After‐hours trading in equity futures markets

Although it is well known that electronic futures data absorb news (slightly) in advance of spot markets the role of the electronic futures movement in out‐of‐hours trading has not previously been explored. The behavior of the 24‐hour trade in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 futures market reveals the important role of these markets in absorbing news releases occurring outside of normal trading hours. Peaks in volume and volatility in this market occur in conjunction with U.S. 8:30 A.M. EST news releases, before the opening of the open‐outcry markets, and in a less pronounced fashion immediately post‐close the open‐outcry market. Price impact in these markets is statistically higher in the post‐close than in the pre‐open periods. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:114–136, 2009     

Trading activity in stock index futures markets: The evidence of emerging markets

This study investigates the trading activity of the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) and Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading Limited (SGX‐DT) Taiwan Stock Index Futures markets by analyzing the intraday patterns of volume and volatility. In addition, the market closure theory, which may explain such patterns, is examined. Overall, the trading pattern appears to be U‐shaped for the TAIFEX futures and U+W‐shaped for the SGX‐DT. For the SGX‐DT futures, volatility follows the same pattern as that of the number of price changes. For the TAIFEX futures, however, after the peak at the close of the spot market, the volatility in the TAIFEX futures drops consistently until the end of the day while volatility in the SGX‐DT still reaches a smaller peak at the close of the futures market. In addition, a visual inspection of the intraday patterns of these two markets shows that the market closure theory can effectively explain the intraday patterns of these two markets. The empirical results support the market closure theory in that liquidity demand from traders rebalancing their portfolios before and after market closures creates larger volume and volatility at both the open and close. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:983–1003, 2002     

An examination of the impact of macroeconomic news on the spot and futures treasuries markets

In this study we analyze the reaction of daily cash and futures prices for several Treasury securities to the release of U.S. macroeconomic news. Some important results are reported. First, consistent with the notion of market integration, the futures market is found to be cointegrated with the corresponding cash market. Second, of the 23 types of periodic macroeconomic announcements, 19 of them have a significant influence on either the cash or futures prices. Most notably, surprises in nonfarm payroll and Treasury budget significantly influence the cash and futures market across the entire maturity spectrum. Third, consistent with the Fisher and real activity hypotheses, macroeconomic news that conveys higher inflation and/or economic growth has a negative influence on cash and futures prices. Finally, hedging with Treasury futures appears to offer investors protection from inflation‐related fluctuations in interest rates, but not against fluctuations arising due to variations in real output. Some important policy implications of the results are offered. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:453–478, 2004     

An empirical examination of the relation between futures spreads volatility,volume, and open interest

This study investigates the relation between petroleum futures spread variability, trading volume, and open interest in an attempt to uncover the source(s) of variability in futures spreads. The study finds that contemporaneous (lagged) volume and open interest provide significant explanation for futures spreads volatility when entered separately. The study also shows that lagged volume and lagged open interest, when entered in the conditional variance equation simultaneously, have greater effect on volatility and substantially reduce the persistence of volatility. This finding seems to support the sequential information arrival hypothesis of Copeland (1976). Finally, the findings of this study also suggest a degree of market inefficiency in petroleum futures spreads. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:1083–1102, 2002     

Transaction Costs and Market Quality: Open Outcry Versus Electronic Trading

On May 10, 1999, the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) transferred trading in the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index futures contracts from outcry to LIFFE CONNECT, its electronic trading system. We find lower spreads in the electronic market after the transition. However, the open outcry mechanism has higher market quality (or smaller variance of the pricing error) on the basis of Hasbrouck's (1993) model. Furthermore, employing the Hasbrouck (1991) model, we show that trades in the open outcry market have higher information content. Inventory control considerations also affect the electronic market more than the open outcry market. The overall results suggest that electronic trading should complement, but not replace, open outcry in futures markets. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21: 713–735, 2001     

Price discovery and volatility spillovers in the DJIA index and futures markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is the most widely quoted stock index worldwide. This article examines the minute-by-minute price discovery process and volatility spillovers between the DJIA index and the index futures recently launched by the CBOT. The Hasbrouck (1995) cointegrating model suggests that most of the price discovery takes place at the futures market. However, by examining the volatility spillovers between the markets based on a bivariate EGARCH model, a significant bidirectional information flow is found. That is, innovations in one market can predict the future volatility in another market, but the futures market volatility-spillovers to the stock market more than vice versa. Both markets also exhibit asymmetric volatility effects, with bad news having a greater impact on volatility than good news. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 911–930, 1999     

A further investigation of the lead–lag relationship between the spot market and stock index futures: Early evidence from Korea

In this article, we investigate possible lead and lag relationship in returns and volatilities between cash and futures markets in Korea. Utilizing intraday data from the newly established futures market in Korea, we find that the futures market leads the cash market by as long as 30 minutes. This result is consistent with previous studies for the U.S. and other countries’ futures markets. With regard to volatility interaction between spot and futures markets, we find that, unlike the above results for returns, a bidirectional causality is more prevalent between cash and futures markets, and this relationship is entirely sample dependent. We also find that the trading volume has significant explanatory power for volatility changes in both spot and futures markets. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 217–232, 1999     

The information flow and market efficiency between the U.S. and Chinese aluminum and copper futures markets

This study examines the information flow and market efficiency between the metallurgical futures markets of the United States and China over a ten‐year span from 1999 to 2009. There were structural breaks in the aluminum and copper futures price series for the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) between 2006 and 2008. The New York and Shanghai markets are cointegrated, indicating an equilibrium relationship between the two markets. Trading strategies are implemented to explore the error‐correction process. The overall results show that U.S. and Shanghai futures prices are closely related and both markets are comparably efficient on a daily basis. The U.S. market does not appear to be more efficient than the Chinese market in incorporating information into prices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark     

Is it time to reduce the minimum tick sizes of the E‐mini futures?

On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), so‐called “E‐mini” index futures contracts trade on the electronic GLOBEX trading system alongside the corresponding full‐size contracts that trade on the open outcry floor. This paper finds that the current minimum tick sizes of the E‐mini S&P 500 and E‐mini Nasdaq‐100 futures contracts act as binding constraints on the bid‐ask spreads by not allowing the spreads to decline to competitive levels. We also find that, while exchange locals trade very actively on GLOBEX, they do not tend to act as liquidity suppliers. Taken together, our empirical results suggest that it is time for the CME to consider decreasing the minimum tick sizes of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq‐100 E‐mini futures contracts. A tick size reduction is likely to result in lower trading costs in the E‐mini futures markets. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:79–104, 2005     

A Study of Arbitrage Efficiency Between the FTSE‐100 Index Futures and Options Contracts

Despite the importance of the London markets and the significance of the relationship for market makers, little published research is available on arbitrage between the FTSE‐100 Index futures and the FTSE‐100 European index options contracts. This study uses the put–call–futures parity condition to throw light on the relationship between options and futures written against the FTSE Index. The arbitrage methodology adopted in this study avoids many of the problems that have affected prior research on the relationship between options or futures prices and the underlying index. The problems that arise from nonsynchroneity between options and futures prices are reduced by the matching of options and futures prices within narrow time intervals with time‐stamped transaction data. This study allows for realistic trading and market‐impact costs. The feasibility of strategies such as execute‐and‐hold and early unwinding is examined with both ex‐post and ex‐ante simulation tests that take into consideration possible execution time lags for the arbitrage trade. This study reveals that the occurrence of matched put–call–futures trios exhibits a U‐shaped intraday pattern with a concentration at both open and close, although the magnitude of observed mispricings has no discernible intraday pattern. Ex‐post arbitrage profits for traders facing transaction costs are concentrated in at‐the‐money options. As in other major markets, despite important microstructure differences, opportunities are generally rapidly extinguished in less than 3 min. The results suggest that arbitrage opportunities for traders facing transaction costs are small in number and confirm the efficiency of trading on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:31–58, 2002     

Real-time price discovery in global stock,bond and foreign exchange markets

Using a unique high-frequency futures dataset, we characterize the response of U.S., German and British stock, bond and foreign exchange markets to real-time U.S. macroeconomic news. We find that news produces conditional mean jumps; hence high-frequency stock, bond and exchange rate dynamics are linked to fundamentals. Equity markets, moreover, react differently to news depending on the stage of the business cycle, which explains the low correlation between stock and bond returns when averaged over the cycle. Hence our results qualify earlier work suggesting that bond markets react most strongly to macroeconomic news; in particular, when conditioning on the state of the economy, the equity and foreign exchange markets appear equally responsive. Finally, we also document important contemporaneous links across all markets and countries, even after controlling for the effects of macroeconomic news.     

Real-time price discovery in global stock, bond and foreign exchange markets

Using a unique high-frequency futures dataset, we characterize the response of U.S., German and British stock, bond and foreign exchange markets to real-time U.S. macroeconomic news. We find that news produces conditional mean jumps; hence high-frequency stock, bond and exchange rate dynamics are linked to fundamentals. Equity markets, moreover, react differently to news depending on the stage of the business cycle, which explains the low correlation between stock and bond returns when averaged over the cycle. Hence our results qualify earlier work suggesting that bond markets react most strongly to macroeconomic news; in particular, when conditioning on the state of the economy, the equity and foreign exchange markets appear equally responsive. Finally, we also document important contemporaneous links across all markets and countries, even after controlling for the effects of macroeconomic news.     

Mid-day volatility spikes in U.S. futures markets

Recent work offers mixed results regarding the nature of intraday volatility patterns in futures markets and, specifically, the existence of spikes in futures return volatility during the middle of the U.S. trading day (Crain & Lee, 1995; Kawaller, Koch, & Peterson, 1994). This note analyzes time and sales data on two markets—Eurodollar futures and deutsche mark futures—to investigate the existence of such spikes, and to examine the nature of changes in intraday volatility patterns over time. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19: 195–216, 1999     

Liquidity constraints and the hedging role of futures spreads

This paper examines the behavior of the competitive firm under price uncertainty in general and the hedging role of futures spreads in particular. The firm has access to a commodity futures market where unbiased nearby and distant futures contracts are transacted. A liquidity constraint is imposed on the firm such that the firm is forced to prematurely close its distant futures position whenever the net interim loss due to its nearby and distant futures positions exceeds a threshold level. This paper shows that the liquidity constrained firm optimally opts for a long nearby futures position and a short distant futures position should the firm be prudent, thereby rendering the optimality of using futures spreads for hedging purposes. This paper further shows that the firm's production decision is adversely affected by the presence of the liquidity constraint. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:909–921, 2004     

Information revelation in the futures market: Evidence from single stock futures

This paper analyzes 31 months of data on 137 single‐stock futures (SSFs) traded on OneChicago. The results indicate that on the days they trade, SSFs contribute approximately 24% of the price discovery for underlying stocks. Information revelation in the SSFs market decreases with the ratio of spreads in the futures and the stock markets and the volatility in the stock market. Moreover, the quality of the market for the underlying stocks improves substantially after the introduction of the SSFs market, with the largest improvement occurring on days with SSFs trading. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 28:335– 353, 2008     

The impact of a pro‐rata algorithm on liquidity: Evidence from the NYSE LIFFE

This study investigates the impact of introducing a pure pro‐rata algorithm on the liquidity of the market for Euribor futures contracts on NYSE LIFFE. Results indicate that the Euribor market experiences deterioration in liquidity: (1) both best and total depth fall and (2) quoted spreads widen after the structural change. Results also reveal that the Euribor market becomes more active after the event; both trading volume and trade frequency increase substantially after the event. Finally, after the transition, liquidity demanders are more likely to submit smaller market orders. The reduction in depth and increase in quoted spreads suggest that liquidity demanders incur higher trade execution costs after the transition. In contrast, the transition is beneficial for the exchange since trading volume is higher under the new regime. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 32:660–682, 2012     

Information Role of U.S. Futures Trading in a Global Financial Market

Using a bivariate, asymmetric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model, we examine the patterns of information flows for three financial futures contracts that are dual‐listed on U.S. and Asian markets (i.e., Nikkei 225 Index, Eurodollar, and dollar–yen currency futures). The results indicate that the U.S. market plays a leading role in terms of pricing‐information transmission across markets. In terms of volatility spillover across markets, however, foreign markets seem to play a similar role (e.g., Nikkei Index futures) or even a more significant role than the United States (e.g., Eurodollar futures in Singapore and dollar–yen currency futures in Japan). © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 21:1071–1090, 2001     

Evidence of arbitrage trading activity: The case of Chinese metal futures contracts

Several unique insights are documented based on a study of selected metal futures contracts traded in the U.S. and China. Based on our unique measures, we present intra market evidence that the U.S. gold and silver futures markets reflect a fully arbitraged market and U.S. copper nearly so. In contrast, the Chinese gold and silver futures markets appear to reflect an un-arbitraged market whereas the Chinese copper market is characterized as somewhat arbitraged. We explore various reasons for this evidence as well as document the differences in gold, silver, and copper futures markets between China and the U.S.     

Decimalization,trading costs,and information transmission between ETFs and index futures

The impact of changes in trading costs, due to decimalization, on informed trading and speed of information transmission between exchange‐traded funds (ETFs) and their corresponding index futures is examined. ETFs began to trade in decimals on January 29, 2001, and index futures continued to trade in their original tick sizes. The focus is on whether the decrease in the minimum tick size of ETFs influences the relative performances of these two types of index instruments in the price‐discovery process. It is found that for ETFs, the trading activity increases, but the market depth drops significantly after decimalization. The spreads for ETFs generally decrease, but the adverse selection component of ETF spreads increases. Furthermore, after decimalization, ETFs start to lead index futures in the price‐discovery process and its share of information also increases. Although index futures still assume a dominant role in information discovery, the information content of the ETFs' prices improves significantly after decimalization. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:131–151, 2006     

The behavior and performance of major types of futures traders

This article examines the behavior and performance of speculators and hedgers in 15 U.S. futures markets. We find that after controlling for market risk factors, speculators are contrarians, but respond positively to market sentiment. In contrast, hedgers engage in positive feedback trading and trade against market sentiment. We also find that trades of speculators (hedgers) are positively (negatively) correlated with subsequent abnormal returns; however, it does not appear that speculators possess superior forecasting power. Therefore, hedging pressure effects likely explain the negative relation between the performance of speculators and hedgers. The positive feedback trading by hedgers together with their negative performance suggests that hedgers have a destabilizing impact on futures prices. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:1–31, 2003