Earnings Announcements and the Components of the Bid-Ask Spread

This study investigates the behavior of the components of the bid-ask spread around earnings announcements. We find that the adverse selection cost component significantly increases surrounding the announcements, while the inventory holding and order processing components significantly decline during the same periods. Our results suggest that the directional change in the total bid-ask spread depends on the relative magnitudes of the changes in these three components. Specifically, the decreases in inventory holding costs and order processing costs imply that earnings announcements may have an insignificant impact on the total bid-ask spread, even when they result in increased information asymmetry.     

Determinants of the components of bid-ask spreads on stocks

In this paper we show that George et al. (GKN, 1991) estimators of the adverse selection and order processing cost components of the bid-ask spread are biased due to intertemporal variations in the bid-ask spread. We use alternative estimators that correct this bias and that are applicable to individual securities, and estimate these cost components empirically using data on NYSE/AMEX stocks. As expected, our results indicate that on average adverse selection costs account for approximately 50% of the bid-ask spread, sharply higher than the estimates of 8-10% obtained by GKN for NASDAQ stocks and 21% that we obtain for NYSE/AMEX stocks using GKN's estimators. We then conduct cross-sectional regressions designed primarily to determine whether adverse selection costs vary across specialists after controlling for firm size and other factors. Consistent with previously established hypotheses, we find that adverse-selection costs vary across specialists, and that this variation is related to the number of securities that the specialist handles.     

The Changing Asymmetric Information Component of REIT Spreads: A Study of Anticipated Announcements

This study examines the risk-compensating behavior of REIT market makers. The bid-ask spread is hypothesized to compensate market makers for three costs: asymmetric information, order processing, and inventory. As the market makers perceived likelihood of transacting with a better-informed individual increases (decreases), the percentage of the spread that is attributed to asymmetric information will increase (decrease). This study examines the asymmetric information component of the bid-ask spread immediately prior to and following REIT dividend announcements and REIT funds from operations announcements during 1995 and 1996. The asymmetric information component increases the day before and then declines subsequent to dividend announcements of small and equity REITs. Asymmetric information costs increase following funds from operations announcements.     

Asymmetric information and the bid-ask spread: an empirical comparison between automated order execution and open outcry auction

This study examines the components of the bid-ask spread on the Sydney Futures Exchange. The Exchange uses open outcry auction for daytime trading, and switches to a screen-based automated order execution system at 16:30 h for overnight trading. After controlling for proxies of order flow characteristics, the study finds that screen-based traders are more sensitive to market volatility than floor-based traders in setting the bid-ask spread. Spreads from floor trading have a smaller adverse information component but a larger order processing cost component relative to screen trading. The results suggest that floor traders can better assess the presence of adverse information than screen traders.     

An empirical examination of the impact of market microstructure changes on the determinants of option bid-ask spreads

This paper examines the determinants of bid-ask spreads in the Australian Options Market before and after it switched from a quote-driven floor-traded market to an order-driven screen-traded market. This study reports that both put and call option bid-ask spreads are positively related to the option's value, its remaining term-to-maturity, its absolute hedge ratio and the volatility of returns from the underlying asset and negatively related to the level of trading activity in that option series. The study also reports that spreads are generally less when market makers are obliged to maintain continuous quotes in the market. The paper also finds that following the change in trading regime, both call and put option spreads became more sensitive to the absolute value of the option's delta. This finding is consistent with previous theoretical and empirical work from equities markets that has suggested that a switch to an electronic trading regime results in an increase in the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread. There is also some limited evidence that suggests that the switch to electronic trading resulted in call option spreads being less sensitive to the return volatility of the underlying asset but more sensitive to the option's price.     

Liquidity in auction and specialist market structures: Evidence from the Italian bourse

Several studies find that bid-ask spreads for stocks listed on the NYSE are lower than for stocks listed on NASDAQ. While this suggests that specialist market structures provide greater liquidity than competing dealer markets, the nature of trading on the NYSE, which comprises a specialist competing with limit order flow, obfuscates the comparison. In 2001, a structural change was implemented on the Italian Bourse. Many stocks that traded in an auction market switched to a specialist market, where the specialist controls order flow. Results confirm that liquidity is significantly improved when stocks commence trading in the specialist market. Analysis of the components of the bid-ask spread reveal that the adverse selection component of the spread is significantly reduced. This evidence suggests that specialist market structures provide greater liquidity to market participants.     

Liquidity Provision and Noise Trading: Evidence from the "Investment Dartboard" Column

How does increased noise trading affect market liquidity and trading costs? We use The Wall Street Journal's “Investment Dartboard” column, which stimulates noise trading, as a natural experiment to evaluate models of the bid-ask spread. We find that substantial increases in trading volume and significant but temporary abnormal returns occur when analysts recommend stocks in this column, especially when recommendations come from analysts with successful contest track records. We also find an increase in liquidity and a decrease in the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread.     

Trading Frictions and Market Structure: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract:  Market structure affects the informational and real frictions faced by traders in equity markets. Using bid-ask spreads, we present evidence which suggests that while real frictions associated with the costs of supplying immediacy are less in order-driven systems, informational frictions resulting from increased adverse selection risk are considerably higher in these markets. Firm value, transaction size and order location are all major determinants of the trading costs borne by investors. Consistent with the stealth trading hypothesis of Barclay and Warner (1993) , we report that informational frictions are at their highest for medium size trades that go through the order book. Finally, while there is no doubt that the total costs of trading on order-driven systems are lower for very liquid securities, the inherent informational inefficiencies of the trading format should not be ignored. This is particularly true for the vast majority of small to mid-size stocks that experience infrequent trading and low transaction volume.     

Third Market Broker-Dealers: Cost Competitors or Cream Skimmers?

This article compares the bid-ask spread for New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)-listed securities before and after a major third market broker-dealer, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (Madoff), begins to selectively purchase and execute orders in those securities. Tests reveal the quoted bid-ask spread tightens when Madoff enters the market. Furthermore, trading costs as measured by the difference between the transaction price and the midpoint of the contemporaneous bid-ask spread do not increase. Together, these results suggest that the adverse selection problem associated with allowing agents to selectively execute orders in exchange-listed securities may be economically insignificant.     

Trade size and components of the bid-ask spread

The relation between theorized components of the bid-ask spreadand trade size for a sample of NYSE firms is examined. We findthat the adverse selection component increases uniformly withtrade size. Conversely, order processing costs decrease withincreased in trade size for all but the largest trades. We findthat order persistence decreases with trade size. The adverseselection component is highest at the beginning of the day andlowest at the end of the day for all but the largest trades.Trades of NYSE firms executed on regional exchanges or NASDAQcontain a large order processing cost component but no significantadverse information effect.     

Competitive inventory management in Treasury markets

We decompose US Treasury bid-ask spreads into inventory, adverse selection and order processing costs by using the fact that inventory trades have different effects on spreads than do proprietary trades. We exploit this asymmetry and develop a technique to identify the three components of the spread in order to test three hypotheses: dealers make larger changes to inventory (1) following macroeconomic announcements (2) at the start and toward the end of the New York trading hours, and (3) when transaction sizes are relatively large. We test these predictions using GovPX data for on-the-run 2-year and 10-year Treasury Notes. All three predictions are supported. We also assess how primary dealers react to the Federal Reserve’s open market operations (OMOs). Our findings reveal interesting intraday patterns in the inventory component for both securities.     

Adverse Selection and the Required Return

An important feature of financial markets is that securitiesare traded repeatedly by asymmetrically informed investors.We study how current and future adverse selection affect therequired return. We find that the bid-ask spread generated byadverse selection is not a cost, on average, for agents whotrade, and hence the bid-ask spread does not directly influencethe required return. Adverse selection contributes to trading-decisiondistortions, however, implying allocation costs, which affectthe required return. We explicitly derive the effect of adverseselection on required returns, and show how our result differsfrom models that consider the bid-ask spread to be an exogenouscost.     

The market microstructure of the European climate exchange

This paper analyzes the market microstructure of the European Climate Exchange, the largest EU ETS trading venue. The ECX captures 2/3 of the screen traded market in EUA and more than 90% in CER. Volume growth has averaged 277% in EUA between 2005 and 2009 and 724% in CER since 2007. Spreads range from €0.0188 to €0.0406 for EUA and €0.0276 to €0.0796 for CER. The median proportion of the spread due to adverse selection reaches 76% for EUA and 75% for CER. Realized volatility, bid-ask spreads and adverse selection costs decline with verified emission releases. Market impact estimates imply that an average trade will move the EUA market by 1.06 euro centimes and the CER market 1.45. The ECX is providing between 75% and 88% of price discovery for EUA trading and between 64% and 72% for CER. We find imbalances in the order book help predict returns for up to three days. A simple trading strategy that enters the market long or short when the order imbalance is strong is profitable even after accounting for spreads and market impact.     

深市买卖价差逆向选择成分的估算与分析

本文以深市150家上市公司为样本，估算买卖价差逆向选择成分，研究逆向选择成分与公司特征之间的关系，并探讨其日内变化模式。研究发现信息不对称对深市买卖价差的贡献度为39％。公司规模越大，其股票的逆向选择成分越小；逆向选择成分随着交易量水平的上升而降低；高价股的逆向选择成分比低价股低。总体而言，逆向选择成分在早市呈现“倒U”型，在午市呈现“L”型。逆向选择成分与公司特征之问的关系及逆向选择成分的日内变动模式的实证分析结果，符合信息不对称与公司特征之问的逻辑关系及信息不对称的日内变动模式。     

Liquidity and stock returns: Evidence from a pure order-driven market using a new liquidity proxy

Liquidity has been found to be a determinant of stock returns in large hybrid quote-driven markets. Liquidity proxies have ranged from trade-based measures such as turnover rate to order-based measures such as the bid-ask spread. The relationship between return and liquidity in small pure order-driven markets is less clear, with different liquidity proxies yielding conflicting results. This study adds to the existing literature by considering the return-liquidity relationship on the Australian Stock Exchange, a small pure order-driven market, using a new liquidity measure, Weighted Order Value (WOV). Liquidity is found to be an important determinant of returns.     

Government intervention and adverse selection costs in foreign exchange markets

An important group of traders in the foreign exchange marketis governments who often adhere to a foreign exchange rate policyof occasional interventions with otherwise floating rates. Inthis article we provide a theoretical model and empirical evidencethat government foreign exchange interventions create significantadverse selection problems for dealers. In particular, our modelshows that the adverse selection component of the foreign exchangespread is positively related to the variance of unexpected interventionand that expected intervention has no impact on the spread.After controlling for inventory and order processing costs,we find that bid-ask spreads increase with U.S. dollar and Germandeutsche mark foreign exchange rate intervention during theperiod 1976-1994. Furthermore, when the intervention is decomposedinto expected and unexpected components, we find a statisticallyand economically significant increase in spreads with the varianceof unexpected intervention, while expected intervention hasno significant impact on spreads.     

The Components of Electronic Inter-Dealer Spot FX Bid-Ask Spreads

Abstract:  This paper applies an established bid-ask spread decomposition model to the inter-dealer spot foreign exchange market. In addition, the paper presents and tests a modified decomposition model which is specifically adapted to the features of order-driven markets and which is found to produce more plausible results than the original model. Price clustering is introduced as a new explanatory factor within this framework and is shown to be vitally important in understanding the composition of bid-ask spreads in this market.     

BID-ASK SPREAD COMPONENTS AROUND ANTICIPATED ANNOUNCEMENTS

In this paper I re-examine spreads around dividend and earnings announcements and provide new evidence on patterns by examining the components of the bid-ask spread. Transaction data are examined through a recently developed spread decomposition model that decomposes the bid-ask spread into a fixed (execution) component and an adverse selection component. In addition, this model does not rely on a constant spread as previous spread decomposition models require. The results show that around earnings announcements, the bid-ask spreads and spread components have significant changes indicating that the anticipated announcement is informative. However, the actual public announcement of a dividend does not alter the bid-ask spread and spread components of actively traded securities.     

Limit order revisions

This paper empirically examines limit order revisions and cancellations which contribute to a significant portion of the order activity in many order-driven markets. We document that limit orders are more likely to be revised or cancelled if they are large and near the bid-ask quote. We show that order revisions generate net economic benefits to traders. Our evidence shows strong links between these activities and limit order submission risk using bid-ask spread, volatility and post-event return as proxies. We also find that these activities are less intense when the opportunity cost to monitor a stock is high, such as during lunch hours or when stock volume relative to the entire market is low.     

Earnings Predictability, Information Asymmetry, and Market Liquidity

We investigate the relation between earnings predictability, information asymmetry and the behavior of the adverse selection cost component of the bid-ask spread around quarterly earnings announcements for NASDAQ firms. While we find an increase in the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread on the day of and the day prior to quarterly earnings announcements for firms with less predictable earnings, we find no evidence of such changes for firms with more predictable earnings. During a non-announcement period, we find that firms with relatively less predictable earnings have consistently higher total bid-ask spreads than firms with more predictable earnings. This finding suggests that firms with relatively less predictable earnings have a higher cost of equity capital than comparable firms with more predictable earning streams, ceteris paribus. Hence, earnings predictability may be a legitimate concern of managers who wish to minimize their cost of equity capital at least as it pertains to bid-ask spreads.