Dual Trading in Futures Markets

With dual trading, brokers trade both for their customers and for their own account. We study dual trading and find that customers who are less likely to be informed have higher expected profits with dual trading while customers who are more likely to be informed have higher expected profits without dual trading. We also examine the effects of frontrunning. We test the major empirical implications of our model. Consistent with the model, dual traders earn higher profits than non-dual traders, and customers of dual-trading brokers do better than customers of non-dual-trading brokers.     

Holiday Trading in Futures Markets

In this paper, we find significantly higher preholiday returns in futures contracts compared to nonholiday returns. The findings are consistent with the inventory adjustment hypothesis, since higher preholiday returns associated with lower trading volume are most pronounced for exchange-closed holidays. There is evidence of positive postholiday returns associated with higher trading volume for exchange-open holidays. This is consistent with positive holiday sentiments. The holiday effect is uniquely independent: The magnitude of excess holiday returns is the largest among all seasonal variations.     

期货市场的交易量与价格波动

本文检验了美国期货市场WTI原油、S＆P500指数和10年期国债品种的日内、日间价格波动与日内交易量、隔日交易量之间的关系,发现预期的日内和隔日交易量都有平抑期货市场价格波动的作用,非预期的隔日交易量与期货价格波动之间有正相关关系,非预期的目内交易量对价格波动的影响不显著。从信息对称性的角度分析,预期的交易量中含有更多信息,能抑制期货价格的偏离;非预期的交易量主要由信息反馈者提供,他们往往对期货价格的变动做出过度反应,从而加剧价格波动。     

Investor Trading Behavior and Sentiment in Futures Markets

This study investigates the effects of investor trading behavior and investor sentiment on futures market return. We find that the spot investor trading behavior, futures investor trading behavior, spot market sentiment, and futures market sentiment all have positive effects on daily futures returns in Chinese financial market. More importantly, we show that the effect of (spot) futures investor trading behavior has better explanatory power than (spot) futures market sentiment on futures returns. Further supporting our results, high investor trading behavior and high investor sentiment strengthen the positive relation between sentiment-returns and behavior-returns.     

Informed Futures Trading and Price Discovery: Evidence from Taiwan Futures and Stock Markets

This article focuses on the information effects between the futures market and its spot market. Intraday data are used to investigate the lead-lag relationships between the returns and trading activity of Taiwan stock index futures and the spot returns. We focus on the transmission direction and the sources of information. Consistent with most previous studies, our results show that other than the contemporaneous relationship predicted by carry-cost theory and efficient market theory, futures returns significantly lead spot returns, which implies that informed trades may occur in the futures market. Using private transaction information, net open buy, as a proxy for futures trading activity and distinguishing different types of futures traders, we find that foreign institutional traders are the major source of informed trades because their trading has predictive power for future movements in both spot and futures prices. Traders in other categories are information laggards.     

中国股市股票交易信息与股票横截面收益研究

本文基于沪深股市1993-2008年剔除了金融类股的所有A股数据,研究了股票动量因素、反转因素和换手率等股票交易信息对股票收益横截面的影响。研究结果表明,股票的一年期的动量因素对股票的横截面收益的影响不显著,股票的三个月的短期反转因素对股票的横截面收益有显著影响,股票的三个月的累计收益越低,其在接下来一期获得的收益就可能越高。股票的换手率对股票的横截面收益的影响也显著,股票的上一期的换手率越高,在接下来的一期获得的收益就可能越低。     

Investor Sentiment,Trading Behavior and Informational Efficiency in Index Futures Markets

This paper shows that traders in index futures markets are positive feedback traders—they buy when prices increase and sell when prices decline. Positive feedback trading appears to be more active in periods of high investor sentiment. This finding is consistent with the notion that feedback trading is driven by expectations of noise traders. Consistent with the noise trading hypothesis, order flow in index futures markets is less informative when investors are optimistic. Transitory volatility measured at high frequencies also appears to decline in periods of bullish sentiment, suggesting that sentiment‐driven trading increases market liquidity.     

证券期货市场自动化交易的风险与监管研究

证券期货市场上,自动化交易的报单模式具有机械性、同质化和瞬间巨量的特点,成交需求也是快速变化的,为此本文归纳了自动化交易可能会存在"克隆人进攻"、系统负载大、风险蔓延快、波及范围广等潜在风险,借鉴国际上处理典型风险案例的经验,总结了美国分块并圈定重点式、欧洲分层式、澳大利亚智能分析式及新加坡激励相容式等多个国家的自动化交易监管制度,结合国内"堵"大于"疏"、信息传递不通畅、监控流量指标体系不完备等自动化交易监管方面的不足,提出要接口技术标准化、数据共享与时钟同步、组建跨行业(专业)的技术专家团队等事前监管,优化交易管理规则、加强交易所系统建设、构建应急处理机制、完善交易日志备份等交易所层面的事中监管,以及规范机构投资者使用自动交易软件的自律性等维护清算服务市场的秩序等全流程、分层次、多角度的监管建议。     

Liquidity Provision of Limit Order Trading in the Futures Market Under Bull and Bear Markets

Abstract:  This study investigates how limit orders affect liquidity in a purely order-driven futures market. Additionally, the possible asymmetric relationship between market depth and transitory volatility in bull and bear markets and the effect of institutional trading on liquidity provision behavior are examined as well. The empirical results demonstrate that subsequent market depth increases as transient volatility increases in bull markets. Market depth exhibits significantly positive relationship to subsequent transient volatility in bull markets. Additionally, although trading volume positively influences transient volatility in bull markets, no such relationship exists in bear markets. Liquidity provision decreases when institutional trading activity intensifies during bear markets. Thus, liquidity provision for limit orders differs between bull and bear markets.     

Correlated Trading and Returns

A German broker's clients place similar speculative trades and therefore tend to be on the same side of the market in a given stock during a given day, week, month, and quarter. Aggregate liquidity effects, short sale constraints, the systematic execution of limit orders (coordinated through price movements) or the correlated trading of other investors who pick off retail limit orders do not fully explain why retail investors trade similarly. Correlated market orders lead returns, presumably due to persistent speculative price pressure. Correlated limit orders also predict subsequent returns, consistent with executed limit orders being compensated for accommodating liquidity demands.     

Intraday Returns and the Frequency of Trading at the Ask on the Sydney Futures Exchange: A Research Note

This article documents and provides explanations for intraday patterns in returns for the Share Price Index (SPI) futures contract traded on the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE). Consistent with overseas futures markets research, a positive and significant overnight return is documented. Unlike overseas futures markets, we find little evidence of an end of day price rise. Our evidence suggests that overnight returns for the SPI contract are largely driven by the way returns are typically measured, which ignores the fact that there is a significantly greater frequency of sellers at the market close and buyers at the start of the day. These patterns are consistent with hedging behaviour by futures traders with long positions in the underlying stock.     

Fractional Integration in Commodity Futures Returns

We reexamine commodity futures returns for evidence of fractional integration utilizing two estimators based on wavelets. We summarize basic wavelet methods for signal processing and decompose commodity futures returns by wavelet scale. We find the evidence for long memory is not conclusive based on visual inspection of the wavelet decomposition, but formal statistical tests suggest evidence of long memory, in the form of antipersistence, in about half of agricultural commodity futures. We find little evidence of long memory in metal futures. Our results are useful in interpreting previous disparate findings based on frequency domain estimators.     

A Theory of Noise Trading in Securities Markets

In a recent article, Black 1 introduces a type of trading that he terms noise trading. He asserts that noise trading, which he defines as trading on noise as if it were information, must be a significant factor in securities markets. However, he does not provide an explanation of why any investors would rationally want to engage in noise trading. The goal of this paper is to provide such an explanation for one type of investor, managers of investment funds. As shown here, the incentive for a manager to engage in noise trading arises because of the positive signal that the level of the manager's trading provides about his or her ability to collect private information concerning current and potential investments. If the manager's compensation is directly related to investors' perceptions of his or her ability, the manager will then trade more frequently than is justified on the basis of his or her private information. In addition to providing this explanation for noise trading, the results of this analysis may also be useful for further empirical exploration of the relation between investment fund portfolio turnover and subsequent performance.     

Financial Markets Trends and Studies of Singapore Futures Markets

In this paper we explore some recent trends in the financial market and also report some studies of the Singapore futures markets. A characterization of trends shows that national securities markets are much closer than before. This means the linkages between securities and their derivatives and amongst themselves have be come much stronger. Secondly, the advent of sophisticated risk products and instruments and the knowledge to use them effectively would become a common theme together with the idea of value enhancements. Thirdly, computerizations and the internet will play an increasingly important role. So will empirical financial research become increasingly microscopic. The discussion will be supported by the experiences of the Singapore futures markets and various empirical research evidences. The paper also provides a detailed study of causality-in-variance test of information transmission between SIMEX and Osaka Stock Exchange on the Nikkei 225 stock index futures trading prior to, during, and immediately after the announcement of the collapse of Barings. The results are indicative of very strong international market linkages and a portent of things to come.     

Trading Volume and Cross-Autocorrelations in Stock Returns

This paper finds that trading volume is a significant determinant of the lead-lag patterns observed in stock returns. Daily and weekly returns on high volume portfolios lead returns on low volume portfolios, controlling for firm size. Nonsynchronous trading or low volume portfolio autocorrelations cannot explain these findings. These patterns arise because returns on low volume portfolios respond more slowly to information in market returns. The speed of adjustment of individual stocks confirms these findings. Overall, the results indicate that differential speed of adjustment to information is a significant source of the cross-autocorrelation patterns in short-horizon 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.     

Noise Trading in Small Markets

Considering noise traders as agents with unpredictable beliefs, we show that in an imperfectly competitive market with risk averse investors, noise traders may earn higher expected utility than rational investors. This happens when, by deviating from the Nash equilibrium strategy, noise traders hurt rational investors more than themselves. It follows that the willingness of arbitrageurs to exploit noise traders' misperceptions is lower relative to a perfectly competitive economy. This result reinforces the theory that noise trading may explain closed-end fund discounts and small firms' returns, since these markets are less competitive than the market for large firms' stock.     

Relationship Trading in Over-the-Counter Markets

We examine the network of trading relationships between insurers and dealers in the over-the-counter (OTC) corporate bond market. Regulatory data show that one-third of insurers use a single dealer, whereas other insurers have large dealer networks. Execution prices are nonmonotone in network size, initially declining with more dealers but increasing once networks exceed 20 dealers. A model of decentralized trade in which insurers trade off the benefits of repeat business and faster execution quantitatively fits the distribution of insurers' network size and explains the price–network size relationship. Counterfactual analysis shows that regulations to unbundle trade and nontrade services can decrease welfare.     

Trading Mechanisms in Securities Markets

This paper analyzes price formation under two trading mechanisms: a continuous quote-driven system where dealers post prices before order submission and an order-driven system where traders submit orders before prices are determined. The order-driven system operates either as a continuous auction, with immediate order execution, or as a periodic auction, where orders are stored for simultaneous execution. With free entry into market making, the continuous systems are equivalent. While a periodic auction offers greater price efficiency and can function where continuous mechanisms fail, traders must sacrifice continuity and bear higher information costs.