WEBS,SPDRs, and country funds: an analysis of international cointegration

Prior empirical studies analyzing linkages between international equity markets have suffered because suitable real-world financial instruments representing national equity markets were not available for trading. In March 1996, World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) began trading on the American Stock Exchange. WEBS are open-end index funds that trade like closed-end index funds; they are designed to closely track the international indices developed by Morgan Stanley Capital International. This study utilizes WEBS along with Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts (SPDRs) to avoid the previously encountered problems associated with nonsynchronous trading, fluctuating foreign exchange rates, non-liquidity, trading restrictions, and index replication. Results indicate that substantial pairwise cointegration exists among the 18 market indices as well as between individual closed-end country funds and their own-country WEBS. In addition, Granger causality tests indicate the existence of short-term causal relationships, suggesting market inefficiencies and the possibility of short-run arbitrage opportunities.     

The information content of closed-end country fund discounts

This paper examines whether premiums and discounts on closed-end country mutual funds (CECFs) contain useful information about future returns. We find that higher CECF premiums are associated both with higher future returns on the relevant foreign market index and with higher future NAV returns after controlling for the foreign market return. CECFs trading at large discounts are not necessarily bargains, because their future NAV performance can be expected to be relatively poor.     

MARKET SEGMENTATION AND INTERNATIONAL ASSET PRICES: EVIDENCE FROM THE LISTING OF WORLD EQUITY BENCHMARK SHARES

This article provides an empirical analysis of the announcement effect of the listing of the seventeen World Equity Benchmark Shares (WEBS) on the returns of the corresponding market index returns and closed‐end country fund premiums. I find that the announcement of the listing of the WEBS resulted in a positive market price reaction for the market indexes. Furthermore, there was a significant decline in premiums for closed‐end country funds. The findings are consistent with models of international asset pricing under market segmentation and they illustrate that the listing of internationally tradable securities is an effective mechanism for integrating international capital markets. JEL classification: G14, G15     

Information-based trading and information propagation: Evidence from the exchange traded fund market

This paper studies the information-based trading of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the information propagation from the ETF market to its index. We find that the ETF trading triggered by asymmetric information and belief heterogeneity not only accelerates the ETFs' price discovery process but also increases the flow of information to the tracked index. Moreover, the price efficiency of the index also improves along with these two types of trading and their efficiency effects can be further enhanced by a speedier ETFs' price discovery. These observations portray the mechanism of the inter-market information propagation.     

Risk characteristics of closed-end stock fund IPOs

We examine 34 closed-end stock fund initial public offerings (IPOs) during the period of January 1, 1986, through June 30, 1987. We find that the funds have low systematic risk during their first trading months, especially the initial month. We also observe that the funds' beta risk tends to increase as the funds season in aftermarket trading. This pattern is in sharp contrast to new issues by nonfinancial corporations, which have very high initial betas that decline over time.     

Do fire sales create externalities?

We develop three novel measures of the incentives of equity mutual funds to internalize the price impact of their trading. We show that mutual funds with stronger incentives to internalize their price impact accommodate inflows and outflows by adjusting their cash buffers instead of trading in portfolio securities. As a result, stocks held by these funds have lower volatility, and flows out of these funds have smaller spillover effects on other funds holding the same securities. Our results provide evidence of meaningful fire sale externalities in the equity mutual fund industry.     

Liquidity supply in electronic markets

We examine the supply of liquidity by proprietary trading desks and hedge funds (PTDH) versus mutual funds, index funds, and insurance companies (MII) across ten bid (ask) steps of the limit order book. We document that institutional investors simultaneously supply liquidity at multiple prices in the limit order book. We also find that PTDHs are more price aggressive liquidity suppliers than MIIs, consistent with hypothesized responses to observed changes in the cost and risk of non-execution. We investigate whether these findings are robust to fast versus slow markets, the volatility of daily returns, and aggregate depth relative to daily volume.     

Further analysis of the liquidity and information components of institutional orders: Active versus passive funds

Previous research examining the price impact of institutional trading concludes that index funds incur higher liquidity costs due to the higher demand for trading immediacy. However, this conclusion has only been inferred by comparing the total price impact of active and index funds. This study extends the literature by decomposing the price impact of both active and index funds' trades into liquidity (temporary) and information (permanent) components. Index fund trades incur higher liquidity costs and generate lower returns than active funds' trades. Indeed, the evidence presented in this study reveals the execution costs of index funds' trades are entirely liquidity-driven.     

A note on fair value pricing of mutual funds

Mutual funds claim that they employ fair value pricing to prevent active investors from trading on their beliefs that the funds’ net asset values are stale. Our results support the funds’ assertions. We estimate the returns from the following active strategy: buy international open end mutual funds that do not employ fair value pricing on days that the S&P500 index rises by a large amount, and/or sell them on days that the S&P500 index declines by a large amount. These active strategies significantly outperform pure buy-and-hold strategies. We conclude that international mutual funds should make greater use of fair value pricing.     

模糊厌恶下股指期货风险对冲策略设计及实证分析

投资者对股指期货与现货有着不同的模糊厌恶,本文首先将此假设条件引入带交易成本的Garleanu and Pederson (2013)投资模型中,并以指数基金对冲策略为例,构建了一个股指期货动态对冲的理论模型。与非对冲策略相比,基于上述模型设计的对冲策略投资绩效更好,动态最优成交额占目标交易额的比例更小,目标成交额对收益率预测因子的敏感性更大。借助上述模型,本文选取2010年4月至2021年6月的中国ETF指数基金和股指期货数据,并以2015年9月股指期货管理措施实施为界进行区间划分,实证研究发现:(1)中国A股市场的ETF投资组合进行股指期货对冲显著提升了投资绩效,但股指期货管理会削弱该作用;(2)投资绩效改善主要来源于交易成本的下降与目标成交额因子敏感性的提升,该机制受到股指期货管理的约束;(3)与Garleanu and Pederson (2013)、Zhang et al. (2017)相比,本文对冲策略保留“抗跌”特点的同时增加了“易涨”特性。本文研究结果表明,在当前大力发展机构投资者的背景下应不断丰富股指期货、股指期权产品谱系,降低股指期货交易成本并完善持仓约束。     

Decomposing the persistence of international equity flows

The portfolio flows of institutional investors are widely known to be persistent. What is less well-known, however, is the source of this persistence. One possibility is the ‘informed trading hypothesis:’ that persistence arises from autocorrelated trades of individual investors who believe they have information about value and who face an imperfectly liquid market. Another possibility is that there are asynchroneities with respect to investment decisions across funds, across investments, or both. These asynchroneities could be due to wealth effects (across investments for a single fund), investor herding (across funds for a single investment), or generalized contagion (across funds and across investments). We use daily data on institutional flows into 21 developed countries by 471 funds to measure and decompose aggregate flow persistence. We find that the informed trading hypothesis explains about 75% of total persistence, and that the remaining amount is attributable entirely to cross-fund own-country persistence. While asynchroneities across funds investing in the same country are important, asynchroneities across countries, either within a given fund, or across funds, are not important. The cross-fund flow lags we identify might result from different fund investment processes, or from some funds mimicking others' decisions. We reject the hypothesis that wealth effects explain persistence.     

The Reaction of Closed End Funds to Stock Distribution Announcements

This study examines the impact of stock split and stock dividend announcements made by closed end mutual funds. We argue that the asymmetric information / signaling hypothesis does not apply to mutual funds. Therefore, any announcement effects must be attributed to other factors such as the optimal trading range hypothesis. We find that closed end funds react no differently than other firms to stock distribution announcements; also, trading volume and turnover remain unchanged after closed end funds' ex-stock distribution days, while liquidity declines for other firms that distribute shares.     

The efficiency of international information flow: Evidence from the ETF and CEF prices

While similar in their trading and organization, closed-end funds (CEFs) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) differ in their liquidity and ease of arbitrage. We compare their price transmission dynamics using a sample of funds that invest in foreign securities and are most likely to show the deficiencies in the manner in which they process information. Our analysis shows that ETF returns are more closely related to their portfolio returns than are CEF returns. However, both fund types underreact to portfolio returns but overreact to domestic stock market returns. A simple trading strategy using these results is profitable with roundtrip trading costs less than 1.38% for CEFs and 0.71% for ETFs.     

Do institutional investors destabilize stock prices? evidence from an emerging market

In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the impact of institutional investors on stock market returns dynamics in Poland. The Polish pension system reform in 1999 and the associated increase in institutional ownership due to the investment activities of pension funds are used as a unique institutional characteristic. We find robust empirical evidence that the increase of institutional ownership has changed the autocorrelation and volatility structure of aggregate stock returns. However, the findings do not support the hypothesis that institutional investors have destabilized stock prices. The results are interpretable in favor of a stabilizing effect on index stock returns induced by institutional trading.     

2011年上半年银行间市场运行报告

2011年上半年,银行间市场运行平稳,交易稳步增长。主要特点是：货币市场资金面大幅收紧,主要货币市场利率大幅上升;银行间国债指数震荡上扬,国债收益率曲线整体上移;人民币对美元汇率中间价保持较快升值速度,非美货币即期交易显著活跃;利率互换交易量大幅增长,利率互换交易确认服务推出;汇率衍生品市场交易稳定增长,期权产品上线完善外汇衍生产品体系。     

The Efficiency of Net Asset Values for Asian–Country Mutual Funds in the US

The net asset values for Asian–country mutual funds in the US come from the underlying market's close a half–day earlier and create inefficiencies that improve returns 6 to 12 times in a pure sense. While these are mitigated because of loads, restrictions on trading and fair value pricing, informational biases exist in trading such funds. These can be exploited with a simple rule: If one plans to trade at all, then one should buy (sell) the fund after its own Asian–country index falls (rises). Basing NAVs on the underlying market's close after the NY market closes can eliminate this inefficiency.     

International equity flows and country funds

This study investigates the relationships between U.S. equity flows in foreign countries and returns of closed-end country funds for emerging Latin American markets, emerging Asian markets and developed markets. The major issues addressed are (1) relationships between flows and fund returns based on two basic models—information contribution and feedback trading effects, (2) the role of volatility in these relationships, and (3) the effects of the Asian crisis. Basic findings include: (1) information contribution (past flows affect returns) and feedback trading arguments (past returns affect flows) are supported; (2) strong evidence is found for the market segmentation argument rather than the investor sentiment argument; (3) there exists strong evidence of significant volatility effects under information contribution and feedback trading; (4) the Asian crisis effects are important but limited to Asian funds.     

The S&P500 index effect reconsidered: Evidence from overnight and intraday stock price performance and volume

This study focuses on S&P500 inclusions and deletions, examining the impact of potential overnight price adjustment after the announcement of an S&P500 index change. We find evidence of a significant overnight price change that diminishes the returns available to speculators although there are still profits available from the first day after announcement until a few days after the actual event. More importantly, observing the tick-by-tick stock price performance and volume effects on the key days during the event window for the first time, we find evidence of consistent trading patterns during trading hours. A separate analysis of NASDAQ and NYSE listed stocks allows for a detailed examination of the price and volume effect at an intra-day level. We find that index funds appear to cluster their rebalancing activities near to and after the close on the event date, suggesting that they are more concerned with tracking error than profit.     

Institutional Ownership and the Dynamics of Trading Volume around FFO Announcements

We examine the effect of institutional ownership on abnormal trading volume around the announcement of funds from operations (FFO) by real estate investment trusts (REITs). Our central thesis is that abnormal trading volume is lower for the more informed institutions vis a vis non-sophisticated retail investors/institutions. We find a negative relationship between ownership by pension funds and abnormal trading volume around quarterly FFO announcements. However, ownership by the other types of institutions is unrelated to abnormal trading volume. Consistent with the view that some institutional investors are more informed than individual investors and therefore respond less to end of year announcements, we find that higher ownership by investment advisors is associated with lower levels of trading volume around end of year FFO announcements. Lastly, we find no evidence of institutional sell-offs associated with announcements of less than expected FFO.     

Connected Stocks

We connect stocks through their common active mutual fund owners. We show that the degree of shared ownership forecasts cross‐sectional variation in return correlation, controlling for exposure to systematic return factors, style and sector similarity, and many other pair characteristics. We argue that shared ownership causes this excess comovement based on evidence from a natural experiment—the 2003 mutual fund trading scandal. These results motivate a novel cross‐stock‐reversal trading strategy exploiting information contained in ownership connections. We show that long‐short hedge fund index returns covary negatively with this strategy, suggesting these funds may exacerbate this excess comovement.