The impact of trading floor closure on market efficiency: evidence from the Toronto Stock Exchange

On 23 April 1997, the Toronto Stock Exchange closed its trading floor, making it at that time the second-largest stock exchange in North America to choose a purely electronic trading environment for its equities. Exploiting this natural experiment, we find that the move to electronic trading resulted in a higher cost of immediacy (bid–ask spreads), increased information asymmetry and an overall deterioration of short-horizon return predictability from past order flows, reducing the efficiency of price discovery. Our results suggest that the human element plays an important role in order execution and complements automated electronic trading by improving the efficiency of incorporating new information into prices.     

Liquidity commonality in order-driven trading: evidence from the Athens Stock Exchange

We examine the presence of liquidity commonality in the order-driven Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). Unlike the majority of liquidity commonality studies that focus on the bid–ask spread, our analysis extends deeper in the Limit Order Book, providing insight on the price impact of both small and large trades. We utilize a 6-month FTSE/ATHEX-20 intraday data set to estimate the liquidity factor model of Chordia et al. (2000). To this end, we conduct single-equation analysis as well as panel data analysis with the use of two-way clustered errors, correcting for simultaneous firm and time correlations. Moreover, we apply standard principal component analysis on stock liquidities to extract the marketwide liquidity component. We find that liquidity commonality is low at the bid–ask spread, whereas it increases deeper in the book; consequently, large traders face liquidity risks associated with both individual stock and marketwide illiquidity. Moreover, our empirical evidence hints that liquidity commonality is asynchronous, suggesting that the ASE trading process includes various levels of information speed. Our analysis contributes to the understanding of liquidity commonality in order-driven trading, especially in emerging markets like the ASE where trading activity is limited and information speed is low.     

Dividend-Driven Trading Strategies: Evidence from the Warsaw Stock Exchange

This study presents an analysis of dividend-driven trading strategies based on dividend yield growth effects in the Polish stock market in the years 1994–2004. Results indicate that the dividend yield growth portfolios were capable of beating the market in the entire sample period. Their performance, however, was not consistent over time and the highest returns were obtained during final years. Empirical findings based on the analysis of different types of portfolios demonstrate the importance of dividends as a source of significant fundamental information items from stock market companies. At the same time, they show that a dividend investment strategy for the Polish stock market is most successful when the selection of stocks for the dividend yield growth portfolios is subject to further restrictions, most notably concerning company size.

Price movement and trade size on the National Stock Exchange of India

Using data for the National Stock Exchange of India, we examine three hypotheses about which trades move prices. The Stealth Trading Hypothesis proposes that cumulative price changes (CPCs) are concentrated in particular trade sizes due to the strategic trading of informed traders. We find that depending on market conditions, from 60% to 80% of the CPC is concentrated in small trade sizes, with almost all of the remaining price change concentrated in medium trade sizes. These results support the Stealth Trading Hypothesis.     

关于我国股市知情交易水平及其性质的实证研究

基于Easley、Hvidkjaer和O'Hara的序贯交易模型与PIN (Probability of Information-based Trading,基于信息的交易比率)指标对我国股市知情交易情况进行的实证分析研究结果表明:(1)我国股市信息不对称程度较高;(2)由于知情交易者利用坏消息的能力有限且流动性交易水平较高,我国股市知情交易比率并不太高;(3)知情交易比率与后续期间股票收益率的负相关性,表明我国股市中市场操控型知情交易比较严重.因此,我们认为应进一步完善上市公司的信息披露制度,降低投资者之间的信息不对称程度,同时确保流动性投资者参与股市的积极性;在引入做空机制时应慎重考虑和综合权衡,避免不适当地增加流动性投资者所承担的逆向选择风险水平,降低股市的流动性供给和风险分散功能;证券市场监管部门应进一步加强对异常交易活动的监控,加大对市场操纵行为的打击力度,以确保我国证券市场的健康发展.     

Price limits on a call auction market: Evidence from the Warsaw Stock Exchange

We empirically investigate the impact of price limits on volatility and autocorrelation in the call auction segment of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). Because call auctions offer time-out periods to investors, we do not expect price limits to counter overreaction and panic in this market structure. Indeed, our empirical findings show that price limits result in excess volatility on the next trading day and strong continuation of price movements, which indicates that price limits only delay the adjustment of prices to equilibrium levels. Our results question the necessity of price limits in the call auction system of the WSE.     

Drivers of price reaction to rights issue announcements in the Kuwait Stock Exchange

This study examines the drivers behind stock price reactions to announcements of rights issues by firms listed on the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange for the period 2003–2013. We find higher cumulative abnormal returns for firms that undertake larger issues, with the issue size reflecting the availability of favourable investment opportunities and their potential positive impact on firms’ earnings. We also document a positive price reaction in firms that are affiliated with a family group. We interpret this as evidence that the proceeds of the rights offering would be employed effectively when the firm is controlled by a family firm. No evidence was found for the price pressure and pricing effects.     

Dynamic probability of informed trading and price movements: evidence from the CSI300 index futures market

This article first uses dynamic probability of informed trading (DPIN) for measuring the probability of informed trading in the CSI300 index futures market and proves its validity for predicting future price movements. Instead of using the original Lee–Ready algorithm, this study uses bulk volume classification (BVC) for classifying volume. BVC could effectively improve the predictive power of DPIN for future price movements. The relationship between DPIN and returns indicates that informed buying raises the futures price while informed selling moves the futures price downward. DPIN could effectively capture price information in the index future markets in China.     

中国股市隐性交易成本影响因素分析

在电子指令驱动的交易制度下,中国股票价格、市场深度、知情交易概率、信息冲击、股价波动和买卖指令的不平衡性,都是影响隐性交易成本的因素;中国股市流动性、波动性和有效性,都对隐性交易成本产生影响,即流动性差、有效性低、波动性高会导致隐性交易成本增大.这一结论从实证上得到了验证.因此,隐性交易成本是衡量股票市场运行效率的一个综合性指标.     

The anatomy of returns from moving average trading rules in the Russian stock market

This paper examines the profitability of index trading strategies that are based on dual moving average crossover (DMAC) rules in the Russian stock market over the 2003–2012 period. It contributes to the existing technical analysis (TA) literature by comparing for the first time in emerging markets the relative performance of individual stocks’ trading portfolios with that of trading strategies for the index that consists of the same stocks (i.e., the most liquid stocks of the Moscow Exchange). The results show that the best trading strategies of the in-sample period can outperform buy-and-hold strategy during the subsequent out-of-sample period, although with low statistical significance. In addition, we document the benefits of using DMAC combinations that are much longer than those employed in previous TA literature. Moreover, the decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performances shows that the outperformance of the best past index trading strategies over is mostly attributable to the fact that they managed to stay mostly out of the stock market during a dramatic crash caused by the global financial crisis.     

上市公司内部人交易披露延迟及其经济后果研究——来自上海股票市场的经验证据

文章研究了我国上市公司内部人交易信息披露延迟的现状及其影响因素,以及披露延迟对内部人交易市场反应的影响。研究发现,整体而言,内部人交易存在披露延迟;交易披露延迟时间的长短与交易方向、交易是否处于信息敏感期、公司流通股比例、交易规模有关;在信息披露延迟严重的买入样本组,内部人职务对披露延迟产生了影响。市场给予内部人卖出股票负面评价而对买入股票的反应不显著;内部人交易的市场反应不受信息披露延迟影响。     

Examining the relationship between stock return volatility and trading volume: new evidence from an emerging economy

Using daily stock return data for individual stocks from an emerging economy, this article examines the relationship between return volatility and trading volume under the theoretical postulate of the mixture of distributions hypothesis. The results suggest that the contemporaneous trading volume as a proxy for latent information arrival to the market did not contribute to the removal of significant ARCH or Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity effects that are found in stocks at the first stage of the investigation. The same holds for the lagged volume except for one case. This, perhaps, suggests that the trading volume (contemporaneous or lagged) is not adequately conveying information to induce traders’ views of the desirability of trade and, therefore, points to the need for searching for other micro and macro variables to be used as potential proxy for information arrival to the stock market of the emerging economy.     

融资融券交易的市场冲击效应研究——基于中国台湾证券市场的经验与启示

融资融券交易是证券市场的重要组成部分,它的推出会对整个市场产生何种影响是非常值得研究的问题.文章利用中国台湾证券市场的融资融券交易数据,从市场流动性与波动性角度研究融资融券交易对整个市场的冲击效应.研究结果表明,融资买空交易有助于提升整个市场的流动性水平,在一定程度上可以改善市场流动性水平相对不足的状况,但融券卖空交易对市场流动性水平没有显著影响;融资买空与融券卖空交易并未显著影响整个市场的波动性水平.文章建议证券监管部门可以将融资融券交易保证金率作为市场调控工具,通过适时调整保证金率调控整个市场,避免市场出现大幅震荡.     

卖空机制、股价信息含量与暴跌风险--基于融资融券交易的经验证据

文章利用我国逐步推出融资融券交易的自然实验机会,运用双重差分的研究设计,考察了卖空机制对股价反映负面消息效率的影响。文章以2007-2012年的数据为样本研究发现：相对于非标的股票,融资融券标的股票在成为标的之后,其股价对市场的向下波动及时做出了调整,使得股价对市场正负向波动反应之间的不对称性显著降低,表明标的股票更加及时和充分地吸收了有关公司价值的负面信息;同时,相对于非标的股票,融资融券标的标的股票在成为标的之后,其股价暴跌风险显著降低。文章结果表明,我国股市推出融资融券交易后,卖空机制提高了市场对标的股票负面消息的定价效率。     

Home country bias in international emissions trading: Evidence from the EU ETS

We examine the pattern of allowance trades in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) using highly disaggregated trading data and identify a significant and robust home market bias. Our results point to informational transactions costs that increase when trading across national borders. The existing trade pattern in goods and services explains two thirds of the home bias, with the remainder due to other causes. Our finding suggests that firms make use of existing trade networks to overcome search costs in bilateral allowance trade. Since the home bias differs across firms, it follows that marginal abatement costs are not equalized across market participants of the EU ETS.     

On the relationship between energy returns and trading volume: a multifractal analysis

Forecasting and modelling commodities price movements and the activity of energy markets are of real interest to investors and policymakers, especially during turbulent times. This study investigates the volume–returns relationship for two major energy markets (oil and gas) during the recent global financial crisis. Unlike previous studies, we examine this relationship by applying an original fractal approach to intraday data, which has the advantage of accounting for further non-normality, nonstationarity, and fat-tailedness properties. Our study provides two interesting findings. First, we find a significant multifractal relationship between returns and volume in both markets and across all timescales, suggesting nonlinearity in the cross-correlation between returns and volume and rejecting the efficiency assumption. Second, the measure of multifractality in this relationship shows that the magnitude of the fluctuations during bearish and bullish trends affects the volume–return relationship differently, and that the oil market exhibits higher volatility than does the gas market.     

Information asymmetry,cluster trading,and market efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese stock market

This study investigates the effect of asymmetry information and illiquidity related to cluster trading on information integration efficiency in the Chinese stock market. The results show that information asymmetry and illiquidity related to cluster trading both negatively affect market efficiency in the Chinese stock market. While the effect of information asymmetry on market efficiency dominates in the informational period, the effect of illiquidity related to cluster trading dominates in other periods, when trading is less concentrated. Noise trading has a positive effect on market efficiency by greatly reducing the illiquidity related to cluster trading; however, its effect on information asymmetry is not significant. Our results provide insight into investors’ trading strategies.     

Serving SMEs Via the Stock Exchange: Historical Lessons from the Lisbon Stock Exchange

The development of large companies in the western world — many being huge multinational corporations — and the sheer size of their financial needs has given an added importance to tradability, a fact that can clearly be gauged by the recently discovered “high frequency trading” (HFT) operations which are only possible with large issues. Also contributing to the importance of tradability is the recent demutualization of most exchanges during the 1990s, which turned them into for-profit organizations. In fact, large issues of shares or bonds allow economies of scale, and generate experience in listing practices and trading operations, thereby enhancing the profitability of those commercially oriented stock exchanges. Thus, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are now much less attractive to these organizations, as compared to large enterprises (LEs), due to their inherent lack of liquidity and to the economies of scale. We discuss the barriers before SMEs, which require special accommodations to be able to raise stable funds for their development.     

Positive feedback trading and long-term volatility links: evidence from real estate markets of USA,Be/Lux and Switzerland

This article investigates the positive feedback trading strategies in the real estate markets of USA, Belgium/Luxembourg (Be/Lux) and Switzerland, linking these strategies with long-term volatility. The results are in favour of a positive feedback trading strategy which negatively influences investors' risk-return position on real estate markets.     

Performance of moving average trading strategies over varying stock market conditions: the Finnish evidence

This article examines the profitability of dual moving average crossover (DMAC) trading strategies in the Finnish stock market over the period 1996 to 2012. It contributes to the existing technical analysis literature by comparing for the first time the performance of DMAC trading portfolios of individual stocks to the performance of index trading strategies based on trading on an index that consists of the same stocks. The results show that their relative performance varies over time, whereas previous studies have documented outperformance of index trading strategies over trading strategies of stock portfolios. Moreover, the great majority of 3020 DMAC strategies examined in this article outperform the corresponding buy-and-hold (B and H) strategy for both trading targets (i.e., OMX Helsinki 25 index and individual stocks included in the index) in out-of-sample tests. In addition, the decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performance shows clearly that the outperformance of DMAC strategies over B and H strategy is mostly attributable to their better performance during bearish periods.