The impact of net buying pressure on index options prices

This study examines whether the demand for options, as measured by the net buying pressure of index options, explains the implied volatility structure created by options prices. We decompose the buying pressure into the direction‐motivated (i.e., delta‐informed) and the volatility‐motivated (i.e., vega‐informed) demand for options. After controlling for options traders' hedging demand, we find that both delta‐ and vega‐informed trading play significant roles in explaining changes in implied volatility. Foreign institutions are more directionally informed in index options trading than their domestic counterparts are. Domestic investors effectively implement volatility trading using put options.     

The Chinese warrant bubble: A fundamental analysis

We investigate the information content in Chinese warrant prices based on an option pricing framework that incorporates short‐selling and margin‐trading constraints in the underlying stock market. We show that Chinese warrant prices can be explained under this pricing framework. On the basis of this new model, we develop a price deviation measure to quantify stock market investors' unobserved demand for short selling or margin trading due to market constraints. We find that warrant‐price deviations are driven by underlying stock valuation to a great extent. Chinese warrant prices, save for the time around expiration dates, are better characterized as derivatives than as pure bubbles.     

会计信息披露实际与内幕交易——基于年报首季披露时差与异常超额交易量的实证研究

Considering the cost of capital, systematic risk and the probability of being monitored and punished, informed traders are most likely to conduct informed trading at the small time gap between the disclosure of annual report of year t and 1^st quarter reports of year t+1 because the gap is the best and safest time for informed trading. Meanwhile, due to the high cost and risks of informed trading, traders need huge trading volumes to gain abnormal returns. Based on these characteristics of informed trading, a research sample and a control sample are found for this paper. The former refers to companies with loss annual report in year t and profit-making 1^st quarter financial report in year t+1 in tandem. The latter refers to companies announced loss in the previous year and and profit-making 1^st quarter financial report in year t+1 simultaneously or companies with loss annual report in the year t and loss 1^st quarter financial report in year t+1 in tandem. Results confirm the existence of informed trading by measuring “extra abnormal trading volume”. Therefore, authors suggest that a good disclosure policy should not only consider the timeliness and accuracy of the financial reports, but also the overall information disclosure process to prevent potential informed trading. Translated and revise from Zhongguo Kuaiji Pinglun 中国会计评论 (China Accounting Review), 2008, 6(2): 207–222     

Mean Reversion and the Comovement of Equilibrium Spot and Futures Prices: Implications from Alternative Data‐Generating Processes

The comovements of spot and futures prices are characterized by six binary variables, including the term structure curvature of futures prices. These variables are used to uniquely identify 48 possible comovement patterns. Among them, 24 cases are associated with mean reversion, which is defined as a state when spreads between futures and spot prices are shrinking. These pattern frequencies are then calculated on a daily basis with the futures prices of 10 commodities, including precious metal, agricultural, and financial commodities. The results are further compared to simulation output from three data‐generating processes: a bivariate pure random walk, a mixed random walk with first‐order autoregression (AR(1)), and an error‐correction representation. The mean‐reverting frequencies for all 10 commodities are about 50%. Around half of the time, spot and futures prices are moving toward each other, and the rest of the time they move in the same direction. The symmetry of these results implies that the existence of substantial shocks originated from futures markets; thus, this is consistent with the risk premium view of futures trading. Also, although all simulation models produce similar mean‐reversion frequencies, the patterns of comovements of spot and futures prices are different, and the price dynamics depend heavily on whether the market is dominant contango or backwardation. Furthermore, the error‐correction model outperforms the random‐walk model for agricultural commodities, and the mixed random walk with AR(1) is hardly distinguishable from the pure random walk. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:769–796, 2001     

Central Bank Intervention,Exchange Rate Regime and the Purchasing Power Parity

Motivated by the argument that central bank intervention leads to non‐linear exchange rate adjustment processes, we examine purchase power parity (PPP) by applying quantile unit root tests to the exchange rates of the New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) vis‐à‐vis seven Asian currencies. We show that exchange rate regime matters in determining whether PPP holds. While PPP holds overwhelmingly during the period when the NTD is under the fixed exchange rate regime, it is present only for some exchange rates during the managed floating rate regime. For exchange rates exhibiting mean reversion, the reversion occurs mainly when the shocks are large. In contrast to conclusion in the literature, our test results show little evidence of asymmetric mean reversion between positive and negative shocks.     

中国碳试点市场集中交易行为的理论研究

通过构建一个代表性控排企业跨期决策理论模型,分析碳配额交易企业在履约日与非履约日的最优交易量。均衡结果显示,企业在非履约日的最优交易量与其自身的风险规避系数、市场流动性提供者的风险规避系数、履约日随机碳需求的标准差成正比,而与企业的碳产出效率成反比。在此基础上,探讨了中国碳交易试点市场上履约日附近交易量巨大,而非履约日交易量稀少的原因,并提出相关政策建议,以帮助实现我国碳市场交易量的平滑及整体市场效率的提升。     

International Trading of Emissions Rights: Pricing under Accountability and Uncertainty

The purpose of this analysis is to explore a firm's demand for uncertain pollution emissions under agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, which allow for emissions permit trading among parties. This article extends the literature with the development of a generalized penalty structure that can be implemented by the overseers of such agreements. This includes market-based modifications to the Kyoto Protocol, which has not been adopted by the United States, and which will expire soon. The countries' demand or supply of emissions rights is derived as based on profit maximization that utilizes an opportunity cost function. The parties' emission decision rules are shown to depend on the policy parameter values chosen as well as the probability distribution of observable emissions.     

Testing mean reversion in financial market volatility: Evidence from S&P 500 index futures

This article presents a comprehensive study of continuous time GARCH (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic) modeling with the thintailed normal and the fat‐tailed Student's‐t and generalized error distributions (GED). The study measures the degree of mean reversion in financial market volatility based on the relationship between discrete‐time GARCH and continuoustime diffusion models. The convergence results based on the aforementioned distribution functions are shown to have similar implications for testing mean reversion in stochastic volatility. Alternative models are compared in terms of their ability to capture mean‐reverting behavior of futures market volatility. The empirical evidence obtained from the S&P 500 index futures indicates that the conditional variance, log‐variance, and standard deviation of futures returns are pulled back to some long‐run average level over time. The study also compares the performance of alternative GARCH models with normal, Student's‐ t, and GED density in terms of their power to predict one‐day‐ahead realized volatility of index futures returns and provides some implications for pricing futures options. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:1–33, 2008     

Ethical Reasoning and the Use of Insider Information in Stock Trading

The cognitive developmental theory of ethics suggests that there is a positive relationship between ethical reasoning and ethical behavior. In this study, we trained a sample of accounting and finance students in performing competitive stock trading in our state-of-the-art trading room. The subjects then performed trading of stocks under two experimental conditions: insider information, and no-insider information where significant performance-based financial awards were at stake. We also administered the Defining Issues Test (DIT). Ethical behavior, as the dependent variable was measured in a binary scale: whether the subjects used insider information for trading of stocks or not. Ethical reasoning as measured by the DIT P-score indicated statistically significant effect on ethical behavior. The results have important implications for recruitment and training of professionals engaged in the use of financial markets for securities trading.     

基于碳价格与环境能源关联分析的中国碳交易市场研究

碳交易市场发展是当今各国高度关注的一个问题。节能减排技术落后、国际碳价格波动、话语权缺乏,导致我国碳交易市场发展受阻。运用灰色关联分析方法、供求关系理论,对价格与环境能源问题进行相关性分析;据分析结果阐析我国碳交易市场多种问题产生的深层次原因;研究中国碳交易市场的发展对策,以期为企业进行相关营销活动提供决策参考。     

Coupon Trading and its Impacts on Consumer Purchase and Firm Profits

When a retailer distributes manufacturer coupons to consumers without perfectly identifying their product valuations, consumers may have incentives to trade coupons. We develop a model to capture the coupon trading phenomenon and compare three scenarios: (I) no coupon, (II) coupon without trading, and (III) coupon with trading. We find that coupon trading can increase the profits of either the retailer or the manufacturers, but not at the same time. The retailer benefits from coupon trading when the coupon market is competitive and consumer hassle cost is low, while the manufacturers benefit from coupon trading when the coupon market is uncompetitive and consumer hassle cost is high. In addition, coupon trading does not always increase total demand. Firms benefit from coupon trading by charging higher prices, which leads to a decreased total demand. As a result, consumers end up with a higher average cost under coupon trading. We also compare coupon trading with improved coupon targeting, and find that coupon trading may allow firms to gain higher profits than improved coupon targeting. Further, we extend the main model to a competitive setting where the products are substitutable, and find that the main results still hold. Finally, we employ numerical analysis to identify the optimal coupon face values in different scenarios, and the results suggest that coupon trading combined with incentive mechanisms may lead to Pareto improvement for the channel as a whole.     

入世前后我国棉花国际贸易影响因素的比较分析

本文运用格兰杰因果关系检验法对入世前后影响我国棉花国际贸易行为的诸因素进行了甄别和计量分析,研究表明在入世前我国棉花垄断经营时期,棉花的进出口只关注供给层面而忽视需求层面,并随着生产量和库存量的变化而波动,而入世以后我国棉花国际贸易波动则主要是受市场价格及需求因素的影响。     

RISK METRICS AND FINE TUNING OF HIGH‐FREQUENCY TRADING STRATEGIES

We propose risk metrics to assess the performance of high‐frequency (HF) trading strategies that seek to maximize profits from making the realized spread where the holding period is extremely short (fractions of a second, seconds, or at most minutes). The HF trader maximizes expected terminal wealth and is constrained by both capital and the amount of inventory that she can hold at any time. The risk metrics enable the HF trader to fine tune her strategies by trading off different metrics of inventory risk, which also proxy for capital risk, against expected profits. The dynamics of the midprice of the asset are driven by information flows which are impounded in the midprice by market participants who update their quotes in the limit order book. Furthermore, the midprice also exhibits stochastic jumps as a consequence of the arrival of market orders that have an impact on prices which can give rise to market momentum (expected prices to trend up or down). The HF trader's optimal strategy incorporates a buffer to cover adverse selection costs and manages inventories to maximize the expected gains from market momentum.     

基于零售物业竞争关系的商圈测定方法

零售物业的商圈测定一直是产业界和学术界关注的热点问题。现有的商圈理论尽管已经考虑到商圈重叠和多目的购物行为等因素的重要性,但尚未在各种商圈测定模型中对这些因素进行定量描述。分析传统的Huff概率模型存在的问题,并从反映零售物业竞争关系的角度对其进行改进,制定出更为符合实际情况的商圈测定方法。     

Applying Ethics to Insider Trading

Insider trading has received a bad name in recent decades. The popular press makes it sound like an evil practice where those who engage in it are totally devoid of ethical principles. Yet not all insider trading is unethical and some studies have concluded that certain kinds of insider trading are actually beneficial to the greater investment community. Some scholars in philosophy, law and economics have disputed whether insider trading should be punished at all while others assert that it should be illegal in all cases. This paper explores the nature of insider trading and analyzes the issues to determine the positive and negative aspects of insider trading, and how policy should be changed. The best hope would be for studies to be made that isolate the individuals or groups who are fraudulently harmed by insider trading. If any such groups exist, then clearly worded legislation could be passed to prevent any fraud from being committed against these individuals and groups, while allowing non-fraudulent transactions to be completed without fear of prosecution. Until it can be clearly determined that someone is fraudulently harmed by insider trading, there should be no law or regulation restricting the practice, since such restrictions violate individual rights and will likely have a negative market reaction. Robert W. McGee is a professor at the Andreas School of Business, Barry University in Miami, Florida, USA. He has published more than 50 books and more than 400 scholarly papers in the fields of accounting, taxation, economics, law, philosophy and ethics. He holds doctorates in several fields, including accounting, economics, law and philosophy. He is an attorney and a certified public accountant (CPA).     

Institutional trading in IPOs and post-IPOs: Value-based vs speculative

Using a unique dataset from Shanghai Stock Exchange, we study institutional trading behaviors in IPOs and post-IPOs. From the perspective of value-based or speculation, we find that, (1) institutional investors are flippers on the first day of IPOs, (2) trading by institutional investors and the active institutional investors (mutual funds or brokerage) is value-based, and (3) the net buys of institutional investors can predict the long term performance of IPO-firms and shows a negative relation with a bubble in future. Since individual investors are the opponent of institutional investors, our results mean that individuals are speculators in the market. Our study suggest that institutional investors are the sophisticated ones in the market and they can process information more efficiently, whose value-based trading can enhance market price discovery and is good for market stabilization.     

中国股票市场交易成本的估计

采用上证180指数成分股票的分笔交易数据,分析估计了反映中国股票市场交易成本的报价价差、有效价差和交易价差,并对它们进行了比较和相关分析。实证结果表明,我国股票市场的总交易成本约为0.25%,除指令处理成分外,还有其他的交易成本成分,而且它们会随时间的变化而增加。交易成本不仅表现出共同变动的趋势,而且还与股票的特征有关。     

Mean‐field games with differing beliefs for algorithmic trading

Even when confronted with the same data, agents often disagree on a model of the real world. Here, we address the question of how interacting heterogeneous agents, who disagree on what model the real world follows, optimize their trading actions. The market has latent factors that drive prices, and agents account for the permanent impact they have on prices. This leads to a large stochastic game, where each agents performance criteria are computed under a different probability measure. We analyze the mean‐field game (MFG) limit of the stochastic game and show that the Nash equilibrium is given by the solution to a nonstandard vector‐valued forward–backward stochastic differential equation. Under some mild assumptions, we construct the solution in terms of expectations of the filtered states. Furthermore, we prove that the MFG strategy forms an ε‐Nash equilibrium for the finite player game. Finally, we present a least square Monte Carlo based algorithm for computing the equilibria and show through simulations that increasing disagreement may increase price volatility and trading activity.     

The Ethics of Insider Trading Revisited

Following Manne (1966, Insider Trading and the Stock Market (New York, Free Press)) we introduce a distinction between insider trading and market manipulation on the one hand and corporate insiders versus misappropriators on the other hand. This gives rise to four types of alleged inside transactions. We argue that the literature on insider trading has often targeted inside transactions type II, III and IV but that these arguments do not necessarily hold for type I transactions. We look for consequentionalist as well as non-consequentionalist arguments against type I transactions and demonstrate that these are hard to find. Throughout the article we refer extensively to the economic literature on insider trading in order to overcome a relative divide between the economic, legal, and philosophical discussion on insider trading.

Mean reversion in stock index futures markets: A nonlinear analysis

Several stylized theoretical models of futures basis behavior under nonzero transactions costs predict nonlinear mean reversion of the futures basis towards its equilibrium value. Nonlinearly mean‐reverting models are employed to characterize the basis of the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices over the post‐1987 crash period, capturing empirically these theoretical predictions and examining the view that the degree of mean reversion in the basis is a function of the size of the deviation from equilibrium. The estimated half lives of basis shocks, obtained using Monte Carlo integration methods, suggest that for smaller shocks to the basis level the basis displays substantial persistence, while for larger shocks the basis exhibits highly nonlinear mean reversion towards its equilibrium value. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:285–314, 2002