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.     

Does Trading Volume Contain Information to Predict Stock Returns? Evidence from China's Stock Markets

This paper examines empirical contemporaneous and causal relationships between trading volume, stock returns and return volatility in China's four stock exchanges and across these markets. We find that trading volume does not Granger-cause stock market returns on each of the markets. As for the cross-market causal relationship in China's stock markets, there is evidence of a feedback relationship in returns between Shanghai A and Shenzhen B stocks, and between Shanghai B and Shenzhen B stocks. Shanghai B return helps predict the return of Shenzhen A stocks. Shanghai A volume Granger-causes return of Shenzhen B. Shenzhen B volume helps predict the return of Shanghai B stocks. This paper also investigates the causal relationship among these three variables between China's stock markets and the US stock market and between China and Hong Kong. We find that US return helps predict returns of Shanghai A and Shanghai B stocks. US and Hong Kong volumes do not Granger-cause either return or volatility in China's stock markets. In short, information contained in returns, volatility, and volume from financial markets in the US and Hong Kong has very weak predictive power for Chinese financial market variables.     

Institutional trading and stock returns

In this study, we explore the dynamics of the relation between institutional trading and stock returns. We find that stock returns Granger-cause institutional trading (especially purchases) on a quarterly basis. The robust and significant causality from equity returns to institutional trading can be largely explained by the time-series variation of market returns, that is, institutions buy more popular stocks after market rises. Stock returns appear to be negatively related to lagged institutional trading. A further analysis of the behavior of trading and the returns of the traded stocks reveals evidence that stocks with heavy institutional buying (selling) experience positive (negative) excess returns over the previous 12 months.     

Stock returns and trading at the close

This paper analyzes stock returns at the close across the stocks of the Russell 1000 using (a) Transaction-level data for the period June 1997–July 1998, and (b) The complete record of all market-on-close (MOC) order imbalance indications. The last 5 min of the trading day explains a disproportionate fraction of the variation in daily returns, consistent with the hypothesis that institutional trading interest induces a common component to stock returns at the end of the day. This phenomenon reflects a higher demand for immediacy in the closing period. We find systematic return reversals following order imbalance publications consistent with temporary price pressure related to liquidity trading.     

Option trading after the opening bell and intraday stock return predictability

Prior literature finds that information is reflected in option markets before stock markets, but no study has explored whether option volume soon after market open has predictive power for intraday stock returns. Using novel intraday signed option-to-stock volume data, we find that a composite option trading score (OTS) in the first 30 min of market open predicts stock returns during the rest of the trading day. Such return predictability is greater for smaller stocks, stocks with higher idiosyncratic volatility, and stocks with higher bid–ask spreads relative to their options’ bid–ask spreads. Moreover, OTS is a significantly stronger predictor of intraday stock returns after overnight earnings announcements. The evidence suggests that option trading in the 30 min after the opening bell has predictive power for intraday stock returns.     

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between net individual investor trading and short‐horizon returns for a large cross‐section of NYSE stocks. The evidence indicates that individuals tend to buy stocks following declines in the previous month and sell following price increases. We document positive excess returns in the month following intense buying by individuals and negative excess returns after individuals sell, which we show is distinct from the previously shown past return or volume effects. The patterns we document are consistent with the notion that risk‐averse individuals provide liquidity to meet institutional demand for immediacy.     

The Timing of Opening Trades and Pricing Errors

After demonstrating that a zero investment trading strategy that buys stocks with overnight returns below the market average and sells stocks with overnight returns above the market average earns more than 1% monthly profit, I demonstrate that this profit is greater for stocks that start trading more quickly than for other stocks. These results control for trading costs. The resulting pricing errors are a material portion of stock price volatility and suggest that a quick response to overnight information adds non‐information‐based stock volatility to stock prices.     

THE EFFECT OF TRADING IN EIGHTHS ON SECURITY RETURN BEHAVIOR

Currently the equity securities of most British, Canadian and US firms trade in eighths. However, this pricing system may soon be abandoned in the US. Specifically, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently studying the feasibility of changing the pricing of US securities to dollars and cents from dollars and eighths. 'SEC officials contend that moving to a system that quotes stock prices in dollars and cents would create efficiency in the stock market that eighths and sometimes sixteenths can't permit' (Torres and Salwen, 1991). This paper demonstrates the inefficiencies that result from constraining stocks to trade in eighths of a dollar. It describes the effects on returns and betas; then, it presents empirical evidence consistent with the effects. Systematic differences in the distributions of returns of low and high-priced stocks are documented. The covariance of returns with a market index is shown to vary systematically across stocks of different prices and to depend on the return interval used to estimate market model parameters. The variations are explainable by an observed lag between the returns of low-priced stocks relative to those of high-priced stocks. The lag is partially attributable to trading in eighths. A systematic relationship that varies with share price is observed between market model residual returns and unadjusted returns. This relationship is not eliminated by using longer return intervals alone. The extent of the relationship is reduced when longer return intervals are combined with the use of a market index composed of stocks that are priced similarly to those of the securities being tested. The implications of these results for capital market studies are discussed.     

High Stock Returns before Holidays: Existence and Evidence on Possible Causes

On the trading day prior to holidays, stocks advance with disproportionate frequency and show high mean returns averaging nine to fourteen times the mean return for the remaining days of the year. Over one third of the total return accruing to the market portfolio over the 1963–1982 period was earned on the eight trading days which each year fall before holiday market closings. Examination of hourly pre-holiday stock returns reveals high returns throughout the day. Pre-holiday stock returns in the post-test 1983–1986 period are also examined.     

Index Futures Trading and Stock Return Volatility: Evidence from the Introduction of Mid Cap 400 Index Futures

The MidCap 400 stock index is used to provide new evidence on the relation between stock index futures trading and stock return volatility. The study documents a significant decrease in return volatility and systematic risk, and a significant increase in trading volume for the MidCap 400 stocks after the introduction of the MidCap index. A control sample of medium-capitalization stocks, however, exhibits similar contemporaneous changes in these measures. The MidCap stocks and the control stocks also experience a significant decrease in volatility and an increase in volume after the introduction of MidCap 400 index futures. Thus, the study finds no difference in the behavior of the MidCap 400 stocks and the control stocks and no evidence of a relation between index futures trading and volatility in the stock market.     

Stock splits to profit insider trading: Lessons from an emerging market

Stock splits have long presented financial puzzles: Why are they undertaken? Why are they associated with abnormal returns? Abnormal returns, particularly those coming shortly before a split’s announcement date, should raise strong suspicions of insider trading, particularly in nations with weak regulatory structures. We examined the 718 split events in the emerging stock market of Vietnam from 2007 through 2011. We found evidence consistent with illegal insider trading, particularly in firms that were vulnerable to insider manipulation and, therefore, more likely to split their stocks. When vulnerable firms’ stocks did split, they provided significant excess short-term returns. Tellingly, the abnormal returns on those stocks prior to the split announcements were also extremely high, indeed higher than their abnormal post-announcement returns. Moreover, trading volume increased prior to the split announcement date. This suspicious pattern is what we would expect if insiders were trading on their knowledge. We propose that illegal insider trading in contexts where it is possible to escape serious penalty provides a previously undiscussed and cogent explanation for both stock splits and abnormal short-term returns.     

Individual Investors and Volatility

We show that retail trading activity has a positive effect on the volatility of stock returns, which suggests that retail investors behave as noise traders. To identify this effect, we use a reform of the French stock market that raises the relative cost of speculative trading for retail investors. The daily return volatility of the stocks affected by the reform falls by 20 basis points (a quarter of the sample standard deviation of the return volatility) relative to other stocks. For affected stocks, we also find a significant decrease in the magnitude of return reversals and the price impact of trades.     

Profitability of the CRISMA System: From World Indices to the Hong Kong Stock Market

Many studies show that the use of technical analysis can generate excess returns. We test the “CRISMA” technical trading rule introduced by [Pruitt and White J. Portfolio Managt. Spring, 1988, 55–58] on global equity indices and common stocks in Hong Kong. Out study shows that no excess returns could be found in indices except those in Asia. This validates the claims that the Asian stock markets are not as efficient as other stock markets and hence can be exploited by technical analysis. How does CRISMA perform on common stocks in Hong Kong? Generally speaking, CRISMA does not fair better than the buy and hold strategy. Further analysis reveals excess returns for stocks with very large turnover. This is consistent with other recent research on CRISMA conducted on US and UK stock markets. We also amend part of the original CRISMA rules to yield better performance: shrinking the moving average window sizes can increase both the number of trade signals and the excess returns. Therefore CRISMA can be made to work with some judicious choice of parameters, depending on the turnover.     

Multimarket Trading and Liquidity: Theory and Evidence

We develop a new model of multimarket trading to explain the differences in the foreign share of trading volume of internationally cross‐listed stocks. The model predicts that the trading volume of a cross‐listed stock is proportionally higher on the exchange in which the cross‐listed asset returns have greater correlation with returns of other assets traded on that market. We find robust empirical support for this prediction using stock return and volume data on 251 non‐U.S. stocks cross‐listed on major U.S. exchanges.     

Microstructure and reverse stock splits

In this paper we show that, similar to NYSE/AMEX stocks, NASDAQ stocks exhibit significant ex date returns for reverse stock splits. Although the 10-day cumulative return after the ex date is close to –10%, this does not violate market efficiency, because the average bid-ask spread for the reverse split stock is at least double this return. We also document that these large negative returns are mostly due to a drop in the ask price while bid prices barely change at all. Furthermore, the ex date returns are negatively related to trading volume.These results suggest that there is abnormal selling and a significant buildup of market makers' inventories near the ex date. To reduce the inventory buildup, market makers lower ask prices to induce buying by investors, resulting in the observed negative returns. Lowering bid prices, an alternative strategy for reducing inventories, is not attractive to market makers due to competitive factors and the reduction of commissions associated with a smaller number of transactions. Notably, selling investors have no incentives to sell their stocks early to avoid the observed negative ex date return, since this return is largely an ask price phenomenon and does not represent realized returns to sellers.     

动量交易策略及我国股票市场实证分析

动量交易策略指的是事先针对股票收益及交易量设定过滤规则,一旦股票收益或者股票收益和交易量同时满足过滤规则就买入或卖出股票的交易策略。动量交易策略的理论基础是行为金融学。国外投资者已经成功地在实践中应用了该策略。我国股票市场是否存在动量效应,还未形成统一的结论。在总结国内外学者研究方法的基础上,利用目前可用的数据,对我国股票市场在中期条件下动量交易策略的适用性进行了实证研究。但得出的结论并不支持存在动量效应。     

Communication and Comovement: Evidence from Online Stock Forums

We study investor communication and stock comovement using a novel data set from an active online stock forum in China. We find substantial comovement among the returns of a stock and its “related stocks,” which are frequently discussed in the subforum dedicated to the given stock. Comovement is greater when the discussion of related stocks is more intensive. Further, the effect of communication on comovement is stronger for stocks associated with higher information uncertainty. Codiscussed stocks are more actively traded and experience more correlated trading. A trading strategy that exploits communication‐driven comovement generates abnormal returns. Our findings highlight the impact of investor communication on asset comovement.     

On the Stability of the Cross‐Section of Expected Stock Returns in the Cross‐Section: Understanding the Curious Role of Share Turnover

In this paper, we shed further light on cross‐sectional predictors of stock return performance. Specifically, we explore whether the cross‐section of expected stock returns is robust within stock groups sorted by past monthly return. We find that the book/market and momentum effects are remarkably robust to sorting on past returns. However, share turnover is negatively related to future returns for stocks with abnormally low stock price performance in the recent past, but postively related to returns for well‐performing stocks. This casts doubt on the use of turnover as a liquidity proxy, but is consistent with turnover being a proxy for momentum trading which pushes prices in the direction of past price movements. Our results are robust to both NYSE/AMEX and Nasdaq stocks, and also robust to stratifying the sample by time period.     

A Dividend Payment Effect in Stock Returns

This paper presents evidence for the period 7/62-12/89 that individual NYSE and AMEX stocks provide relatively high average excess returns on the payment dates of quarterly cash dividends and several subsequent trading days. Additional results indicate that returns during the payment period: (a) are not a manifestation of the January, monthly or dividend yield anomalies; (b) are positively related to the stock's dividend yield; and (c) are higher for firms that have dividend reinvestment plans. These findings are consistent with a tendency by stock-holders to reinvest dividend income into the stock of the paying firm, thereby increasing demand for the stock and raising its price. Additional evidence links the returns on these days with (previously-documented) excess returns around the ex-dividend date.     

Average correlation and stock market returns

If the Roll critique is important, changes in the variance of the stock market may be only weakly related to changes in aggregate risk and subsequent stock market excess returns. However, since individual stock returns share a common sensitivity to true market return shocks, higher aggregate risk can be revealed by higher correlation between stocks. In addition, a change in stock market variance that leaves aggregate risk unchanged can have a zero or even negative effect on the stock market risk premium. We show that the average correlation between daily stock returns predicts subsequent quarterly stock market excess returns. We also show that changes in stock market risk holding average correlation constant can be interpreted as changes in the average variance of individual stocks. Such changes have a negative relation with future stock market excess returns.