Who influences the fundamental value of commodity futures in Japan?

We present evidence on the asymmetric information content of six investor groups' transactions in the gold, platinum, gasoline and rubber futures markets on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange. Microstructure theory suggests that traders with superior information regarding the efficient price should be more profitable in the long run. We find that foreign investors have the greatest influence over the efficient price in the gold market, domestic retail investors in the gasoline market and domestic investment funds in the platinum and rubber markets. Differences in the relative influence of investor groups over commodity futures are likely to reflect the degree of contract homogeneity and associated market liquidity. Foreign (domestic retail) investors have larger information shares for the homogeneous liquid (heterogeneous illiquid) contracts than for the heterogeneous illiquid (homogeneous liquid) contracts.     

Index futures and positive feedback trading: evidence from major stock exchanges

This paper tests the hypothesis that the introduction of index futures has increased positive feedback trading in the spot markets of six industrialized nations. The analysis is based on a model that assumes two different groups of investors, i.e., risk averse expected utility maximizing investors and positive feedback traders. There is evidence consistent with positive feedback trading before the introduction of index futures across all markets under investigation. In the period following the introduction of index futures, there is no evidence supporting the hypothesis that positive feedback trading drives short-term dynamics of stock returns. The possibility that this is due to possible migration of feedback traders from the spot to the futures markets is also tested. The results show no evidence of positive feedback trading in the futures markets. Overall, the findings support the view that futures markets help stabilize the underlying spot markets by reducing the impact of feedback traders and thus attracting more rational investors who make the markets more informationally efficient and thus providing investors with superior ways of managing risk.     

Investor Sentiment,Trading Behavior and Informational Efficiency in Index Futures Markets

This paper shows that traders in index futures markets are positive feedback traders—they buy when prices increase and sell when prices decline. Positive feedback trading appears to be more active in periods of high investor sentiment. This finding is consistent with the notion that feedback trading is driven by expectations of noise traders. Consistent with the noise trading hypothesis, order flow in index futures markets is less informative when investors are optimistic. Transitory volatility measured at high frequencies also appears to decline in periods of bullish sentiment, suggesting that sentiment‐driven trading increases market liquidity.     

中国利率市场的价格发现——对国债现货、期货以及利率互换市场的研究

本文采用信息份额模型和基于向量自回归(VAR)模型的格兰杰因果检验,研究了国债现货、国债期货和利率互换三个市场之间的价格发现机制。信息份额模型表明,从整体来看利率互换相对于国债期货和国债现货都具有信息优势,而国债期货相对于国债现货具有信息优势。另外,国债期货的价格发现能力相对于另外两个市场都在随时间增强。格兰杰因果检验结果显示,利率互换在价格发现中单向引领国债期货以及国债现货,国债期货单向引领国债现货。所有结果一致表明, 利率互换和国债期货这两种利率衍生产品在引导中国利率市场价格发现中发挥了重要作用。     

Decision Making for Individual Investors: A Measurement of Latent Difficulties

This study identifies how investors’ confidence and information gathering ability affect their decision making by using the investment theory on crystallized and fluid intelligences. We adopt the Rasch model to analyze latent and unobservable factors that cause difficulties in investment participation for investors in Taiwan. These investors are more confident in technical analysis but less confident in trading regulations. Further, they find media and professional sources difficult to trust, but professional advice is very accessible. Lower income significantly influences investors’ confidence and their information-gathering ability just as youth significantly contributes to more confidence. But gender and maturity significantly contribute to factors that concern their information gathering ability. Regional demographic differences show variations in decision making regarding investment preferences, while increasing income encourages investment diversification through multiple decisions. This study identifies a strong correlation between investors’ confidence and their information gathering ability, thus indicating that investors’ confidence enhances the development of the ability to gather investment information.     

A Model of Returns and Trading in Futures Markets

This paper develops an equilibrium model of a competitive futures market in which investors trade to hedge positions and to speculate on their private information. Equilibrium return and trading patterns are examined. (1) In markets where the information asymmetry among investors is small, the return volatility of a futures contract decreases with time-to-maturity (i.e., the Samuelson effect holds). (2) However, in markets where the information asymmetry among investors is large, the Samuelson effect need not hold. (3) Additionally, the model generates rich time-to-maturity patterns in open interest and spot price volatility that are consistent with empirical findings.     

Noise Trading in Small Markets

Considering noise traders as agents with unpredictable beliefs, we show that in an imperfectly competitive market with risk averse investors, noise traders may earn higher expected utility than rational investors. This happens when, by deviating from the Nash equilibrium strategy, noise traders hurt rational investors more than themselves. It follows that the willingness of arbitrageurs to exploit noise traders' misperceptions is lower relative to a perfectly competitive economy. This result reinforces the theory that noise trading may explain closed-end fund discounts and small firms' returns, since these markets are less competitive than the market for large firms' stock.     

境外市场客户交易信息披露经验的借鉴与思考

提高信息透明度是市场发展的努力方向之一。目前国内证券期货市场一般做到部分会员层级的数据披露;但是从最新情况来看,部分境外市场已经开始适度公开客户信息,如台湾期货市场2008年4月7日开始公布三大法人的交易及持仓数据。提高市场信息披露程度,适度公开主要交易群体的交易信息,有助于维护不同投资者之间的信息公平,能够利用市场力量来规范和抗衡市场操纵等违规企图,提高监管效率,降低监管成本,值得借鉴。     

Sources of Systematic Risk in Futures and Spot Markets: A Study of Market Integration

This article explains the implications of asset market integration for the decision making process of market participants and tests the integration between futures and spot markets. Integration is investigated with respect to the hypothesis that the sources of systematic risk in futures and spot markets command identical risk premia. While the futures and the spot markets for currencies and equities are integrated, we present new evidence that the futures and commodity spot markets are segmented. Such results are of primary importance to investors who use asset pricing models to adjust the risk-return trade-off of their portfolio and evaluate portfolio performance.     

The price discovery role of day traders in futures market: Evidence from different types of day traders

Using proprietary account-level transaction data in the futures market where day traders are self-declared ex ante, this study investigates whether day traders enhance price discovery at the market level. From a natural classification of day traders, we find that heterogeneous day traders have differential effects on price discovery. Self-declared day traders, who benefit from low margin requirement, do not improve price discovery measured by information share. In contrast, non-declared traders, who are not self-declared as day traders, improve price discovery. Their positive impacts on price discovery are particularly significant during periods of high volatility and arrival of new information. Overall, a margin stimulating policy may encourage more day trading, but may also attract overconfident investors, especially inexperienced ones, and who do not enhance price discovery.     

Futures Market Sentiment and Institutional Investor Behavior in the Spot Market: The Emerging Market in Taiwan

This paper investigates whether and how futures market sentiment and stock market returns heterogeneously affect the trading activities of institutional investors in the spot market in Taiwan. Our empirical results suggest that foreign investors are net sellers whenever futures market sentiment is bullish and net buyers when investor sentiment is bearish. The two types of domestic institutional investors have poor sentiment timing abilities and the price-pressure effect may account for the behavioral differences among institutional investors. In addition, all three institutional investors are momentum traders. Nevertheless, the momentum trading of foreigners is consistent with an information-based model and that of two local institutional investors, as behavior-based models suggest. This indicates that the same trading momentum strategy can lead to different outcomes for different investors, and both information- and behavior-based momentum trading can exist contemporaneously in the Taiwanese stock market.     

Analysis of intraday herding behavior among the sector ETFs

A body of literature has emerged suggesting that investors herd, or tend to make investment decisions on the basis of information provided by the trades of other market participants. In this paper, we use intraday data to examine whether traders herd during periods of extreme market movements using sector Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Two procedures, one based on identifying extreme up market and down market periods and the other based on incorporating a nonlinear term in a regression specification, are used to identify the possibility of the existence of herding behavior in nine sector ETFs traded on the American Stock Exchange. The results support the conclusion that investors do not herd during periods of extreme market movements using ETFs. Furthermore, we show that the market reaction to news is not symmetric for up markets and down markets.     

国际期货市场机构投资者的发展及借鉴

期货市场上的机构投资者主要有期货投资基金和对冲基金，证券公司或投资银行、养老基金、共同基金以及商业银行等机构也是重要参与者。本文介绍了参与国际期货市场的机构投资者的投资特点、在不同市场投资所占的比重和发挥的作用，分析了期货市场机构投资者的类型、发展及与现货市场机构投资者及期货公司之间的关系，并为中国期货市场机构投资者的发展提出了相关建议。     

Trading behaviour connectedness across commodity markets: Evidence from the hedgers’ sentiment perspective

This paper analyses the connectedness network for commercial traders’ sentiment across agriculture, energy, metals and livestock futures markets. The findings find that: (a) producer/merchant/processor/user (PMPU) in agricultural and energy markets are mainly engaged in cross-hedging in the futures market, and most of them would avoid risks in these markets by operating in the metal markets, which can be considered safe for PMPU traders, and that the cross-hedging strategies may play the role of PMPU sentiment spillover across futures markets; (b) as index traders, the swap dealers operate more in two markets, namely between the agricultural and metal markets, or between the agricultural and energy markets; (c) the influence of geopolitical risks in some countries can affect the stability of energy markets, which in turn can cause PMPU system-wide connectedness.     

The International Transmission of Arbitrage Information Across Futures Markets

Abstract:   This paper examines whether deviations from a domestic spot‐futures relation, as identified through mispricing series in stock index futures, spillover international boundaries. Such spillovers suggest that information from a mispricing series in one market conveys a signal of similar mispricing in another market. In the presence of arbitrage traders and in the absence of market frictions, mispricing series should be independent across international boundaries. The study employs a VAR analysis of stock index futures mispricing across three large futures markets – Australia, the UK and the USA. Using time zone differences, tests are conducted for the daily transmission of arbitrage information. The results reveal the relationship between mispricing series is bi‐directional. Based on this finding, a trading strategy is employed to examine the economic significance of apparent profits. The results show that some profits are possible after transaction costs but that a long horizon, probably beyond the scope of most traders, is required to exploit the spillover information.     

Realized volatility spillovers between US spot and futures during ECB news: Evidence from the European sovereign debt crisis

We study the simultaneity impact of the European Central Bank news on the daily realized volatility transmission mechanism (spillovers) among various US spot and futures markets. To this end, we apply a bias-corrected vector autoregressive model via Wild bootstrap simulation. We use minute-by-minute intraday data to construct daily realized volatility. We consider 429 news form the ECB as important events employing two major classifications, namely, a country classification with the highest total number of days related ECB news and a type of ECB news classification. We find that investors in futures markets react more vigorously and mainly for the ECB news that is associated with the group of EMU member states applied structural reforms. Yet, more importantly, we show that the US stock markets response heterogeneously to the ECB news, as we find key disagreements in the reactions both across the US markets and the types of ECB news studied. Such evidence is consistent with the explanation of the differential interpretation of information among market participants. From a practical point of view, we suggest that investors in the US spot market can effectively use two or more futures contracts to minimize their exposure to volatility risk associated with that news.     

境外高频交易监管制度对我国期货市场监管的启示——基于经济和技术手段的视角

高频交易是近年来国内期货市场兴起的新型交易方式,该方式有利于期货市场功能发挥,但过度的高频交易则会误导市场,损害投资者利益。加强对高频交易的规范和监管对提高期货市场运行效率、保护投资者利益具有重要意义。本文以美国和欧盟为例,梳理了境外监管机构对高频交易的监管要求,并从监管的经济手段和技术手段出发,对监管制度进行了评价。其中,经济手段主要包括高频交易量比率、订单成交比、加权交易量比率等及其分类收费制度等;技术手段则包括增加减速带、要求订单驻留时间等措施。在此基础上,对国内监管机构针对高频交易的规范和监管提出了政策建议。     

中国大宗商品期货市场定价机制研究

大宗商品期货市场是我国资本市场的重要组成部分,其定价有效性关系到投资者套期保值和价格发现等功能的实现。本文对国际前沿研究中常用的定价因子进行全面系统梳理,并对这些因子对我国商品期货合约收益率的解释和预测能力进行检验。在此基础上,本文构建了适用于我国大宗商品期货市场的包含市场、基差以及基差动量的三因子定价模型。进一步研究表明,基于大宗商品存储理论和现货存货数据构建的投资组合收益率可以被本文三因子模型有效解释,验证了经典的存储理论在我国的适用性。此外,本文对基差与基差动量两个重要因子的经济学意义进行了阐释。本文研究为进一步厘清大宗商品期货市场定价机制提供了一定参考。     

Volatility Linkages Among Gold Futures in Emerging Markets

We aim to detect the cross-border volatility linkages among gold futures in emerging markets, which still remain an untapped area. China, India, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, and U.S. futures markets are included in the sample. The volatility linkage analyses confirm the existence of volatility transmission among the majority of the sample countries’ gold futures. This article carries vital inferences and implications for policy makers and investors. The policy making is particularly important for China, which is a relatively isolated market. From investors’ perspective, the results indicate that the risk diversification and cross-market hedging opportunities in the emerging gold futures markets are quite limited.     

An empirical investigation of large trader market manipulation in derivatives markets

Using account-level transaction data in options and futures markets, we investigate the existence of market manipulation, which is the ability of large traders to trade strategically, impacting prices and making abnormal profits. First, large trader’s option positions have a quantity impact on the underlying asset’s price. Second, large traders generate significantly positive alphas from trading options and futures. Among the different investor types, proprietary dealers generate the largest positive alphas. Third, these abnormal returns are consistent with strategic trading and cross-market manipulation. The evidence supports market manipulation across the options and futures markets, but not within the futures market itself.