Intraday Price Change and Trading Volume Relations in the Stock and Stock Option Markets

This study investigates intraday relations between price changes and trading volume of options and stocks for a sample of firms whose options traded on the CBOE during the first quarter of 1986. After purging the price change series of the effects of bid/ask spreads, multivariate time-series analysis is used to estimate the lead/lag relation between the price changes in the option and stock markets. The results indicate that price changes in the stock market lead the option market by as much as fifteen minutes. The analysis of trading volume indicates that the stock market lead may be even longer.     

Intraday Stock Price Reactions to Interim-Quarter versus Fourth-Quarter Earnings Announcements

This study investigates intraday patterns of quarterly return-earnings relations. We find that fourth quarter announcements exhibit a lower earnings response coefficient but a more rapid adjustment to new equilibrium levels of prices and a higher R2 than interim quarter announcements. While prior short event window studies document that interim quarter earnings have greater explanatory power than fourth quarter earnings or annual earnings, our analysis indicates that the prior results may be driven by the use of two-day event window that is much wider than what it takes for the market to adjust to fourth quarter announcements.     

Financial Analysts' Earnings Forecast Dispersion and Intraday Stock Price Variability Around Quarterly Earnings Announcements

This study investigates the relationship between the dispersion of analysts' earnings forecasts and stock price variability around quarterly earnings announcements. Consistent with theoretical predictions, the empirical analysis shows that stock price variability at the time of earnings announcements is positively related to the degree of analysts' predisclosure earnings forecast dispersion. Additionally, firms with high levels of forecast dispersion exhibit significant increases in price variability for longer periods prior to and following earnings announcements than do firms with low levels of forecast dispersion. These results suggest that there is information about the earnings announcement that becomes available to at least a subset of investors prior to the earnings release and that market participants take different amounts of time to process the information conveyed by the earnings announcement.     

Informed Trading in Stock and Option Markets

We investigate the contribution of option markets to price discovery, using a modification of Hasbrouck's (1995) "information share" approach. Based on five years of stock and options data for 60 firms, we estimate the option market's contribution to price discovery to be about 17% on average. Option market price discovery is related to trading volume and spreads in both markets, and stock volatility. Price discovery across option strike prices is related to leverage, trading volume, and spreads. Our results are consistent with theoretical arguments that informed investors trade in both stock and option markets, suggesting an important informational role for options.     

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.     

Competition, Market Structure, and Bid-Ask Spreads in Stock Option Markets

This paper examines the effects of competition and market structure on equity option bid-ask spreads from 1986 to 1997. Options listed on multiple exchanges have narrower spreads than those listed on a single exchange, but the difference diminishes as option volume increases. Option spreads become wider when a competing exchange delists the option. Options traded under a "Designated Primary Marketmaker" (DPM) have narrower quoted spreads than those traded in a traditional open outcry crowd. Effective spreads are found to be slightly narrower under the DPM than in the crowd, but only since 1992, and only on low-volume options.     

Price Linkages Between the US,Japan and UK Stock Markets

This study presents an empirical analysis of the short- and long-term relationships among stock prices in the US, Japan and the UK. We re-examine the evidence of market linkages and cointegration between S&P 500, Nikkei 225 and FTSE-100 stock indices. The results suggest that mature markets are cointegrated, indicating a stationary long-run relationship. Furthermore, Granger causality tests show a bi-directional causality between Nikkei 225–FTSE-100, and unidirectional causalities between S&P 500–FTSE-100 and S&P 500–Nikkei 225. These findings suggest that the potential for diversifying risk by investing in mature markets is limited.     

The Relationship Between Stock and Option Price Changes

This paper documents an important step in reconciling conflicting results by Manaster and Rendleman [16] and Stephan and Whaley [21] regarding price change relationships between options and their underlying stocks. Using recent advances in bi-directional causality testing and data sources available only fairly recently, statistical tests are conducted that mitigate the nonsynchroneity and bid-ask bias problems that may have affected the Manaster and Rendleman [16] study. Even with these adjustments, empirical results are consistent with Manaster and Rendleman [16], indicating that stock price changes adjust to lagged option price changes over two trading days. Moreover, results suggest that the causality is bi-directional.     

Stock Price Behavior Around Announcements of Write-Offs

Review of Accounting Studies - Is it plausible that important corporate events such as write-offs, averaging around 20% of firms' market values, are associated with stock-price responses of...     

The American Put Option and Its Critical Stock Price

We derive an expression for the critical stock price for the American put. We start by expressing the put price as an integral involving first-passage probabilities. This approach yields intuition for Merton's result for the perpetual put. We then consider the finite-lived case. Using (1) the fact that the put value ceases to depend on time when the critical stock price is reached and (2) the result that an American put equals a European put plus an early-exercise premium, we derive the critical stock price. We approximate the critical-stock-price function to compute accurate put prices.     

我国股票期权计划的行权价设计

随着《公司法》和《证券法》的修订通过，股票期权激励再次成为公众关心的热点问题。股票期权是公司给予高级管理人员的一种权利。持有这种权利的高级管理人员可以在规定时期内以股票期权的行权价格(Exercise Price)购买本公司股票，这个购买的过程称为行权(Exercise)。在行权以前，股票期权持有人没有任何的现金收益；行权过后，个人收益为行权价与行权     

股指期权合约规格设计研究——基于全球股指期权市场对比的视角

为了探索股指期权产品合约规格设计的一般规律,对全球主要市场中股指期权产品业务实践进行了调查、对比分析与总结。分析结果表明,全球主要市场的股指期权以欧式行权与现金交割的方式为主,注重近月合约月份,在行权价格间距、行权价格序列、合约乘数以及报价单位的设计上会综合考虑它们对流动性等因素的影响,合约编码主要采用交易代码、合约到期日、合约类型以及行权价格四个要素依次排列的结构。这些都为未来在境内市场推出股指期权产品,开展股指期权业务提供了重要参考。     

股票期权行权价格的局限与修订研究

股票期权计划在国内外受到广泛关注,并日益成为公司经理人激励的主要手段。但由于我国股票市场的弱式性,以股价为基础的股票期权并不能真正反映经理人的业绩表现。为此,本文引入超额EVA增长率和行业股票价格参数对现行以股票价格为基础的股票期权行权价格进行修订,以使经理人的激励报酬和业绩贡献变动相结合。与此同时,本文还引入行业分类指数变动率以消除股市波动对行权日行权价格的影响。调整后的行权价格更加真实的反映了经理人的业绩。论文最后指出该方案所具有的优势,认为经过修订的股票期权行权价格在我国更具有现实意义。     

Stock Price Adjustment to the Information in Dividend Changes

This paper examines abnormal stock returns in the three years surrounding relatively large changes in dividends announced during the 1971 to 1990 period. The main results are that statistically and economically significant negative post-announcement abnormal returns of 11% and 17% over the post-announcement year are found for firms which decrease dividends and those which omit their dividends. Firms resuming and firms increasing dividends do not exhibit significant abnormal returns, on average, over the post-announcement year. The pattern of lagged price adjustment to negative dividend change information differs from that reported for 'earnings surprise' firms in important respects. While the dividend change firms do exhibit returns behavior consistent with year-to-year returns momentum, differences in prior year returns do not explain the differences in returns over the post-announcement period.     

Confirming Management Earnings Forecasts, Earnings Uncertainty, and Stock Returns

In this study we examine the association among confirming management forecasts, stock prices, and analyst expectations. Confirming management forecasts are voluntary disclosures by management that corroborate existing market expectations about future earnings. This study provides evidence that these voluntary disclosures affect stock prices and the dispersion of analyst expectations. Specifically, we find that the market's reaction to confirming forecasts is significantly positive, indicating that benefits accrue to firms that disclose such forecasts. In addition, although we find no significant change in the mean consensus forecasts (a proxy for earnings expectations) around the confirming forecast date, evidence indicates a significant reduction in the mean and median consensus analyst dispersion (a proxy for earnings uncertainty). Finally, we document a positive association between the reduction of dispersion of analysts' forecasts and the magnitude of the stock market response. Overall, the evidence suggests that confirming forecasts reduce uncertainty about future earnings and that investors price this reduction of uncertainty.     

Good Timing: CEO Stock Option Awards and Company News Announcements

This article analyzes the timing of CEO stock option awards, as a method of investigating corporate managers' influence over the terms of their own compensation. In a sample of 620 stock option awards to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies between 1992 and 1994, I find that the timing of awards coincides with favorable movements in company stock prices. Patterns of companies' quarterly earnings announcements are consistent with an interpretation that CEOs receive stock option awards shortly before favorable corporate news. I evaluate and reject several alternative explanations of the results, including insider trading and the manipulation of news announcement dates.     

Asymmetric Price and Volatility Adjustments in Emerging Asian Stock Markets

This paper tests the hypothesis that stock returns in emerging stock markets adjust asymmetrically to past information. The evidence suggests that both the conditional mean and the conditional variance respond asymmetrically to past information. In agreement with studies dealing with developed stock markets, the conditional variance is an asymmetrical function of past innovations, rising proportionately more during market declines. More importantly, the conditional mean is also an asymmetrical function of past returns. Specifically, positive past returns are more persistent than negative past returns of an equal magnitude. This behaviour is consistent with an asymmetric partial adjustment price model where news suggesting overpricing (negative returns) are incorporated faster into current prices than news suggesting underpricing (positive returns). Furthermore, the asymmetric adjustment of prices to past information could be partially responsible for the asymmetries in the conditional variance if the degree of adjustment and the level of volatility are positively related.     

股票市场的最优限幅间隔与股票价格调整速度

本基于股票价格的偏调整模型，估计了中国股市的价格调整系数，给出了股票价格信息揭示能力的直接证据。章首先确定了中国股票市场价格调整过程中的限幅间隔为13天。对沪、深两市的6只交易指数的实证结果显示，两市均需9天时间方能对新信息冲击实现充分调整。价格调整系数的研究体现了一种基于微观结构的方法、行为金融的视角，把价格形成原理和价格对信息的不完全反应特征相结合进而考察股票市场效率的研究思路，可对事件研究法作有益补充。     

Earnings Conference Call Content and Stock Price: The Case of REITs

Using computer based content analysis, we quantify the linguistic tone of quarterly earnings conference calls for publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). After controlling for the earnings announcement, we examine the relation between conference call tone and the contemporaneous stock price reaction. We find that the tone of the conference call dialogue has significant explanatory power for the abnormal returns at and immediately following quarterly earnings announcements. The question and answer portion of the conference calls dominates prepared managerial introductory remarks in explanatory significance. Furthermore, an overall positive tone in the conference call discussion between management and analysts is found to nearly offset the damaging effects of a negative earnings surprise.