Signing trades and an evaluation of the Lee–Ready algorithm

We use techniques developed to analyze the Supply Curve in liquidity models in order to analyze the accuracy of the Lee and Ready algorithm, both for highly liquid and relatively liquid stocks. Through the use of order book data combined with tick data, we are actually (somewhat tediously) able to tell whether or not a given trade is buyer or seller initiated. For those trades where such knowledge is certain, the accuracy of the Lee and Ready algorithm is not as accurate as has been assumed previously. We can essentially prove that the Lee and Ready algorithm is always at least 55% accurate, and is around 61% accurate for highly liquid stocks (i.e., the top 50 of the S&P 100).     

Short sales and put options: Where is the bad news first traded?

Although the literature provides strong evidence supporting the presence of informed trading in both the option and the short equity markets, it is not clear which market attracts more informed trading. Using a unique dataset that covers intraday transaction data in the option and short equity markets, we investigate informed trading in a cross-market environment by explicitly studying the lead–lag relationship between the put net trade volume and short sales of the underlying stock. Our high frequency analysis shows that in general short sales contain more information. However, put options become more informative before the release of negative earnings announcements.     

Credit default swaps and the UK 2008–09 short sales ban

Most studies of the short sales ban of UK financial stocks from September 2008 to January 2009 fail to control for the UK’s worst ever banking crisis and the underlying increase in risk. This paper studies the ban’s impact on the 13 large financials with credit default swaps (CDS) and 20 smaller stocks without CDS. The results reveal that returns of banned stocks Granger cause CDS returns in the pre- and post-ban periods, but causality runs from CDS to stock returns during the ban period. Underlying risk proxied by the CDS probability of default increased during the ban and the immediate pre- and post-ban periods which highlights an endogeneity problem ignored in some studies. This increased risk provides a plausible rationale for why CDS and related equity bid-ask spreads - which increased during the ban period – failed to fall significantly in the post-ban period. Panel regression results indicate that probability of default was an important economic determinant of stock bid-ask spreads during the ban period. Finally, our results suggest that the ban offered direct price support for the smaller non-CDS stocks during the ban period and indirect support for CDS stocks from their pre-ban to their post-ban levels.     

Foreign trade shocks and the dynamics of high inflation: Israel, 1978–1985

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical answers to questions related to the propagation of shocks in a high-inflation economy. Do one-time shocks give rise to long-term persistence of inflation? Do foreign trade shocks trigger a process that, through indexation and monetary accomodation, results in long-term changes in inflation? Within the context of a specific hypothesis, influential both in policy discussions and in economic analyses, the paper addresses these issues using Israeli data and vector-autoregression techniques. The evidence does not support the hypothesis from the ‘inertia approach’ that one-time nominal shocks have a persistent effect on the inflation rate, or the hypothesis that long-term changes in inflation are triggered by autonomous fluctuations in the trade deficit.     

Extending the Lee–Carter model: a three-way decomposition

In this paper, we focus on a Multi-dimensional Data Analysis approach to the Lee–Carter (LC) model of mortality trends. In particular, we extend the bilinear LC model and specify a new model based on a three-way structure, which incorporates a further component in the decomposition of the log-mortality rates. A multi-way component analysis is performed using the Tucker3 model. The suggested methodology allows us to obtain combined estimates for the three modes: (1) time, (2) age groups and (3) different populations. From the results obtained by the Tucker3 decomposition, we can jointly compare, in both a numerical and graphical way, the relationships among all three modes and obtain a time-series component as a leading indicator of the mortality trend for a group of populations. Further, we carry out a correlation analysis of the estimated trends in order to assess the reliability of the results of the three-way decomposition. The model's goodness of fit is assessed using an analysis of the residuals. Finally, we discuss how the synthesised mortality index can be used to build concise projected life tables for a group of populations. An application which compares 10 European countries is used to illustrate the approach and provide a deeper insight into the model and its implementation.     

Shorting costs and profitability of long–short strategies

We examine how the profitability of long–short arbitrage strategies based on anomalies is affected after adjustment for two shorting costs: implicit cost due to unavailability of stocks in the short-leg to sell short and loan fees actually paid to stock lenders. The combined shorting cost amounts to almost 40 percent of long–short gross returns over the sample period from January 2006 to December 2017. After adjustment for these shorting costs, long–short arbitrage profits are thus reduced by almost 40 percent. Even after adjustment for risk, the proportion of shorting costs is also substantial. If other trade-related transaction costs are considered, long–short arbitrage profits would be reduced further. Our results provide explicit evidence that casts doubt on the profitability of long-short arbitrage strategies based on anomalies.     

Post-acquisition performance in the short and long run. Evidence from the Copenhagen Stock Exchange 1993–1997

The paper investigates the short-run price adjustment around acquisition announcements and the long-run upward bias of cross-sectional average buy-and-hold returns. The geometric Brownian motion model is applied to decompose the cross-sectional average long-run returns into transformed mean and volatility components. The decomposition improves the interpretation of security performance. The methodology is demonstrated on the security performance of bidding firms listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The most surprising finding is that the long-run abnormal return after three years is not significantly different from zero. This implies that the bidding firms do not under-perform relative to the market. This result stands in contrast to findings in other studies and it may reflect that earlier studies do not adjust correctly for the volatility component. These current findings indicate that the market efficiency hypothesis is intact in the long run. It is only in the very short run, a few days around acquisition announcements, that the market makes a significant adjustment to uphold the efficiency hypothesis.     

Why Muddy the Water? Short selling and the disclosure of proprietary information

The conventional wisdom of voluntary disclosure literature is that the major factor preventing firms from disclosing customer-related information is firms' concern for proprietary costs. However, non-disclosure may also happen when firms have bad news to hide and are concerned about short sellers using customer information to verify bad news about the firms. By implementing a difference-in-differences research design against the backdrop of the deregulation of short selling in China, we find that increased short-selling pressure discourages firms from disclosing the identities of major customers. The findings also reveal consistent evidence supporting the bad news hoarding hypothesis rather than the proprietary cost hypothesis. Overall, our study provides an alternative explanation for firms’ lack of disclosure of customer information.     

Of substitutes and complements: trade credit versus bank loans in Japan, 1980–2012

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This paper explores the interplay of trade credit and short-term bank loans between 1980 and 2012 in Japan. Many of the issues discussed for the U.S....     

Informational linkage and price discovery between China's futures and spot markets: Evidence from the US–China trade dispute

This study examines the effects of the US–China trade dispute on the informational linkages and price discovery between China's futures and spot markets. Using the daily price data of four assets representing the real and financial sectors in China during 2016–2019, empirical findings suggest that the futures–spot correlations for the stock index, copper, and corn markets have increased significantly during the trade dispute. In contrast, sharp declines in the dynamic correlations between gold futures and spot markets, as gold is a safe haven asset, are observed during the event window. During uncertainty disturbance (i.e., the trade dispute), the futures–spot cointegrated relationships in the gold and corn markets are found to adjust more quickly and efficiently, whereas the correction speeds of the market deviations for the stock index and copper market are moderately slower. With the intensive integration of market expectations with uncertainty shocks, the economic shocks of trade disputes tend to remarkably improve the pricing efficiency of China's futures markets, except for the gold futures market. China's spot markets, however, seem to be more sensitive to the noise trades and information disturbances arising from the trade dispute.     

Did mega-regional trade agreements reshuffle the financial influence of the US,China, and Japan in ASEAN? Evidence from the volatility-spillover effects

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the succeeding Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) were widely viewed as trade agreements aiming at containing the influence of China and raising that of the US and Japan in Asia. This study utilizes the outward volatility-spillover effect of the equity market as a proxy for a country’s financial influence and analyzes whether the signing of the TPP and CPTPP reshuffled the financial influence of the US, China, and Japan in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The study finds that the TPP and CPTPP did boost the financial influence of the US and Japan in some ASEAN countries; however, there is no evidence that they have reduced the financial influence of China in ASEAN.     

Disclosure,shareholder oversight and the pay–performance link

This paper investigates the effect of increased shareholder oversight and disclosure about executive remuneration on the pay–performance relation, while controlling for contemporaneous changes in corporate governance practice. Our sample consists of 240 ASX-listed firms with annual reports available for each year over the period 2001–2009, a period which straddles the timing of regulatory change. We initially document the conjectured improvements in remuneration disclosure and shareholder oversight in the form of the advisory vote on the remuneration report. Following, we find as predicted a general strengthening of the pay–performance relation over the study period, with the increased sensitivity of reported CEO remuneration to firm performance being primarily related to enhanced remuneration disclosure and the non-binding shareholder vote on the remuneration report. Our results lead us to conclude that enhanced oversight over executive remuneration arrangements brought about by regulatory change has positively impacted the executive remuneration process by strengthening the pay–performance relation and making the process appear more accountable.     

Is it punishment? Sovereign defaults and the decline in trade

Sovereign defaults are associated with declines in defaulting countries trade. Are these declines the result of trade sanctions as the trade sanctions argument of sovereign borrowing would suggest? We devise an empirical strategy to evaluate this issue based on the idea that if trade sanctions are causing the declines, bilateral trade with creditor countries should fall more than trade with other countries. We find that this is not the case. The analysis does not yield much evidence of broader punishment strategies including a league of major creditors either. These results contradict the predictions of the trade sanctions theory of sovereign borrowing.     

Is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Ready for China?

Abstract:

The re-emergence of China as a global economic power has intensified calls for the urgent reform of Western-dominated international organizations. We evaluate efforts by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to adapt to the challenge of China. From the first decade of the 2000s, the OECD has undertaken reforms to boost its significance as a key policy actor in the global economy. Part of this effort involves bringing China closer to the organization. To date, only limited progress has been made. We set out three bold policy reforms the OECD could implement that would deepen the OECD’s relationship with China as well as with other emerging economies.     

Effect of respondents’ personality on resistance to change and the sales force

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Big Five Personality dimensions on resistance to change (RTC). Data from a sample of 200 sales people was collected from a large financial services firm in South Africa. Principal components factor analysis followed by varimax rotation was undertaken to test the factor structure and internal validity of the measures used. Correlation analysis was undertaken to determine whether insurance salespersons’ personality types are related to reported levels of RTC. Results are reported, limitations are noted and directions for future research are indicated.     

An examination of the relationship between the disposition effect and gender,age, the traded security,and bull–bear market conditions

We analyze how gender and age, internal characteristics of retail futures traders—one that remains fixed while the other changes over a lifetime—and the security being traded and bull–bear market conditions, two external factors, are related to the disposition effect by separately tracking their trade-by-trade transaction histories over a period of close to six years on the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX). We show that women and mature traders, compared with their male and younger counterparts, exhibit a stronger disposition effect. The effect is also stronger among traders who trade financial-sector futures contracts than among those who trade electronic-sector futures contracts. We further demonstrate that a bear market sees a stronger disposition effect.     

Heterogeneous time preferences and interest rates—the preferred habitat theory revisited

The influence of heterogeneous time preferences on the term structure is studied in the framework of a continuous-time pure exchange economy, in which agents have, apart from differential time preferences, the same degree of relative risk aversion. A closed-form solution for the financial equilibrium is obtained. In equilibrium, one long-term bond and one short-term bond form a complete market. Agents use these bonds to finance their consumption plans. The long-term bond is bought by agents with a long habitat. The short rate is a weighted average of the short rates which prevail in homogeneous economies populated by one type of agent only. It is shown by example that heterogeneity of time preferences can produce additional humps in the yield curve.     

Which stocks drive the size,value, and momentum anomalies and for how long? Evidence from a statistical leverage analysis

A large number of neoclassical, behavioral, and bias-based theories try to explain the tendency of small, value, and winner stocks to outperform big, growth, and loser stocks, three well-known characteristic anomalies. Because the theories often predict similar relationships between a stock’s propensity to contribute to the anomalies and a set of correlated firm characteristics, existing studies focusing on single theories do not tell us which theory is most successful in explaining the anomalies. To fill this gap, we use a new non-parametric methodology to run a horse race between the theories. In the first step, we use statistical leverage analysis to find out which stocks are ultimately responsible for the anomalies. In the second, we use the firm characteristics suggested by the theories to forecast the identity of the anomaly drivers, with the purpose of determining which theory is most supported by the data. We find that behavioral theories are most convincing in explaining the size and book-to-market anomalies, while no theory is convincing in explaining the momentum anomaly.     

Model uncertainty,recalibration, and the emergence of delta–vega hedging

We study option pricing and hedging with uncertainty about a Black–Scholes reference model which is dynamically recalibrated to the market price of a liquidly traded vanilla option. For dynamic trading in the underlying asset and this vanilla option, delta–vega hedging is asymptotically optimal in the limit for small uncertainty aversion. The corresponding indifference price corrections are determined by the disparity between the vegas, gammas, vannas and volgas of the non-traded and the liquidly traded options.