Trading Halts and Price Discovery

Trading halts have their proponents and opponents. Recent literature has examined the benefits of halts, if any, by studying the consequences of halts on order flow and price volatility. This study complements existing literature by examining the consequences of trading halts on price discovery. Our results indicate that stock price adjustments surrounding trading halts are conditioned on the underlying event that caused the halt. The weighted price contributions of all subsamples are concentrated in the halt period and some subsamples show significant price contribution in the pre-halt period as well. We find minimal evidence of price discovery continuing after the halt is removed. In addition, cross-sectional analysis shows that price discovery in the pre-halt and halt periods are more pronounced for larger firms and for firms with specific news events.      

A Tale of Two Index Futures: The Intraday Price Discovery and Volatility Transmission Processes Between the China Financial Futures Exchange and the Singapore Exchange

This is the first study to examine the intraday price discovery and volatility transmission processes between the Singapore Exchange and the China Financial Futures Exchange. Using one- and five-minute high-frequency data from May to November 2011, the authors find that the Chinese Securities Index 300 index futures dominate Singapore's A50 index futures in both intraday price discovery and intraday volatility transmission. However, A50 futures contracts also make a substantial contribution (26-37 percent) to the price discovery process. These results have important implications for both traders and policymakers.     

Can Island Provide Liquidity and Price Discovery in the Dark?

On September 23, 2002, facing a regulatory mandate issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Island teminated the position of the Nasdaq 100 Index Tracking Stock (QQQ) on its book. While the market volume remained almost the same, Island's market share in the QQQ fell significantly. However, Island still dominates other trading centers in the price discovery process and volatility spillovers. The spreads on most trading centers became narrower after Island removed its quotes from the public view. The overall results suggest that the decrease in market transparency does not compromise market liquidity. Informed traders who provide price discovery in the QQQ are willing to sacrifice potential price improvements for the fast speed and reliable execution that Island offers, and are able to trade in the absence of displayed quotes.     

The Effect of Trading Halts on the Speed of Price Discovery

Trading halts are aimed at reducing information asymmetry by granting investors the opportunity to reassess trades upon arrival of new, substantial information. This study is the first to address the efficiency of the price discovery process with respect to time, i.e., the speed of adjustment to new information. A unique database allow us to conduct an event study analysis and measure the impact of trading halts on price discovery while controlling for content, operational and value effects. We find that information dissemination following trading halts is over 40% faster and that abnormal trading activity is positively related to the speed of price adjustment.     

Good-Deal Option Price Bounds for a Non-Traded Event with Stochastic Return: A Note

Cochrane and Sa'a-Requejo (2000, Journal of Political Economy) proposed the good-deal price bounds for the European call option on an event that is not a traded asset, but is correlated with a traded asset that can be used as an approximate hedge. One remarkable feature of their model is that the return on an event process explicitly appears in the option price bounds formula, which offered a contrast with the standard option pricing model. We show that the good-deal option price bounds on a non-traded event are obtained as a closed-form formula, when the return on an event is governed by a mean reverting process.     

Benchmark Status in Fixed-Income Asset Markets

Abstract:  What is a benchmark bond? We provide a formal theoretical treatment of this concept that relates endogenously determined benchmark status to price discovery, and we derive its implications. We describe an econometric technique for identifying the benchmark that is congruent with our theoretical framework. We apply this to the US corporate bond market and to the natural experiment that occurred when benchmark status was contested in the European sovereign bond markets. We show that France provides the benchmark at most maturities in the Euro-denominated sovereign bond market and that IBM provides the benchmark in the US corporate bond market.     

Monetary Policy,Asset Prices,and Liquidity in Over‐the‐Counter Markets

We develop a model where agents can allocate their wealth between a liquid asset, which can be used to purchase consumption goods, and an illiquid asset, which represents a better store of value. Should a consumption opportunity arise, agents may visit a frictional “over‐the‐counter” secondary asset market where they can exchange illiquid for liquid assets. We characterize how monetary policy affects both the issue price and the secondary market price of the asset. We also show that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, search and bargaining frictions in the secondary asset market can improve welfare if inflation is low.     

News‐Specific Price Discovery in Credit Default Swap Markets

We examine the lead and lag relation between equity and credit default swap (CDS) markets. We find that price discovery in equity markets only leads CDS markets following aggregate positive news and not so following other news. While difficult to reconcile with standard asset pricing theories, asymmetric price adjustment is common in goods markets, arising from intermediary power. We provide an explanation for this asymmetry based on dealers exploiting informational advantages vis‐à‐vis investors with hedging motives. Consistent with this explanation, we find that the patterns we document are related to firm‐level proxies for hedging demand, as well as economy‐wide measures of information asymmetries.     

Earnings Metrics,Information Processing,and Price Efficiency in Laboratory Markets

An enduring issue in financial reporting is whether and how salient summary measures of firm performance (“earnings metrics”) affect market price efficiency. In laboratory markets, we test the effects of salient earnings metrics, which vary in how they combine persistent and transitory elements, on investor information search, beliefs about value, offers to trade, and market price efficiency. We find that including transitory elements in salient earnings metrics causes traders to search unnecessarily for further information about these elements and to overestimate their effect on fundamental value relative to a rational benchmark. In contrast, separately displaying persistent elements in earnings increases the accuracy of traders’ value estimates. Prices generally reflect traders’ beliefs about value, and prices are most efficient when transitory elements are excluded from earnings metrics entirely. Our study contributes to research on salience effects in financial reporting by showing that including transitory elements in salient earnings metrics causes inefficient information search and biased beliefs about value that can aggregate to affect market prices. We also contribute to research in experimental markets by showing that redundant disclosure is not always beneficial; redundant disclosure of transitory earnings elements, in particular, appears to have negative consequences for investor behavior and market efficiency.     

Investment Horizon and Repo in the Over‐the‐Counter Market

This paper presents a three‐period model featuring a short‐term investor in the over‐the‐counter bond market. A short‐term investor stores cash because of a need to pay cash at some future date. If a short‐term investor buys bonds, then a deadline for retrieving cash lowers the resale price of bonds for the investor through bilateral bargaining in the bond market. Ex‐ante, this hold‐up problem explains the use of a repo by a short‐term investor, the existence of a haircut, and the vulnerability of a repo market to counterparty risk. This result holds without any uncertainty about bond returns or asymmetric information.     

News Effects and Structural Shifts in Price Discovery in Hong Kong

This paper examines two questions about the temporal stability of the price discovery relationship using data from Hong Kong. We first study the extent to which abnormally large returns (positive or negative) to securitized real estate are transferred to the returns in the direct real estate market. Our regressions show that price discovery is much reduced in the period following a news event. They show that the estimate of the long run price discovery effect also is reduced once we control for news effects. The second question we examine is whether the price discovery relationship is stable over time. The evidence appears to indicate that the post-1994 period was different from the preceding period. The change in the strength of the price discovery effect may be linked to a change in banking regulations in February 1994 that limited banks' risk exposure to real estate loans by capping them at 40 percent of total lending or to anti-speculative measures introduced by the government in the second quarter of 1994 to curb speculation in the residential market. Our statistical tests of structural stability give mixed results and are therefore inconclusive. These findings suggest that the size of the price discovery effect depends upon the amount of real estate information embedded in the history of securitized returns. The findings further suggest that the securitized return series itself may be an incomplete measure of the quantum of information.     

International Price Discovery for Emerging Market Stocks: Evidence from Indian GDRs

Given the rapid increase of the number of emerging market stocks being dually listed abroad, it is important to understand the role of the foreign markets in the price discovery process. We examine this issue by studying the role of the London Global Depositary Receipts (GDR) market for Indian stocks. We find that the London and the Mumbai prices are cointegrated despite arbitrage restrictions imposed by Indian government regulations. Each market contributes almost equally to price discovery, a result in contrast to the small contribution of offshore markets to price discovery of stocks based in developed economies. The GDR market's contribution to price discovery increases with the foreign ownership of the firm and GDR issue size. We also find evidence of significant volatility spillovers from the London market to the Indian market. The overall results suggest that offshore trading in emerging market stocks play a beneficial role by aiding domestic price discovery.     

The Over‐the‐Counter Theory of the Fed Funds Market: A Primer

We present a dynamic over‐the‐counter model of the fed funds market and use it to study the determination of the fed funds rate, the volume of loans traded, and the intraday evolution of the distribution of reserve balances across banks. We also investigate the implications of changes in the market structure, as well as the effects of central bank policy instruments such as open market operations, the discount window lending rate, and the interest rate on bank reserves.     

中国货币供应量与股票市场价格关系的实证分析

股票市场作为货币政策传导的渠道,一方面通过货币供应量影响股票市场价格,另一方面股票市场价格的变动反馈到投资、消费等领域,从而影响宏观经济以实现货币政策的目标。本文对我国货币供应量与股票市场价格关系进行了实证检验,分析检验结果后认为我国各层次的货币供应量与股票市场价格存在长期的协整关系,其中股票市场价格处于因方地位,货币供应量处于果方地位。本文的实证结论在一定程度上反映了目前我国股票市场的货币政策传导效率不高,还没有发挥其应有的作用,这与我国股票市场自身缺陷有很大关系。     

股票价格、房地产价格和我国货币需求的实证分析

本文通过引入股票价格和房地产价格,实证分析了资产价格对我国货币需求关系的影响。协整分析表明,房地产价格对长期货币需求有显著的替代效应,股票价格因素不显著。可变参数误差修正模型分析表明,我国的转轨经济特性使得各经济变量对短期货币需求的影响呈现动态变化的特征,同时金融深化和创新也加快了公众对长期货币需求偏离的修正速度。     

Price Dynamics and Information Flows in Strategically-Linked Debt Instruments: The NOB and MOB Constituents

We examine information flows between the constituents of the NOB (notes-over-bonds) and MOB (municipals-over-bonds) futures spreads. The results suggest a bicausal relationship between notes and bonds and a unicausal relationship from bonds to municipals. Shocks in the bond market have a large impact on the municipal and note markets, whereas shocks in the municipal or note markets have a smaller impact on the bond market. Volatility spillover from bonds to notes and municipals is detected. We also find significant volatility persistence in all three markets. Spread trades are found to have an asymmetric influence on notes and municipal futures variance.     

Effective Macroprudential Policy: Cross‐Sector Substitution from Price and Quantity Measures

Macroprudential policy is increasingly being implemented worldwide, and is mostly applied to banks. A key question is whether this prompts substitution toward nonbank credit. Using two different global data sets on macroprudential measures and different methodologies, including detrended series, panel estimations, and propensity score matching, we find evidence of such substitution. Substitution toward nonbank credit appears to be stronger when policy measures are binding and are implemented in economies with well‐developed nonbank credit markets. This substitution partially offsets the fall in bank credit, thus dampening the policies’ effect on total credit.     

Price Limits and Margin Requirements in Futures Markets

This paper investigates the hypothesis that futures exchanges could use daily price limits as a substitute for higher margin requirements. The empirical results show that the size of margin is negatively correlated with the presence of price limits. Evidence points to the portfolio adjustment costs theory as an explanation of the benefits from price limits. The empirical results cast doubt on the notion that price limits should be abolished. The results also confirm that exchanges have set margin requirements according to economic theories.     

Nonrecurring Accounting Transactions and Stock Option Grants

Abstract:  We examine the effect of nonrecurring accounting transactions on stock option grants for a sample of US companies. After controlling for both the economic and corporate governance-related determinants of option grants, we find that the aggregate value of stock option grants is more positively related to nonrecurring gains than to nonrecurring losses. We also examine whether the asymmetric treatment of nonrecurring gains and losses arises because (1) information contained in the nonrecurring transactions is related to firms' long-term prospects, (2) weak corporate governance fails to curb more favorable executive pay arrangements, (3) executives possess superior bargaining power in the labor marketplace, and (4) firms have significant growth opportunities. While we find no support for the first explanation and some support for the third, we find more consistent support for the growth explanation and two factors related to the corporate governance explanation: director-executive duality and the frequency of board meetings.