High-frequency trading and institutional trading costs

Using data on Canadian bond futures, we examine how high-frequency traders (HFTs) interact with institutions building large positions. In contrast to recent findings, we find HFTs in the data act as small-sized liquidity suppliers, and we reject the hypothesis that they engage in back running, a predatory trading strategy. Using a quasi-experiment in November 2011, in which a number of HFTs started trading the bond future, we run a difference-in-differences event study and find more competition among HFTs improves implementation shortfall, effective spreads, and short-term price impacts for institutional trading in Canadian bond futures.     

Endogenous informed trading in the presence of trading costs: Theory and evidence

The basic premise of the model we propose is that market frictions (trading costs) force traders with market-wide information to strategically choose which securities to trade in. We study the effect of recognizing trading costs on the choices of informed traders and the resulting statistical properties of security prices. Specifically, we show that (1) stocks with intermediate β's have the least informative prices, even though they are traded by the greatest number of informed traders; (2) for high β securities, the contemporaneous correlation of prices is close to the correlation in fundamental values; (3) a security with a higher β, higher volume of liquidity trading and lower idiosyncratic variance is more likely to lead another security. With market capitalization as a proxy for the level of liquidity trading, these specific predictions of the model on the lead–lag relationship are also shown to be strongly supported by the data.     

Accrual components and stock trading costs

This paper examines the relationship between accrual components and stock trading costs in China and finds that both abnormal and normal accruals are associated with these costs. Moreover, negative accruals, both abnormal and normal, have a greater influence on stock trading costs than positive accruals because of short-selling constraints in the Chinese stock market. Further analysis reveals that investors who are fixated on accruals are unable to separate positive or negative abnormal accruals from earnings in general. Additionally, investors overestimate the persistence of both positive and negative normal accruals. These findings constitute further evidence of the low degree of market efficiency in China. Chinese investors seem to overestimate firm value when abnormal and normal accruals are positive and underestimate it when they are negative, thus leading to an asymmetric effect on trading costs between positive and negative accruals in the face of short-selling constraints in the Chinese stock market.     

The dynamics of dealer markets and trading costs

In this study we examine the temporal dynamics of dealer market share and their ramification for competition and trading costs using a large sample of NASDAQ securities. Our results show that although the total market share of the top five dealers is relatively stable over time, there is significant monthly variation in the composition of the top five dealers. We show that market share turbulence among top dealers is another form of competition that narrows bid–ask spreads, especially for stocks with less competitive market structure.     

An approximate distribution of delta-hedging errors in a jump-diffusion model with discrete trading and transaction costs

We introduce a jump-diffusion model for asset returns with jumps drawn from a mixture of normal distributions and show that this model adequately fits the historical data of the S&P500 index. We consider a delta-hedging strategy (DHS) for vanilla options under the diffusion model (DM) and the proposed jump-diffusion model (JDM), assuming discrete trading intervals and transaction costs, and derive an approximation for the probability density function (PDF) of the profit-and-loss (P&L) of the DHS under both models. We find that, under the log-normal model of Black–Scholes–Merton, the actual PDF of the P&L can be well approximated by the chi-squared distribution with specific parameters. We derive an approximation for the P&L volatility in the DM and JDM. We show that, under both DM and JDM, the expected loss due to transaction costs is inversely proportional to the square root of the hedging frequency. We apply mean–variance analysis to find the optimal hedging frequency given the hedger's risk tolerance. Since under the JDM it is impossible to reduce the P&L volatility by increasing the hedging frequency, we consider an alternative hedging strategy, following which the P&L volatility can be reduced by increasing the hedging frequency.     

Speculative trading,prospect theory and transaction costs

A speculative agent with prospect theory preference chooses the optimal time to purchase and then to sell an indivisible risky asset to maximise the expected utility of the round-trip profit net of transaction costs. The optimisation problem is formulated as a sequential optimal stopping problem, and we provide a complete characterisation of the solution. Depending on the preference and market parameters, the optimal strategy can be “buy and hold”, “buy low, sell high”, “buy high, sell higher” or “no trading”. Behavioural preference and market friction interact in a subtle way which yields surprising implications on the agent’s trading patterns. For example, increasing the market entry fee does not necessarily curb speculative trading, but instead may induce a higher reference point under which the agent becomes more risk-seeking and in turn is more likely to trade.

     

Transaction costs, trading volume, and the liquidity premium

In a market with one safe and one risky asset, an investor with a long horizon, constant investment opportunities and constant relative risk aversion trades with small proportional transaction costs. We derive explicit formulas for the optimal investment policy, its implied welfare, liquidity premium, and trading volume. At the first order, the liquidity premium equals the spread, times share turnover, times a universal constant. The results are robust to consumption and finite horizons. We exploit the equivalence of the transaction cost market to another frictionless market, with a shadow risky asset, in which investment opportunities are stochastic. The shadow price is also found explicitly.     

How broker ability affects institutional trading costs

The present paper shows that broker research and trade execution ability has a significant impact on the cost of institutional trading. The results reveal that there is significant variation in the ability of brokers to control execution costs. Trades executed by brokers with stronger research ability exhibit a higher permanent price impact, whereas those executed by brokers with better execution ability exhibit a lower temporary price impact. Brokers are also found to specialize on an industry level that gives rise to variation in ability within a brokerage house.     

Hybrid markets, tick size and investor trading costs

This paper shows how the tick size affects equilibrium outcomes in a hybrid stock market such as the NYSE that features both a specialist and a limit order book. Reducing the tick size facilitates the specialist's ability to step ahead of the limit order book, resulting in a reduction in the cumulative depth of the limit order book at prices above the minimum tick. If market demand is price-sensitive, and there are costs of limit order submission, the limit order book can be destroyed by tick sizes that are either too small or too large. We show that trading cost is minimized at larger tick sizes for larger market orders, creating an incentive to submit smaller orders when tick size is reduced. With a smaller tick size, specialist participation increases and specialist profit increases slightly for small market orders, and considerably for large market orders.     

Another look at trading costs and short-term reversal profits

Several studies report that abnormal returns associated with short-term reversal investment strategies diminish once trading costs are taken into account. We show that the impact of trading costs on the strategies’ profitability can largely be attributed to excessively trading in small cap stocks. Limiting the stock universe to large cap stocks significantly reduces trading costs. Applying a more sophisticated portfolio construction algorithm to lower turnover reduces trading costs even further. Our finding that reversal strategies generate 30-50 basis points per week net of trading costs poses a serious challenge to standard rational asset pricing models. Our findings also have important implications for the understanding and practical implementation of reversal strategies.     

Insiders' profits,costs of trading,and market efficiency

This study investigates the anomalous findings of the previous insider trading studies that any investor can earn abnormal profits by reading the Official Summary. Availability of abnormal profits to insiders, availability of abnormal profits to outsiders who imitate insiders, determinants of insiders' predictive ability, and effect of insider trading on costs of trading for other investors are examined by using approximately 60,000 insider sale and purchase transactions from 1975 to 1981. Implications for market efficiency and evaluation of abnormal profits to active trading strategies are discussed.     

Friction in the trading process and the estimation of systematic risk

This paper considers how estimates of the market model beta parameter can be biased by friction in the trading process (information, decision, and transaction costs) that (a) leads to a distinction between observed and ‘true’ returns; (b) causes observed returns to be generated asynchronously for a set of interdependent securities; and (c) thereby introduces serial cross-correlation into security returns. Several propositions are derived from which consistent estimators of beta are obtained, and the effect of differencing interval length on beta estimates is specified. The formulation is contrasted with the related analyses of Scholes-Williams (1977) and Dimson (1979).     

The profitability,costs and systematic risk of the post-earnings-announcement-drift trading strategy

This paper re-examines the profitability of the post-earnings-announcement-drift (PEAD) trading strategy using a practical simulation approach that aligns with a fund manager’s investment perspective. It allows us to calculate the break-even transaction costs of following a PEAD strategy, and permits the explicit incorporation of transaction costs. Using US data from 1974 to 2007, we show that the traditional event-study method understates the risk and overstates the abnormal return of the PEAD strategy. Accounting for transaction costs in a practical simulation framework, we show there is no abnormal return (alpha) from the PEAD strategy in multi-factor asset pricing regression analyses. These results are robust to sub-period analyses and alternative transaction cost measures. The effects of intraday timing and information risk on the PEAD strategy are also explored. Overall, our study shows that the practical aspects of implementing the PEAD strategy are vitally important to evaluating the risk and return of the strategy. We provide a practical, analytical tool that can be directly adopted by fund managers to study the PEAD strategy with their institutional parameters of transaction costs and market timing.     

Order preferencing, adverse-selection costs, and the probability of information-based trading

Although prior studies offer various conjectures on the causes and consequences of order preferencing, there is only limited empirical evidence. In this study, we show that the extent of order preferencing is significantly and negatively related to both the adverse-selection component of the spread and the probability of information-based trading. This result is consistent with the prediction of the clientele-pricing hypothesis that dealers (brokers) selectively purchase (internalize) orders based on information content. Our results suggest that order preferencing may not be as harmful as some researchers have suggested and offer some rationale for its prevalence in securities markets with heterogeneously informed traders. JEL Classification G18 · G19     

Liquidity costs: Screen-based trading versus open outcry

The results reported in this paper challenge the popular belief that screen-based trading offered lower liquidity costs than the open-outcry approach during its first year of side-by-side operation in the U.S. financial derivatives market. Using time and sales data from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) market profile data series, effective bid-ask spreads are estimated on the basis of daily and intraday measures of the Thompson-Waller and Smith-Whaley estimators. We find liquidity costs on the screen-based system vary with time and the level of floor trading activity. In particular, a one-tick market is observed just before the opening of the Chicago trading floor (6:30 to 7:30 am). However, subsequent intraday spreads exhibit the familiar “reverse J-shaped pattern”—highest following the opening of floor trading, declining until afternoon, and then increasing until close. Meanwhile, daily spread estimates average almost a quarter-tick higher on the screen-based market relative to the one-tick spread commonly associated with open outcry. This relationship remained robust across sample time-series and conservative price-change specifications. Since the study was conducted, electronic trading has become the predominant exchange medium for financial derivatives at the CBOT, following the example set in Europe's traditional futures exchanges, e.g. France's Matif, Germany's Deutsche Bourse and the U.K.'s Liffe.     

A profitable trading and risk management strategy despite transaction costs

We present a new profitable trading and risk management strategy with transaction cost for an adaptive equally weighted portfolio. Moreover, we implement a rule-based expert system for the daily financial decision-making process using the power of spectral analysis. We use several key components such as principal component analysis, partitioning, memory in stock markets, percentile for relative standing, the first four normalized central moments, learning algorithm, and switching among several investment positions consisting of short stock market, long stock market and money market with real risk-free rates. We find that it is possible to beat the proxy for the equity market without short selling for 168 S&P 500-listed stocks during the 1998–2008 period and 213 Russell 2000-listed stocks during the 1995–2007 period. Our Monte Carlo simulation for both the various set of stocks and the interval of time confirms our findings.     

Measures of implicit trading costs and buy–sell asymmetry

This paper shows that the widely documented buy–sell asymmetry in implicit institutional trading cost is mainly driven by mechanical characteristics of a specific class of measures: pre-trade measures. If a post-trade measure is used, the asymmetry is reversed in both rising and falling markets. Both pre-trade and post-trade measures are highly influenced by market movement, while during-trade measures are relatively neutral to market movement. I further show that a pre-trade measure can be decomposed into a market movement component and a during-trade measure, and empirically the market movement component is the dominant component. This paper demonstrates that simple mechanical characteristics of trading cost measures can have important implications for how empirical results are interpreted.     

Pairs trading under transaction costs using model predictive control

Model predictive control with proportional transactions costs provides a good approximation to the optimal trading strategy