竞争力、市场微观结构与证券交易所变革

纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克实施的重大并购行动标志着全球证券交易所新一轮并购浪潮的兴起,证券交易所之间的竞争再度趋于白热化.交易所之间的竞争已演变为市场微观结构的竞争.本文对纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克的交易成本进行了比较,无论是上市成本还是交易成本,新兴的纳斯达克都比传统的纽约证交所更胜一筹.因而本文认为有效降低交易成本应是提高交易所核心竞争力的关键所在,而改进交易机制、拓展产品服务以及调整组织架构,可以作为降低交易成本、提高交易所竞争力的具体竞争策略.     

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.     

Trading frequency and event study test specification

We examine the effects of thin trading on the specification of event study tests. Simulations of upper and lower tail tests are reported with and without variance increases on the event date across levels of trading volume. The traditional standardized test is misspecified for thinly traded samples. If return variance is unlikely to increase, then Corrado's rank test provides the best specification and power. With variance increases, the rank test is misspecified. The Boehmer et al. standardized cross-sectional test (Event-study methodology under conditions of event-induced variance, Journal of Financial Economics 30, pp. 253–272) is properly specified, but not powerful, for upper-tailed tests. Lower-tailed alternative hypotheses can best be evaluated using the generalized sign test.     

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。