Informed Trading around Merger Announcements: An Empirical Test Using Transaction Volume and Open Interest in Options Market

This paper provides empirical evidence on the level of trading activity in the stock options market prior to the announcement of a merger or an acquisition. Our analysis shows that there is a significant increase in the trading activity of call and put options for companies involved in a takeover prior to the rumor of an acquisition or merger. This result is robust to both the volume of option contracts traded and the open interest. The increased trading suggests that there is a significant level of informed trading in the options market prior to the announcement of a corporate event. In addition, abnormal trading activity in the options market appears to lead abnormal trading volume in the equity market. This finding supports the hypothesis that the options market plays an important role in price discovery.     

Explaining Intraday Pattern of Trading Volume from the Order Flow Data

Based on a comprehensive order flow data from the Taiwan stock market, this study examines directly how the intraday pattern of trading volume is related to the trading behavior of both informed and uninformed traders. The results indicate that both informed and uninformed investors have a strong desire to place orders at the market open and the close. Most of the orders at the market open are conservative and hence are waiting orders for price priority. The findings show that intraday trading volume as well as the real orders from both types of investors are J-shaped. In addition, both information and liquidity trading can explain the intraday pattern of trading volume. However, the impact of liquidity trading on volume is slightly higher than that of information trading.     

Information of Unusual Trading Volume

This article investigates the information content of stock unusual trading volume from the aspect of firm fundamental information revealed by both earnings formal announcements and preannouncements. By using the stock market data of China from the second quarter of 2003 to the end of 2015, this article provides evidence that, in general, stocks that experience unusually low trading volume over the week prior to earnings announcements have more unfavorable earnings surprises. However, because of the feature of mandatory pre-disclosure policy in China, this article further finds that the relation between unusually low trading volume and unfavorable earnings surprises only exists in the stocks without earnings preannouncements, because fundamental information is incorporated in the stock prices timely around preannouncements date. In addition, unusually low trading volume signals negative fundamental changes revealed by preannouncements, and this effect is more pronounced among stocks with higher short-selling constraints, but unusually high trading volume is value-irrelevant.     

The Trading Volume of Currency Options and the Spot Exchange Rate

This paper estimates the interrelation between the spot exchange rate of the Israeli currency, the new Israeli shekel, to the U.S. dollar, and the trading volumes of put and call options on the U.S. dollar in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. An increase in the trading volume of calls is positively correlated with an increase in the spot exchange rate of the dollar on the same day and the following day, but with a lower coefficient. Similarly, an increase in the trading volume of puts is related to a decrease in the spot price of the dollar on the same day of trade, with a smaller effect on the following day.     

The Dynamic Relation Between Stock Returns, Trading Volume, and Volatility

We examine the dynamic relation between returns, volume, and volatility of stock indexes. The data come from nine national markets and cover the period from 1973 to 2000. The results show a positive correlation between trading volume and the absolute value of the stock price change. Granger causality tests demonstrate that for some countries, returns cause volume and volume causes returns. Our results indicate that trading volume contributes some information to the returns process. The results also show persistence in volatility even after we incorporate contemporaneous and lagged volume effects. The results are robust across the nine national markets.     

Who Trades Around Earnings Announcements? Evidence from TORQ Data

Abstract:  Using TORQ database we investigate the intra-day trading volume reactions to earnings announcements of five trader groups, individuals, institutions, exchange members, program traders, and specialists. The results of this study indicate that institutions are most active in the immediate aftermath of an announcement. Individual investors are slow at the beginning but accumulate heavy volume afterwards and exceed institutional trading volume. We find support for Harris and Raviv (1993) and Admati and Pfleiderer (1988) , who respectively argue that divergence of opinion about a public information and portfolio rebalancing cause surges in pre- and post-announcement trading volume. Further we find evidence of swift and aggressive trading by informed and sophisticated institutions in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, and delayed, aggressive trading volume 'overreaction' by 'slow' and 'overconfident' individual investors as documented by Barber and Odean (2000 and 2002) and Daniel et al. (1998) . NYSE specialists provide the bulk of the liquidity needs around earnings announcements.     

Relation Between Predisclosure Information Asymmetry and Trading Volume Reaction Around Quarterly Earnings Announcements

This study investigates the effects of differences in predisclosure information asymmetry on trading volume reaction during quarterly earnings announcements. The analyses show that trading volume reaction to quarterly earnings announcements is positively related to the level of predisclosure information asymmetry and to the magnitude of the price reaction to the announcements. These results are consistent with Kim and Verrecchia's (1991a) theoretical trading volume proposition, and with Atiase and Bamber's (1994) tests of the proposition based on annual earnings announcements. This study also provides evidence on the relation of predisclosure information asymmetry and trading volume before and after quarterly earnings announcements.     

浅析单位内幕交易违法的认定与处罚

近年,单位作为主体从事内幕交易的案例呈增加之势。本文结合行政执法与刑事司法实践,结合近年典型单位内幕交易案例,并借鉴海外监管查处经验,着重讨论了单位内幕交易认定的一些疑难法律问题,诸如是否将单位作为违法主体以及是否处罚、如何认定单位知悉与利用内幕信息、如何区分单位内幕交易行为与个人内幕交易行为等问题。     

Trading Returns for the Weekend Effect Using Intraday Data

The existence of the weekend effect has been documented as early as 1885. This paper examines whether the serial dependence in returns around weekends and the magnitude of negative Friday returns can be used to produce superior trading returns. We find some success for this endeavor after accounting for transaction costs (including the bid/ask spread), especially when trading is confined to weekends for which there are large negative Friday returns and to positions opened on Friday afternoons. The effect of stocks trading ex-dividend on Mondays does not appear to bias our results.     

Trading Volume and Market Volatility: Developed versus Emerging Stock Markets

We investigate the relation between volatility and volume in 22 developed markets and 27 emerging markets. Compared to developed markets, emerging markets show a greater response to large information shocks and exhibit greater sensitivity to unexpected volume. We find a negative relation between expected volume and volatility in several emerging markets, which can be attributed to the relative inefficiency in those markets. Previous research reports that the persistence in volatility is not eliminated when lagged or contemporaneous trading volume is considered. Our findings show that, when volume is decomposed into expected and unexpected components, volatility persistence decreases.     

The Impact of Information Release on Stock Price Volatility and Trading Volume: The Rights Offering Case

This paper examines whether information released via rights offering announcements induces changes in price volatility and trading volume of underlying stock. The results of this paper provide support for the release of new information via offering announcements and evidence of its effects on price volatility and volume of underlying stock. Specifically, utilization of the announced information by investors is evidenced by greater trading volume following the announcement date than during the pre-announcement period. We interpret this result to mean that informedness dominates consensus. However, stock price volatility decreased from the pre-announcement period to the post-expiration period of rights offerings.     

Risk Shift Following Dividend Change Announcement: The Role of Trading Volume

This study investigates the role of the trading volume in explaining the shift of firm's total and systematic risk when a dividend change is announced. We compared the differential interpretation hypothesis and pre-announcement disagreement hypothesis with more than 20,000 samples collected for 30 years. We found that the total risk generally increases regardless of the level of abnormal trading volume, which supports the differential interpretation hypothesis. We also found a positive relationship between announcement-period abnormal trading volume and post-announcement changes in beta, which is only consistent with the differential interpretation hypothesis. However, the decrease in beta for the majority of sample firms is only consistent with the pre-announcement disagreement hypothesis.     

投资者分歧、异常交易量和股票横截面收益率预测——基于中国股票市场的经验证据

本文定义月度异常交易量为本月与上个月交易金额的比值,发现中国市场月度收益率与滞后一个月的异常交易量显著负相关。在控制了公司规模、账面市值比、流动性以及动量效应等指标后仍然具有显著的解释作用。进一步研究表明,在出现高异常交易量后的12个月内,换手率和特质性波动率都有大幅上升。本文认为,交易量上升代表着市场分歧程度和受关注程度的增加,在卖空约束下会使得股票价值高估,从而造成未来收益率下降。     

The Effect of Investor Sentiment on Feedback Trading and Trading Frequency: Evidence from Taiwan Intraday Data

Abstract

Although extensive literature has suggested that investor sentiment may be one of the most important factors in explaining investor trading frequency and trading strategies, how individual investors are significantly influenced by sentiment remains underexplored. The feature of numerous individual investors in the Taiwan stock market provides an avenue to examine the relationship of investor sentiment to trading frequency and positive-feedback trading according to intraday data. Using a vector autoregression model to measure feedback trading in one-minute intervals, we find that trading frequency appears to increase in periods of rising market, suggesting that investor sentiment–driven trading increases market trading frequency without relying on past experiences to conduct trading behavior.     

Pursuing Value Through Liquidity in IPOs: Underpricing,Share Retention,Lockup, and Trading Volume Relationships

We argue that in an initial public offering (IPO), pre-IPO owners make decisions regarding underpricing, share retention, and share lockup simultaneously and optimally to maximize aftermarket liquidity. We predict that underpricing fosters higher trading volume in both the short run and the long run. Also, liquidity is negatively related to the proportion of shares retained by pre-IPO owners, ceteris paribus, so IPO underpricing should be positively related to the proportion of shares retained, as an offset. We document evidence consistent with these predictions. In addition, we find that, for IPOs with a lockup restriction, underpricing is more substantial and the positive relation between share retention and underpricing is much stronger. We also find that the relationship between underpricing and trading volume is stronger for IPOs with lockup. IPOs with lockup have higher trading volume, and a significant portion of this difference is associated with the effect of underpricing.JEL Classification: G10, G14, G24     

Corporate Sales, Equity Trading, and Risk

This paper proposes and investigates an explanation for a positive association between the signed value of common share returns and trading activity. The mixture of distributions model for stock returns and trading is applied with the added assumption that product sales for a firm is the directing process which generates the flow of information to equity markets. Because trading depends upon information arrival, sales and trading are positively related. Also, because contribution margin is positive, cash flows increase with sales. Dependence of both cash flows and trading on sales implies that returns and trading are also positively related. This explanation is tested in this paper.     

Trading Frictions and Market Structure: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract:  Market structure affects the informational and real frictions faced by traders in equity markets. Using bid-ask spreads, we present evidence which suggests that while real frictions associated with the costs of supplying immediacy are less in order-driven systems, informational frictions resulting from increased adverse selection risk are considerably higher in these markets. Firm value, transaction size and order location are all major determinants of the trading costs borne by investors. Consistent with the stealth trading hypothesis of Barclay and Warner (1993) , we report that informational frictions are at their highest for medium size trades that go through the order book. Finally, while there is no doubt that the total costs of trading on order-driven systems are lower for very liquid securities, the inherent informational inefficiencies of the trading format should not be ignored. This is particularly true for the vast majority of small to mid-size stocks that experience infrequent trading and low transaction volume.     

Trading Frictions and House Price Dynamics

We model liquidity in housing markets. The model provides a simple characterization for the joint process of prices, sales, and inventory. We compare the implications of the model to certain properties of housing markets. The model can generate the large price changes and the positive correlation between prices and sales that we see in the data. Unlike the data, prices are negatively autocorrelated and high inventory predicts price appreciation. We investigate several amendments to the model. Informational frictions show promise.     

我国证券市场内幕交易的法学实证分析——来自31起内幕交易成案的统计分析

内幕交易是证券法学界炙手可热、经久不衰的热门课题,关于内幕交易的各种概念、学说、理论被学术界翻炒得烂熟,解剖个案麻雀的精彩论著也不鲜见,但受制于案例、资料和相关数据的局限,少有学者从实证角度,系统性地研究我国内幕交易成案的总体特征。本文力图在传统证券法学研究途径之外,独辟蹊径,通过运用统计、数量分析等经济学科工具,对证券市场成立以来查处的全部31起内幕交易案件加以实证分析,以期得出我国内幕交易案件的发案特征与规律,为打击和防范内幕交易违法行为,修订内幕交易法制提供数据支持和实证参考。     

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。