Stock splits, trading continuity, and the cost of equity capital

We hypothesize that managers use stock splits to attract more uninformed trading so that market makers can provide liquidity services at lower costs, thereby increasing investors’ trading propensity and improving liquidity. We examine a large sample of stock splits and find that, consistent with our hypothesis, the incidence of no trading decreases and liquidity risk is lower following splits, implying a decline in latent trading costs and a reduced cost of equity capital. Further, split announcement returns are correlated with the improvements in both liquidity levels and liquidity risk. Our analysis suggests nontrivial economic benefits from liquidity improvements, with less liquid firms benefiting more from stock splits.     

Asymmetric effects of voluntary disclosure on stock liquidity: evidence from 8‐K filings

This paper examines whether the change in stock liquidity subsequent to voluntary disclosure is different between good news and bad news. Using voluntary 8‐K filings, we find that the increase in stock liquidity is more pronounced for firms with good news disclosure than for firms with bad news disclosure. In addition, such findings are stronger when a firm is less visible and when the short‐selling costs are high, suggesting that these two factors play an important role in increasing stock liquidity. Overall, this paper provides evidence that the tone of voluntary 8‐K news is an important determinant of stock liquidity.     

Stock exchange merger and liquidity: The case of Euronext

The paper empirically investigates the effects of the Euronext stock exchange merger on listed firms, i.e. the merger of stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris. Specifically, it examines how exchange consolidation has affected stock liquidity and how the effect varies with firm type, i.e. what types of firms benefit the most in terms of stock liquidity and other financial outcomes. The results show asymmetric liquidity gains from the stock exchange merger, where the positive effects are concentrated among big firms and firms with foreign sales. There is not a significant increase in stock liquidity of small or medium sized firms, nor of firms that only operate domestically. Beyond the significant size and foreign exposure effects (i.e. big firms and firms with foreign sales gain), the analysis finds no systematic pattern in the distribution of merger benefits across industries or listing locations. The merger is associated with an increase in Euronext's market share, where the increase is drawn from the London Stock Exchange. There is however no evidence of Euronext enhancing its competitive stand in terms of attracting new firm listings.     

State ownership and stock liquidity: Evidence from privatization

We provide unique firm-level evidence of the relation between state ownership and stock liquidity. Using a broad sample of newly privatized firms (NPFs) from 53 countries over the period 1994–2014, our study identifies a non-monotonic association between state ownership and stock liquidity. The inverse U-shaped relation is consistent with trade-offs between costs and benefits of state ownership and suggests an optimal level of government shareholdings that maximizes stock liquidity of NPFs. We further identify that the inflection point from the cost/benefit trade-off is contingent upon characteristics of the nation's institutional environment.     

Liquidity and stock returns in pure order-driven markets: evidence from the Australian stock market

This paper examines the relationship between liquidity and stock returns in the pure order-driven stock market of Australia. The bid-ask spread, turnover rate, and amortized spread are used as proxies for liquidity. In addition to liquidity, other factors that have been found to influence stock returns, such as beta and size, are also considered. Seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) and the cross-sectionally correlated timewise autoregressive (CSCTA) model form the methodological basis for this research. A small liquidity premium is found in the Australian market, which persists for the entire year. There is also strong evidence of a negative size effect.     

Information Disclosure and Stock Liquidity: Evidence from Borsa Italiana

This article examines the effect of increased corporate information disclosure on stock liquidity. Using the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Italy as a natural experiment we extend previous work examining the effect on one measure of liquidity—bid‐ask spreads—to others, specifically depth and the price impact of transactions (or effective bid‐ask spreads). Consistent with previous research we find that bid‐ask spreads of stocks decline following the introduction of IFRS, which implies that stock liquidity increases for small traders. However, we also provide evidence that depth at the best quotes declines, which challenges the proposition that liquidity increases for large trades following an increase in disclosure. In additional tests, we find that effective bid‐ask spreads of block trades also decline following the introduction of IFRS. Overall, this evidence confirms that stock liquidity for both small and large trades increases following an increase in corporate information disclosure.     

Relative bond-stock liquidity and capital structure choices

This paper investigates whether the relative liquidity of a firm's bonds versus its stock affects its capital structure choice. As capital structure decisions involve balancing the costs and benefits of different financing alternatives, the relative liquidity of bonds versus stock plausibly matters since a relative liquidity differential might lead to one financing option being materially (relatively) cheaper than the other. As predicted, we find some evidence that, other things being equal, firms with relatively more liquid bonds compared to stock have higher leverage. While the relationship between bond-stock relative liquidity and leverage is statistically significant, our evidence suggests that it comes with only modest economic importance.     

Institutional ownership and commonality in liquidity

We investigate the relation between institutional ownership and commonality in liquidity and whether this relation differs across country-level institutional and information environments. Using a comprehensive dataset for firms across 40 countries for the period between 2000 and 2016, we find that institutional ownership is negatively associated with stock liquidity commonality. In addition, a firm’s information environment plays the moderating role in the relation between institutional ownership and commonality in stock liquidity. Importantly, we document that the negative association between institutional ownership and liquidity commonality is stronger for firms in countries with weak institutional characteristics or less transparent information environments. Our findings provide additional insights into the role of institutional investors as a demand-side factor of liquidity commonality in international financial markets.     

Determinants of idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from the Indian stock market

This paper investigates whether firm-specific characteristics explain idiosyncratic volatility in the stocks of non-financial firms traded in the Indian stock market. It employs the linear time series five-factor model, augmented with a liquidity factor and the conditional EGARCH model, to extract yearly idiosyncratic volatility. We estimate a panel data regression to quantify the relationship between firm-specific characteristics and the volatility of individual securities. The results show that idiosyncratic volatility is significant in emerging markets such as India, and that cross-sectional return variations of firms are associated with firm-specific characteristics such as firm size, book-to-market ratio, momentum, liquidity, cash flow-to-price ratio, and returns on assets. We find that the idiosyncratic risk documented in this study is associated with smaller size of company, higher liquidity, low momentum, high book-to-market ratio, and low cash flow-to-price ratio. The findings suggest need to develop alternative tools to make investment decisions in emerging markets.     

流动性过剩的新特点与治理创新

流动性过剩新特点表现在被动增量不断且数额大、增量新增渠道多、存量活跃。控制的难点是流量过强。本文针对外汇占款渠道新增流动性、银行体系流动性过剩、存量转化型流动性过剩、国际套利热钱渠道流动性过剩提出了创新治理建议。     

股票流动性与中国企业创新策略:流水不腐还是洪水猛兽？

中国情境下股票流动性对企业创新的影响是激励机制还是压力机制占主导地位？本文基于上市公司分类专利的申请、授权、终止数据研究发现:一方面,股票流动性使企业发明专利申请显著增加,但能通过实质审查的授权增长极少,说明申请质量明显下滑;另一方面,股票流动性使创新含量较低的实用新型与外观设计授权显著增加,且这些专利拖累了企业盈利表现,法律效力提前终止的数量也明显更多,揭示企业实际上是以“策略性创新”来应对资本市场压力,加剧了“专利泡沫”问题。分样本检验发现,“重数量轻质量”的创新策略集中体现于民营、传统行业及长期机构投资者持股较少的企业。稳健性检验替换关键指标构造和模型估计方法、构造工具变量克服潜在内生性问题,前述结论仍然成立。本文启示,金融制度设计应防范资本市场压力对企业创新的“意外伤害”,更好地实现“以金融助实体、以改革促发展”的目标。     

Gauging the effects of stock liquidity on earnings management: Evidence from the SEC tick size pilot test

This paper studies whether stock market liquidity has a causal effect on real earnings management. We introduce a new and cleaner identification of liquidity shock - the 2016 Tick Size Pilot Program - to show that firms with less liquid stocks are more likely to engage in real earnings management. We provide direct evidence that stock liquidity helps to deter real earnings management via enhancing governance by long-term institutional investors through trading and direct intervention, and via facilitating short selling to discipline managers. The effect is stronger in firms that do not pay dividends.     

Liquidity needs and vulnerability to financial underdevelopment

This paper provides evidence that financial development has a large causal effect in the reduction of macroeconomic volatility resulting from the role of the financial system in liquidity provision. In particular, financial system development leads to a comparatively larger reduction in the volatility of output in sectors with high liquidity needs. Most of this decline results from the stabilization of the output of existing firms, although the volatility of the number of firms also drops significantly. Among different aspects of the financial system, the depth of financial intermediaries plays the main role in the reduction of volatility.     

Reprint of: Market liquidity in the financial crisis: The role of liquidity commonality and flight-to-quality

We examine the dynamics and the drivers of market liquidity during the financial crisis, using a unique volume-weighted spread measure. According to the literature we find that market liquidity is impaired when stock markets decline, implying a positive relation between market and liquidity risk. Moreover, this relationship is the stronger the deeper one digs into the order book. Even more interestingly, this paper sheds further light on so far puzzling features of market liquidity: liquidity commonality and flight-to-quality. We show that liquidity commonality varies over time, increases during market downturns, peaks at major crisis events and becomes weaker the deeper we look into the limit order book. Consistent with recent theoretical models that argue for a spiral effect between the financial sector’s funding liquidity and an asset’s market liquidity, we find that funding liquidity tightness induces an increase in liquidity commonality which then leads to market-wide liquidity dry-ups. Therefore our findings corroborate the view that market liquidity can be a driving force for financial contagion. Finally, we show that there is a positive relationship between credit risk and liquidity risk, i.e., there is a spread between liquidity costs of high and low credit quality stocks, and that in times of increased market uncertainty the impact of credit risk on liquidity risk intensifies. This corroborates the existence of a flight-to-quality or flight-to-liquidity phenomenon also on the stock markets.     

Does gold Liquidity learn from the greenback or the equity?

This study seeks to understand and elucidate shifts of gold, dollar, and stock market liquidity, both before and after the 2008 financial crisis. The relationship among these assets is examined by allowing for nonlinear dynamics in the speed of adjustment to the equilibrium. The findings document the predictability role of liquidity proxies of dollar and equity on gold liquidity even after accounting for macroeconomic variables, suggesting that liquidity of both assets maintains an influence on gold behavior. During periods of high exchange-rate volatility between currencies, gold liquidity becomes highly affected by dollar liquidity movements through a nonlinear smooth transition framework. Yet evidence reveals that to fully understand the movements of gold and dollar it is necessary to factor in stock market liquidity as well.     

Liquidity,liquidity risk,and information flow: Lessons from an emerging market

This paper examines the role of public and private information flows in intraday liquidity and intraday liquidity risk in the Tunisian stock market. Our empirical results are based on ARMA and GARCH-type models and show that, for major Tunisian stocks, gradually elapsed public information together with gradually elapsed private information in the market is the dominant factor in liquidity improvements in the Tunisian stock market. Liquidity improvements are generated by a decrease in the bid-ask spread accompanied by an increase in the depth at best limit. Our results clearly indicate that the arrival of public information in a sequential manner is the dominant factor generating increases in liquidity risk related to the bid-ask spread, while the advent of private information in a contemporaneous manner is the dominant factor generating increases in liquidity risk related to the depth at best limit. Additionally, our results show that liquidity risk persistence disappears when trading volume and order imbalance are included as explanatory variables in the conditional variance equation.     

Information costs and liquidity effects from changes in the FTSE 100 list

Abstract

In this paper we examine the stock price effect of changes in the composition of the FTSE 100 over the time period of 1984–2001. Like the S&P 500 listing studies, we find that the price and trading volume of newly listed firms increases. The evidence is consistent with the information cost/liquidity explanation. This is because investors hold stocks with more available information, implying that they have lower trading costs. This explains the increase in the stock price and trading volume of newly listed stocks to the FTSE 100 List. We find the reverse effect for the deletions from the FTSE 100.     

Liquidity shocks and real GDP growth: Evidence from a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR

We examine the dynamic impact of liquidity shocks resonating in stock and housing markets on real GDP growth. We fit a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR model with stochastic volatility to US data from 1970 to 2014. GDP becomes highly sensitive to house market liquidity shocks as disruptions in the sector start to emerge, yet more resilient to stock market liquidity shocks throughout time. We provide substantial evidence in favour of asymmetric responses of GDP growth both across the business cycle, and among business cycle troughs. Stock and house market liquidity shocks explain, on average, 17% and 35% of the variation in GDP during the Great Recession, respectively.     

Liquidity and firm investment: Evidence for Latin America

This paper explores the relationship between firms' investment and stock market liquidity. Using a panel of Latin American firms, I find evidence that a higher trading volume and a higher industry-adjusted trading volume are associated with higher firm investment (PPE, Total Assets, and Inventory). This relationship is higher in episodes where the firm decides to issue shares, and it is also greater for firms with tighter financial constraints and better investment opportunities. This evidence is consistent with a mispricing channel, where firms issue and invest the proceeds to take advantage of low cost of capital, or with a cost channel, where liquidity is associated with lower issuance costs. Also, it is less related with an informational channel, where a liquid market helps a manager to take more efficient decisions, since this channel does not necessarily predict an increase in investment, but only more efficient investment.     

Does stock exchange consolidation improve market liquidity? A study of stock exchange acquisition in Russia

The last couple of decades have witnessed significant institutional and structural changes in financial sector within a worldwide trend toward consolidation. In the segment of organized trading stock exchanges merge and develop into large and diversified publicly traded companies. These processes are rather complicated in case of a transition economy like Russia. In December 2011 MICEX, the first largest and state-controlled stock exchange acquired RTS, the second largest and privately owned stock exchange primarily designed for foreign investors. We empirically investigate whether the acquisition resulted in improved liquidity of the Russian stock market which was one of the declared acquisition objectives. We use the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and the Wilcoxon tests to compare market-wide liquidity in several discrete periods pre and post acquisition. A deep and thorough insight into liquidity performance is ensured by assessing liquidity from limit order book data of tick frequency along three dimensions (tightness, immediacy, and elasticity).