Market Integration and Price Execution for NYSE-Listed Securities

For New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed securities, the price execution of seemingly comparable orders differs systematically by location. In general, executions at the Cincinnati, Midwest, and New York stock exchanges are most favorable to trade initiators, while executions at the National Association of Security Dealers (NASD) are least favorable. These intermarket price differences depend on trade size, with the smallest trades exhibiting the biggest per share price difference. Collectively, these results raise questions about the adequacy of the existing intermarket quote system (ITS), the broker's fiduciary responsibility for “best execution,” and the propriety of order flow inducements.     

Volume,Volatility, and New York Stock Exchange Trading Halts

Trading halts increase, rather than reduce, both volume and volatility. Volume (volatility) in the first full trading day after a trading halt is 230 percent (50 to 115 percent) higher than following “pseudohalts”: nonhalt control periods matched on time of day, duration, and absolute net-of-market returns. These results are robust over different halt types and news categories. Higher posthalt volume is observed into the third day while higher posthalt volatility decays within hours. The extent of media coverage is a partial determinant of volume and volatility following both halts and pseudohalts, but a separate halt effect remains after controlling for the media effect.     

Customer Profitability Analysis Reports for Resource Allocation: The Role of Complex Marketing Environments

Most decision making research in management accounting remains focused on cost information in a production context. Little is known on the relevance of customer profifitability analysis (CuPA) reports, which more accurately reflect revenue and marketing support variations acrosscustomers, for marketing decisions. This study uses an experimental design to examine the impact of such reports on resource allocation decisions (that affect the firm's profits) in marketing environments varying in complexity. The main result of the experiment suggests that the value of CuPA reports depends on the complexity of the marketing setting. Only in a highly complex marketing setting do they enhance resource allocation decisions and resultant firm profitability. Conversely, in the simple marketing environment, decision makers can combine their traditional volume-based cost data with other available types of feedback to perform as well as under a more accurate CuPA report. These findings on complexity contrast with those of a prior study in a production context ( Gupta and King, 1997 ). It is argued that improvements in the current research design, in the form of regularly updated profitability reports and concerning accuracy, increase the relevance of CuPA reports in a complex marketing setting.     

Earnings Announcements and the Components of the Bid-Ask Spread

This study investigates the behavior of the components of the bid-ask spread around earnings announcements. We find that the adverse selection cost component significantly increases surrounding the announcements, while the inventory holding and order processing components significantly decline during the same periods. Our results suggest that the directional change in the total bid-ask spread depends on the relative magnitudes of the changes in these three components. Specifically, the decreases in inventory holding costs and order processing costs imply that earnings announcements may have an insignificant impact on the total bid-ask spread, even when they result in increased information asymmetry.     

Do Firms Knowingly Sell Overvalued Equity?

This article examines the relation between top executives' trading and the long-run stock returns of seasoned equity issuing firms. Primary issuers, who sell mostly newly-issued primary shares, significantly underperform their benchmarks, regardless of the top executives' prior trading pattern. However, top executives' trading is reliably associated with the stock returns of secondary issuers, who sell mostly secondary shares previously held by existing shareholders. On average, secondary issuers do not underperform their benchmarks. The results suggest that increased free cash flow problems after issue play an important role in explaining the underperformance of issuing firms.     

Causal Relations Among Stock Returns,Interest Rates,Real Activity,and Inflation

Using a multivariate vector-autoregression (VAR) approach, this paper investigates causal relations and dynamic interactions among asset returns, real activity, and inflation in the postwar United States. Major findings are (1) stock returns appear Granger-causally prior and help explain real activity, (2) with interest rates in the VAR, stock returns explain little variation in inflation, although interest rates explain a substantial fraction of the variation in inflation, and (3) inflation explains little variation in real activity. These findings seem more compatible with Fama (1981) than with Geske and Roll (1983) or with Ram and Spencer (1983) .     

Managers' Trading Around Stock Repurchases

We analyze personal open market trades by managers around stock repurchases by tender offer. With the exception of Dutch auction offers, managers trade their firm's shares prior to repurchase announcements as though repurchases convey favorable inside information to outsiders. Prior to fixed price repurchase offers that do not follow takeover-related events, managers increase their buying and reduce their selling of their firm's shares. Prior to repurchases that follow takeover-related events, only a decrease in selling is found. No abnormal trading precedes Dutch auction repurchase offers.