not lead to higher risk taking or underdiversification. We argue that the only explanations for our findings are overconfidence theories based on biased self-attribution and differences of opinion explanations for high levels of trading activity.     

Intraday technical analysis of individual stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange

This paper conducts an intraday technical analysis of individual stocks listed on the Nikkei 225. In addition to the price-based technical rules popularly examined in the literature, we uniquely propose and statistically investigate technical rules that utilize information regarding (1) the order-flow imbalance and (2) the order-book imbalance. Technical analysis using the imbalance-based trading rules is motivated by the evidence presented first in this paper that short-term returns can be predicted from the information regarding the order-flow and order-book imbalances for more than half of Nikkei 225-listed stocks. However, we demonstrate that no strategies, including limit order trading where trading signals are derived from the order-book imbalance, beat the buy-and-hold strategy within our sample. The results imply that past prices and demand/supply imbalances do not contribute to profiting in intraday trading and that non-execution and picking-off risks are too large for limit order trading to be profitable in our sample.     

Continuous Trading or Call Auctions: Revealed Preferences of Investors at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

We use the move of Israeli stocks from call auction trading to continuous trading to show that investors have a preference for stocks that trade continuously. When large stocks move from call auction to continuous trading, the small stocks that still trade by call auction experience a significant loss in volume relative to the overall market volume. As small stocks move to continuous trading, they experience an increase in volume and positive abnormal returns because of the associated increase in liquidity. Overall, though, a move to continuous trading increases the volume of large stocks relative to small stocks.     

The Effect of Socially Responsible Investing on Portfolio Performance

More and more investors apply socially responsible screens when building their stock portfolios. This raises the question whether these investors can increase their performance by incorporating such screens into their investment process. To answer this question we implement a simple trading strategy based on socially responsible ratings from the KLD Research & Analytics: Buy stocks with high socially responsible ratings and sell stocks with low socially responsible ratings. We find that this strategy leads to high abnormal returns of up to 8.7% per year. The maximum abnormal returns are reached when investors employ the best‐in‐class screening approach, use a combination of several socially responsible screens at the same time, and restrict themselves to stocks with extreme socially responsible ratings. The abnormal returns remain significant even after taking into account reasonable transaction costs.