Single Stock Futures as a Substitute for Short Sales: Evidence from Microstructure Data

Abstract:  We examine how the introduction of single-stock futures impacts short sale costs and short interest levels in the underlying spot market. We find that short selling in the underling securities declines, after futures are introduced, the cost of borrowing stock for short sales declines and the available unborrowed supply of lendable shares increases. These results are consistent with futures exchanges providing a low-cost substitute market for establishing short positions. Microstructure evidence also suggests that the lower cost and greater ease of short selling via futures markets draws informed traders from the spot market.     

The Lead‐Lag Relationship Between Cash and Stock Index Futures in a New Market

This paper investigates the lead‐lag relationship in daily returns and volatilities between price movements of the FTSE/ATHEX‐20 and FTSE/ATHEX Mid‐40 stock index futures and the underlying cash indices in the relatively new futures market of Greece. Empirical results show that there is a bi‐directional relationship between cash and futures prices. However, futures lead the cash index returns, by responding more rapidly to economic events than stock prices. This speed is much higher in the more liquid FTSE/ATHEX‐20 market. Moreover, results indicate that futures volatilities spill information over to the corresponding cash market volatilities in both investigated futures markets, but volatilities in the cash markets have no effect on the volatilities of futures markets. Overall, it seems that new market information is disseminated faster in the futures market compared to the stock market. This implies that the futures markets can be used as price discovery vehicles, providing further evidence that derivatives markets contribute to completing and stabilising capital markets in Greece. A further finding of this study is that futures volume and disequilibrium effects between cash and futures prices are important variables in the explanation of volatilities in cash and futures markets.     

Short Sale Constraints and Dispersion of Opinion: Evidence from the Indian Equity Market

Short sale constraints can inflate market prices, as bearish investors cannot act on their market views. The paper uses data from the Indian equity market to test whether opinion dispersion leads to higher overpricing when short sales are prohibited. The Indian equity market provides a natural testing environment, as short sales were banned between 2001 and 2008. The empirical results offer supportive evidence of the relation between opinion dispersion and overpricing in a market with short sale constraints.     

Stock index futures arbitrage in emerging markets: Polish evidence

The efficiency of the market for stock index futures and profitability of arbitrage for contracts on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Index WIG20 is studied in this paper. The Polish market has unique attributes: in a relatively short time the risk-free interest rate has decreased significantly, short sale cannot be used to construct an arbitrage position by institutional investors, and the dividends are small and paid in an irregular manner. Examining intraday transaction data shows that ex post and ex ante violations for short arbitrage reveal almost all properties of a mature market. Nonetheless, findings for long arbitrage indicate inefficiency of the market.     

The impact of naked short selling on the securities lending and equity market

This paper examines the impact of naked short selling on equity markets where it is restricted to securities on an approved list. Consistent with Miller's (1977) intuition, stocks with the highest dispersion of opinions and short sale constraints are the only stocks to exhibit significant and negative abnormal returns in the post-event period. We also find slightly higher stock return volatility and a small reduction in liquidity when naked short sales are allowed. Overall, it impairs market quality (liquidity and volatility), although there appears to be some improvement in price efficiency in stocks with high short sale constraints.     

机构投资者股指期货交易的风险控制研究

股指期货市场的健康发展与机构投资者队伍的不断壮大是相辅相成、密不可分的。目前,机构投资者参与股指期货交易的步伐正在加快。本文结合国内证券期货市场的实际状况,全面定义和分析了机构投资者参与股指期货交易面临的七大风险,并给出了相应的风险控制对策,以期能够为机构投资者的股指期货交易风险控制提供有益的参考,进而促进国内股指期货市场功能的发挥和机构投资者队伍的壮大。     

Well-connected short-sellers pay lower loan fees: A market-wide analysis

High loan fees generate short-selling constraints and, therefore, reduce price efficiency. Despite the importance of loan fees, empirical evidence on their determinants is scarce. Using a market-wide deal-by-deal data set on the Brazilian equity lending market which uniquely identifies borrowers, brokers, and lenders, we are able to construct a proxy of search costs at the borrower–stock–day level. We find that—for the same stock, on the same day—borrowers with higher search costs pay significantly higher loan fees. Our results suggest that regulators should encourage the use of a centralized lending platform to reduce search costs in the lending market.     

我国股指期货与股票交易的关联性分析

股指期货上市交易后对股票现货市场波动性的影响取决于届时股票现货市场的估值水平,其交易过程和结果也将改变市场投资主体结构及参与程度,形成交易主体多元化的格局。同时,我国股票现货市场对股指期货的交易也存在着反约束.     

Extreme Correlation of Stock and Bond Futures Markets: International Evidence

This study explores time‐varying extreme correlation of stock–bond futures markets in three major developed countries. In the United States and the United Kingdom, there is evidence of positive extreme stock–bond correlation when both futures markets are extremely bullish or bearish. In Germany, stock–bond futures extreme correlation is negative, suggesting the most diversification potentials of bond futures when German stock index futures market plunges. Macroeconomic news, the business cycle, and the stock market uncertainty all significantly affect the median stock–bond futures correlation. However, only the stock market uncertainty still significantly affects the extreme stock–bond futures correlation when the stock market is extremely bearish.     

Options,Short Sales,and Market Completeness

This paper presents empirical evidence that trading in options contributes to both transactional and informational efficiency of the stock market by reducing the effect of constraints on short sales. The significantly higher average level of short interest exhibited by optionable stocks supports the argument that options facilitate short selling. We also find significant effects on option prices, related to the short interest in the underlying stock. We then present evidence that options also increase information efficiency. Earlier work, that is replicated and extended here, has suggested that short sale constraints cause stock prices to underweight negative information. Options appear to reduce that effect.