Asset Price Dynamics and Infrequent Feedback Trades

This article combines the continuous arrival of information with the infrequency of trades, and investigates the effects on asset price dynamics of positive and negative-feedback trading. Specifically, we model an economy where stocks and bonds are traded by two types of agents: speculators who maximize expected utility, and feedback traders who mechanically respond to price changes and infrequently submit market orders. We show that positive-feedback strategies increase the volatility of stock returns, and the response of stock prices to dividend news. Conversely, the presence of negative-feedback traders makes stock returns less volatile, and prices less responsive to dividends.     

Rational expectations equilibrium with uncertain proportion of informed traders

This paper introduces uncertainty regarding the proportion of informed traders in a rational expectation equilibrium model with asymmetric information. The proportion uncertainty dramatically changes the properties of the resulting equilibrium. First, it may generate multiple nonlinear rational expectations equilibria, which can help explain the excessive volatility of stock prices. Second, the expected price informativeness is a non-monotonic function of the proportion of informed traders, which suggests that the traders will have more incentive to become informed as the proportion of informed traders gets larger.     

Beauty Contests and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets

In a financial market where traders are risk averse and shortlived and prices are noisy, asset prices today depend on theaverage expectation today of tomorrow’s price. Thus (iteratingthis relationship) the date 1 price equals the date 1 averageexpectation of the date 2 average expectation of the date 3price. This will not, in general, equal the date 1 average expectationof the date 3 price. We show how this failure of the law ofiterated expectations for average belief can help understandthe role of higher-order beliefs in a fully rational asset pricingmodel.     

Arbitrage Chains

A privately informed trader will engage in costly arbitrage, that is, trade on his knowledge that the price of an asset is different from the fundamental value if: (1) his order does not move the price immediately to reflect the information; and (2) he can hold the asset until the date when the information is reflected in the price. We study a general equilibrium model in which all agents optimize. In each period, there may be a trader with a limited horizon who has private information about a distant event. Whether he acts on his information, and whether subsequent informed traders act, is shown to depend on the possibility of a sequence or chain of future informed traders spanning the event date. An arbitrageur who receives good news will buy only if it is likely that, at the end of his trading horizon, a subsequent arbitrageur's buying will have pushed up the expected price. We show that limited trading horizons result in inefficient prices, because informed traders do not act on their information until the event date is sufficiently close. We also show that limited horizons can arise because of the cost-carry associated with holding an arbitrage portfolio over an extended period of time.     

PRIVATE INFORMATION ACQUISITION IN EXPERIMENTAL MARKETS PRONE TO BUBBLE AND CRASH

This paper reports the results of twelve experimental markets designed to investigate whether a costly private information system decreases the propensity of price bubbles to form. A private information system is hypothesized to decrease traders' subjective uncertainty about the behavior of other traders by reinforcing common expectations for all traders. Results show that private information does not eliminate price bubbles, but asset prices converge toward the rational expectations predictions with trader experience. The price of private information is related to the expected gains derived from asset trading.     

A Test of the Modigliani‐Miller Invariance Theorem and Arbitrage in Experimental Asset Markets

Modigliani and Miller show that the total market value of a firm is unaffected by a repackaging of asset return streams to equity and debt if pricing is arbitrage‐free. We investigate this invariance theorem in experimental asset markets, finding value‐invariance for assets of identical risks when returns are perfectly correlated. However, exploiting price discrepancies has risk when returns have the same expected value but are uncorrelated, in which case the law of one price is violated. Discrepancies shrink in consecutive markets, but persist even with experienced traders. In markets where overall trader acuity is high, assets trade closer to parity.     

期货市场的交易量与价格波动

本文检验了美国期货市场WTI原油、S＆P500指数和10年期国债品种的日内、日间价格波动与日内交易量、隔日交易量之间的关系,发现预期的日内和隔日交易量都有平抑期货市场价格波动的作用,非预期的隔日交易量与期货价格波动之间有正相关关系,非预期的目内交易量对价格波动的影响不显著。从信息对称性的角度分析,预期的交易量中含有更多信息,能抑制期货价格的偏离;非预期的交易量主要由信息反馈者提供,他们往往对期货价格的变动做出过度反应,从而加剧价格波动。     

Stock market dynamics with rational liquidity traders

In the Kyle (1985) finite horizon model of stock market dynamics with a trader who holds long-lived information, informed trading intensities rise with time, and the slopes of the equilibrium price schedules fall. This paper shows that this result depends crucially on the irrational liquidity trader assumption. We replace the irrational noise traders with a sequence of rational, risk averse, liquidity traders who receive endowment shocks to their holdings of the risky asset. We demonstrate that unless liquidity traders are sufficiently risk averse, the slope of equilibrium price schedule rises over time, while informed trading intensities fall. In particular, Kyle's result holds only when liquidity traders are so risk averse that they ‘over-rebalance’ their portfolio's holdings of the risky asset, so that their final holdings of the risky asset have the opposite sign of their initial position.     

The Price Impact and Survival of Irrational Traders

Milton Friedman argued that irrational traders will consistently lose money, will not survive, and, therefore, cannot influence long‐run asset prices. Since his work, survival and price impact have been assumed to be the same. In this paper, we demonstrate that survival and price impact are two independent concepts. The price impact of irrational traders does not rely on their long‐run survival, and they can have a significant impact on asset prices even when their wealth becomes negligible. We also show that irrational traders' portfolio policies can deviate from their limits long after the price process approaches its long‐run limit.     

Asset pricing theory for two price economies

We show that nonlinearly discounted nonlinear martingales are related to no arbitrage in two price economies as linearly discounted martingales were related to no arbitrage in economies satisfying the law of one price. Furthermore, assuming risk acceptability requires a positive physical expectation, we demonstrate that expected rates of return on ask prices should be dominated by expected rates of return on bid prices. A preliminary investigation conducted here, supports this hypothesis. In general we observe that asset pricing theory in two price economies leads to asset pricing inequalities. A model incorporating both nonlinear discounting and nonlinear martingales is developed for the valuation of contingent claims in two price economies. Examples illustrate the interactions present between the severity of measure changes and their associated discount rates. As a consequence arbitrage free two price economies can involve unique discount curves and measure changes that are however specific to both the product being priced and the trade direction. Furthermore the developed valuation operators call into question the current practice of Debt Valuation Adjustments.     

Super-Exponential RE bubble model with efficient crashes

We propose a dynamic Rational Expectations (RE) bubble model of prices, combining a geometric random walk with separate crash (and rally) discrete jump distributions associated with positive (and negative) bubbles. Crashes tend to efficiently bring back excess bubble prices close to a “normal” process. Then, the RE condition implies that the excess risk premium of the risky asset exposed to crashes is an increasing function of the amplitude of the expected crash, which itself grows with the bubble mispricing: hence, the larger the bubble price, the larger its subsequent growth rate. This positive feedback of price on return is the archetype of super-exponential price dynamics. We use the RE condition to estimate the real-time crash probability dynamically through an accelerating probability function depending on the increasing expected return. After showing how to estimate the model parameters, we obtain a closed-form approximation for the optimal investment that maximizes the expected log of wealth (Kelly criterion) for the risky bubbly asset and a risk-free asset. We demonstrate, on seven historical crashes, the promising outperformance of the method compared to a 60/40 portfolio, the classic Kelly allocation, and the risky asset, and how it mitigates jumps, both positive and negative.     

房价预期与城镇居民家庭股市参与——理论探讨与微观经验证据

本文基于中国家庭金融调查数据,通过构建理论模型和实证检验分析了房价预期与家庭股市参与的关系,考察了行为金融偏差在房价预期影响股市参与过程中的作用,并根据背景风险、社会网络和户主特征进行异质性分析。结果表明:(1)房价上涨预期通过降低居民家庭的股票收益率预期和增加住房资产,进而降低居民家庭的股市参与概率和参与程度;(2)“心理账户”以及“有限关注”的存在显著弱化了房价上涨预期对家庭股市参与的负向作用;(3)房价上涨预期对股市参与概率和参与程度的负向作用在收入风险更高、健康状况更差、社会网络水平较低以及受教育程度偏低的家庭中更大。因此,稳定房价预期能够通过提升家庭股市参与,进而从需求角度促进股票市场的健康发展。     

Price dispersion in OTC markets: A new measure of liquidity

In this paper, we model price dispersion effects in over-the-counter (OTC) markets to show that, in the presence of inventory risk for dealers and search costs for investors, traded prices may deviate from the expected market valuation of an asset. We interpret this deviation as a liquidity effect and develop a new liquidity measure quantifying the price dispersion in the context of the US corporate bond market. This market offers a unique opportunity to study liquidity effects since, from October 2004 onwards, all OTC transactions in this market have to be reported to a common database known as the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE). Furthermore, market-wide average price quotes are available from Markit Group Limited, a financial information provider. Thus, it is possible, for the first time, to directly observe deviations between transaction prices and the expected market valuation of securities. We quantify and analyze our new liquidity measure for this market and find significant price dispersion effects that cannot be simply captured by bid-ask spreads. We show that our new measure is indeed related to liquidity by regressing it on commonly-used liquidity proxies and find a strong relation between our proposed liquidity measure and bond characteristics, as well as trading activity variables. Furthermore, we evaluate the reliability of end-of-day marks that traders use to value their positions. Our evidence suggests that the price deviations from expected market valuations are significantly larger and more volatile than previously assumed. Overall, the results presented here improve our understanding of the drivers of liquidity and are important for many applications in OTC markets, in general.     

An intertemporal capital asset pricing model with heterogeneous expectations

This paper extends the intertemporal capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) to integrate the heterogeneous trading behavior of three groups of investors; rational utility maximizers, positive feedback, or momentum, traders, and fundamental traders. Using several contemporary fundamental factors to proxy for the latter of these investors’ trading patterns, the interaction of these three groups of investors is explored in the G-7 markets using monthly stock market prices. There is no evidence that positive feedback traders are present in the sample data. Fundamental traders are however observable. This finding suggests that although positive feedback traders may drive stock prices in the short-run, as is typically observed in higher frequency data, fundamental traders likely play a role in pushing prices back to their fundamental value in the longer-run.     

从企业通胀预期看资产价格对物价水平的影响——基准模型与中国借鉴

企业作为市场经济的重要参与主体,其行为对物价水平有着显著影响,而受资产价格影响的企业通货膨胀预期是重要因素之一。综合运用理论分析与数理分析,对传导渠道进行研究发现：资产价格通过现有物价水平、企业对未来影响物价水平因素以及发生财务危机的预期使企业通货膨胀预期发生更大幅度的同向变化,进而使总需求正向变化,总供给负向变化,从而对物价水平产生正向的影响,且这种影响在发达国家更为明显。     

Positive Feedback Investment Strategies and Destabilizing Rational Speculation

Analyses of rational speculation usually presume that it dampens fluctuations caused by “noise” traders. This is not necessarily the case if noise traders follow positive-feedback strategies—buy when prices rise and sell when prices fall. It may pay to jump on the bandwagon and purchase ahead of noise demand. If rational speculators' early buying triggers positive-feedback trading, then an increase in the number of forward-looking speculators can increase volatility about fundamentals. This model is consistent with a number of empirical observations about the correlation of asset returns, the overreaction of prices to news, price bubbles, and expectations.     

CAN INEFFICIENT TRADERS CREATE VALUE?

I examine the aggregate expected profit generated by informed traders of diverse ability in a competitive market. I assume that efficient traders get perfect information on asset values whereas inefficient traders get noisy information. In the presence of order size restrictions, I show that the aggregate expected profit generated by efficient and inefficient traders together can be higher than that generated by efficient traders alone. Thus, inefficient traders can create value in a constrained trading environment.     

Market making with minimum resting times

We show how the supply of liquidity in order-driven markets is affected if limit orders (LOs) are forced to rest in the limit order book for a minimum resting time (MRT) before they can be cancelled. The bid-ask spread increases as the MRT increases because market makers (MMs) increase the depth of their LOs to protect them from being picked off by other traders. We also show that the expected profits of the MMs increase when the MRT increases. The intuition is as follows. As the MRT increases, there are two opposing forces at work. One, the longer the MRT, the more likely the LOs are to be filled and, on average, shares are sold at a loss. Two, because the depth of the posted LOs increases, the probability that the LO is picked off by other traders before the end of the MRT decreases. The net effect is that a longer MRT leads to a higher expected profit. We also show that the depth of LOs increases when the volatility of the price of the asset increases. Also, the depth of LOs increases when the arrival rate of market orders increases because it is less likely that LOs will be picked off by the end of the MRT. Finally, our model also makes predictions about the overall liquidity of the market. We show that MMs choose to supply the minimum amount of shares per LO allowed by the exchange because expected profits are maximised when liquidity provided is lowest.     

Do market prices reveal the decision models of sophisticated investors?: Evidence from the laboratory

If security prices are fully revealing, then all public information should be reflected in prices, and unsophisticated traders may be able to learn how various types of information affect security valuation by observing prices. A series of laboratory asset markets was conducted to examine whether unsophisticated traders are able to learn to evaluate publicly released information by trading with and observing trades made by a sophisticated trader who knows the valuation implications of the information. We find that unsophisticated traders who participate in an asset market with a sophisticated trader show significant improvement in their ability to use public information on a subsequent price estimation task. Conversely, a control group consisting only of unsophisticated traders shows no improvement. We conclude that market prices convey the sophisticated trader’s private information in a manner that permits unsophisticated investors to learn the stock price implications of a public information release.     

Why derivatives on derivatives? The case of spread futures

Recently, calendar spread futures, futures contracts whose underlying asset is the difference of two futures contracts with different delivery dates, have been successfully introduced for a number of financial futures contracts traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. A spread futures contract is not an obvious financial innovation, as it is a derivative on a derivative security: a spread futures position can be replicated by taking positions in the two underlying futures contracts, both of which may already be quite liquid. This paper provides a motivation for this innovation, demonstrating how the introduction of spread futures can, by changing the relative trading patterns of hedgers and informed traders, affect equilibrium bid–ask spreads, improve hedger welfare, and potentially improve market-maker expected profits. These results are robust both to allowing serial correlation of asset price changes, and investor preference for skewness.