The Underpricing and Excess Returns of Initial Public Offerings in Taiwan Based on Noisy Trading: A Stochastic Frontier Model

Initial public offerings (IPOs) are typically offered at prices lower than the transaction price in the early aftermarket. With a stochastic frontier model, we measured the fair offer price of an IPO and then the deliberate IPO underpricing and the market misvaluation based on the estimated fair offer price. Our results show that IPOs are deliberately underpriced. The extent of noisy trading leading to significantly higher market transaction prices explains the excess IPO returns. We conclude that initial IPO returns result primarily from the noisy trading activities instead of the deliberate IPO underpricing.     

The Stock Price-Volume Linkage on the Toronto Stock Exchange: Before and After Automation

This paper investigates the information content of trading volume on the Toronto Stock Exchange before and after the move towards fully electronic trading. It is argued that if price discovery improves under electronic trading, the predictive power of volume should be less significant. The empirical analysis supports more accurate price discovery under electronic trading. Results from both the structural and vector autoregression models indicate that the predictive power of volume for price variability disappears after full automation.     

Strategic trading and learning about liquidity

Many practitioners point out that the speculative profits of institutional traders are eroded by the difficulty in gauging the price impact of their trades. In this paper, we develop a model of strategic trading where speculators face such a dilemma because of incomplete information about time-varying market liquidity. Unlike the competitive market makers that they trade against, informed traders do not know the distribution of liquidity (“noise”) trades. Instead, they have to learn about liquidity from past prices and trading volume. This learning implies that strategic trades and market statistics such as informational efficiency are path-dependent on past market outcomes. Our paper also has normative implications for practitioners.     

Observable Consequences of Trading Structure Differences: On the Use of Variance Ratios in Microstructure Studies

This paper examines the variance ratio tests in studies of transitory volatility and concludes that the variance ratio is an appropriate test of trading structure differences only under certain assumptions regarding the evolution of underlying stock prices and the autocorrelation structure of returns. This result raises caution as to the interpretation of results bases upon the 24-hour variance ratio methodologies in studies of transitory volatility and trading structure effects. A numerical example indicates that errors in inferences can be severe.     

Binomial Option Pricing with Skewed Asset Returns

This research presents a method for estimating the parameters of the binomial option pricing model necessary to appropriately price calls on assets with asymmetric end-of-period return distributions. Parameters of the binomial model are shown to be a function of the mean, variance, and skewness of the underlying return distribution. It is also shown that failure to incorporate skewness results in the mispricing of the call.     

Measuring abnormal daily trading volume for samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities using parametric and nonparametric test statistics

We extend prior research on the empirical properties of daily trading volume and methods to detect abnormal trading volume in two ways. We compare the performance of a nonparametric test statistic with the parametric test statistic used in prior research and we study samples of NASDAQ securities as well as samples of NYSE/ASE securities. Prior research has focused exclusively on NYSE securities. We find the nonparametric test statistic is more powerful in detecting abnormal trading volume than the parametric test statistic in both samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities. We also document that abnormal trading volume will be detected more often in samples of NYSE/ASE securities compared to NASDAQ securities.     

Do corporate insiders circumvent insider trading regulations? The case of stock repurchases

We use calculated values of standardized abnormal insider trading activity to investigate for patterns of unusual insider activity around fixed-price and Dutch auction repurchase announcements. Firms are classified according to whether the repurchase is signaling information about future cash flows, about the distribution of excess free cash flows, or about management's attempts to maintain control in the presence of a takeover. We find below normal levels of sales well before the event and above normal levels of sales after the event. This tendency is strongest for fixed-price offers and for firm's conveying information about future cash flows, and is absent for firms involved in takeovers. No evidence exists of abnormal levels of purchases before or after the event. We interpret the evidence as consistent with insiders successfully circumventing policies and regulations designed to prevent the exploitation of private information by timing the pattern of their security sales.     

对金融衍生品市场内幕交易的一些新思考--澳大利亚现行的反内幕交易法及其带给我们的若干启示

本文着眼于澳大利亚在治理金融衍生品市场内幕交易中积累的丰富经验,针对一个崭新的前瞻性课题,即金融衍生品市场的内幕交易问题展开研究。作者认为,由于内幕交易与信息非对称性之间存在的内在冲突,实际上反内幕交易法规很难有效地阻止金融衍生品的内幕交易行为,过于复杂的反内幕交易法规会对市场产生一些负面影响,而放松内幕交易监管这一新思维将对市场的良性发展更为有益,应该让市场来决定内幕交易行为的“存亡”。但目前最为现实、温和的选择仍然是修改现行反内幕交易法,以维护市场的公平性和有效性。最后,笔者对如何缓解中国目前内幕交易猖獗的现状提出建议。     

另类交易系统的法律界定

作为一种新型证券交易场所，另类交易系统是一种以互联网为基础的，依据一定规则自动聚集并撮合投资者委托买卖证券指令的电子交易系统。它属于场外交易场所的范畴，与传统交易所相比，其交易对象更广，交易流程更为便捷，交易规则特殊，同投资者之间的法律关系也不同。它的出现，不仅对传统交易所和中介机构的地位产生了强烈冲击，而且对传统的证券监管体制和证券诉讼也产生了深刻影响。本文在国外对另类交易系统概念界定的基础上，论述了其基本概念和特征，以期为将来我国另类交易系统的立法和监管提供理论参考。     

金融期货价格波动限制机制探讨

金融期货价格稳定机制延缓了价格发现过程，并造成了流动性干扰，但从降低期货、现货交易总成本来讲，它还是利大于弊，因此设置价格波动限制是一种可行的政策，而且在期货、现货市场同时设定的效果最好。此外，从不同价格波动限制方式的影响来看，选择弹性涨跌幅限制可较好地发挥价格限制的好处，减小价格限制的不利影响。