Informed Futures Trading and Price Discovery: Evidence from Taiwan Futures and Stock Markets

This article focuses on the information effects between the futures market and its spot market. Intraday data are used to investigate the lead-lag relationships between the returns and trading activity of Taiwan stock index futures and the spot returns. We focus on the transmission direction and the sources of information. Consistent with most previous studies, our results show that other than the contemporaneous relationship predicted by carry-cost theory and efficient market theory, futures returns significantly lead spot returns, which implies that informed trades may occur in the futures market. Using private transaction information, net open buy, as a proxy for futures trading activity and distinguishing different types of futures traders, we find that foreign institutional traders are the major source of informed trades because their trading has predictive power for future movements in both spot and futures prices. Traders in other categories are information laggards.     

Day Trader Behavior and Performance: Evidence from Taiwan Futures Market

By using a unique data from the Taiwan futures market to identify each trader’s trading records and focusing on the high-frequency day traders who trade at least 90 days over the sample year, this study closely examines their behaviors and performance. Day traders’ performances are “risk-adjusted” and analyzed to identify behavioral biases and the resulting impact on performance. There is no evidence found that trading too much is detrimental to investment performance. The high-frequency day traders are more aware of the danger of behavioral biases and are as a result less prone to the disposition effect. Contrary to expectations, day traders in my study are shown to be non-loss averse. Most of our sample except for the highest performance quintile follow a momentum strategy.     

大陆与台湾股指期货价格发现功能比较研究

本文利用日内15分钟交易数据,对大陆与台湾股指期货的价格发现功能进行了比较,发现沪深300股指期货和现货间存在双向价格引导关系,但在信息传导效率上,期货领先现货,对台湾市场而言,仅存在期货对现货的单向引导关系;期货市场在长期价格发现功能中占主导地位,但台指期货的主导作用要强于沪深300股指期货。文章从投资者结构、合约设计、交易制度等影响因素分析了两岸股指期货价格发现功能的差异,并提出改善大陆股指期货价格发现功能的建议。     

Value-at-Risk Analysis for Taiwan Stock Index Futures: Fat Tails and Conditional Asymmetries in Return Innovations

This paper examines the forecasting performance of three value-at-risk (VaR) models (RiskMetrics, Normal APARCH and Student APARCH). We explore and compare two different possible sources of performance improvements: asymmetry in the conditional variance and fat-tailed distributions. Performance is assessed using a range of measures that address the accuracy and efficiency of each model.The TAIFEX and SGX-DT Taiwan stock index futures are studied using daily data. Our results suggest that for asset returns which exhibit fatter tails and volatility clustering, like the TAIFEX and SGX-DT futures, the VaR values produced by the Normal APARCH model are preferred at lower confidence levels. However, at high confidence levels, the VaR forecasts obtained by the Student APARCH model are more accurate than those generated using either the RiskMetrics or Normal APARCH models.     

The Expiration Effects of Stock-Index Derivatives: Empirical Evidence from the Taiwan Futures Exchange

Five index derivatives with the same expiration days, settlement days, and settlement systems have been consecutively traded on the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) since 1998. This paper examines the expiration effects of TAIFEX index derivatives on the underlying stock market between 1998 and 2002. Our empirical findings show no significant expiration effects on the expiration day, but evidence demonstrates that expiration effects have strengthened as more relative index derivatives are listed on the TAIFEX. Meanwhile, the expiration effects seem to shift to the opening of the settlement day. In general, the expiration effects in Taiwan are not as significant as those in U.S. markets but are stronger than those in the Hong Kong market. The special settlement procedures adopted by the TAIFEX may account for the difference.     

Futures Market Sentiment and Institutional Investor Behavior in the Spot Market: The Emerging Market in Taiwan

This paper investigates whether and how futures market sentiment and stock market returns heterogeneously affect the trading activities of institutional investors in the spot market in Taiwan. Our empirical results suggest that foreign investors are net sellers whenever futures market sentiment is bullish and net buyers when investor sentiment is bearish. The two types of domestic institutional investors have poor sentiment timing abilities and the price-pressure effect may account for the behavioral differences among institutional investors. In addition, all three institutional investors are momentum traders. Nevertheless, the momentum trading of foreigners is consistent with an information-based model and that of two local institutional investors, as behavior-based models suggest. This indicates that the same trading momentum strategy can lead to different outcomes for different investors, and both information- and behavior-based momentum trading can exist contemporaneously in the Taiwanese stock market.     

Information,hedging demand,and institutional investors: Evidence from the Taiwan Futures Exchange

This paper examines the effect of hedging demand by various types of institutional investor on subsequent returns and volatility. Using data from the Taiwan Futures Exchange, empirical results indicate that the hedging demand of foreign investors has a significant negative impact on subsequent returns and volatility. In addition, trading strategies based on the extreme hedging demand of foreigners are positively correlated with trading performance. Furthermore, there is evidence to show that returns (volatility) also affect the subsequent hedging demand of foreign investors, suggesting a feedback relation. Finally, the hedging demand of foreign investors has a greater impact on subsequent returns and volatility after global financial turmoil. Accordingly, this paper concludes that foreign investors are informed hedgers in the Taiwan futures market, especially after global financial turmoil.     

Futures in education

A conference entitled ‘Futures in Education’, organized by the Hawthorn Institute and Commission for the Future, took place in Melbourne, Australia, 5–7 November 1987. This article reports on the issues debated, and outcomes of the conference.     

Combining the Effects of OLS and Spread on Futures Hedging: Evidence from the Taiwan Stock Index

Abstract:

This study proposes a dynamic hedge ratio, the combined ordinary least squares spread (COLSS), which combines the hedge ratio of ordinary least squares and the value of spread. Using this dynamic ratio for hedging with futures contracts, one can replace spot risk with spread risk. The COLSS captures not only the long-run equilibrium between spot and futures returns, but also the short-run deviation from equilibrium. The spread is forecast by one-period lagged stock market factors and high-order moments that are estimated by an options model. In the in-sample and out-of-sample tests, the COLSS strategy achieves significant risk reduction and outperforms the alternative models by a large utility improvement.     

Futures research in Czechoslovakia

This is a review of futures studies in a socialist country where long-term forecasting has become institutionalised and serves the centralised policy making and planning. History of the subject, organisation of research and education, work on allocated research projects and on national economic forecasts, as well as its information network, are described.     

Futures Options and the Volatility of Futures Prices

Assuming nonstochastic interest rates, European futures options are shown to be European options written on a particular asset referred to as a futures bond. Consequently, standard option pricing results may be invoked and standard option pricing techniques may be employed in the case of European futures options. Additional arbitrage restrictions on American futures options are derived. The efficiency of a number of futures option markets is examined. Assuming that at-the-money American futures options are priced accurately by Black's European futures option pricing model, the relationship between market participants' ex ante assessment of futures price volatility and the term to maturity of the underlying futures contract is also investigated empirically.     

Futures sustainability

This article presents a strategic framework to guide public policy with respect to very long-term futures. The framework is based upon three fundamental principles. Threats to meeting the principles are assessed. Integrated planning responses to overcoming the threats are proposed. Significant changes in economic, political and social theory and organization required to support the strategic responses are discussed. It is argued that human civilization would need to pass through the mythic ‘singularity’ on the path to futures sustainability.     

期指预解

2009年1月8日,证监会新闻发言人表示,国务院已原则同意开展证券公司融资融券业务试点和推出股指期货品种。一块巨石投入资本市场,水面霎时炸锅……     

Short Selling and Index Arbitrage Profitability: Evidence from the SGX MSCI and TAIFEX Taiwan Index Futures Markets

There are numerous impediments to market efficiency and index arbitrage in real capital markets, including the uptick rule on short selling, execution risk, market impact costs, regulatory barriers, and capital constraints. Adopting and relaxing the uptick restriction in the Taiwan stock market facilitated a study on whether adjustments in this restriction influence the efficiency and arbitrage of the Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) and the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) index futures markets. This study examines the above issues using five-minute intraday transaction data and performs an ex post test of arbitrage, ex ante test of arbitrage, and regression analysis. Empirical results indicate that relaxing the uptick rule should improve market efficiency and facilitate long arbitrage, subsequently accelerating the adjustment to no-arbitrage bounds and helping to decrease ex post and ex ante mispricing and underpricing following the relaxation.     

期货投资基金与期货市场发展探讨

现代期货市场在套期保值和价格发现功能基础上演绎出丰富的功能类型。在发达国家,期货投资基金规模庞大,具有成熟的交易策略和交易技术,已经成为期货市场所有功能有效发挥的中坚力量。中国要全面提升期货市场功能,确保价格安全和产业安全,应加快探索期货投资基金的具体模式、市场结构和法律框架,将期货投资产业链中的各要素进行重新整合,确立不同品种期货的产业集群式发展模式。为此,政府应主动打破路径依赖,实现以投资者结构多样化为基础的期货市场全面创新。