The Stock Price-Volume Linkage on the Toronto Stock Exchange: Before and After Automation

This paper investigates the information content of trading volume on the Toronto Stock Exchange before and after the move towards fully electronic trading. It is argued that if price discovery improves under electronic trading, the predictive power of volume should be less significant. The empirical analysis supports more accurate price discovery under electronic trading. Results from both the structural and vector autoregression models indicate that the predictive power of volume for price variability disappears after full automation.     

公允价值、技术与制度改革及会计国际化

文章针对公允价值在我国具体会计准则中运用的变化 ,分析了公允价值在我国运用的障碍 ,指出市场价格判断的脱离使公允价值计量缺乏了技术基础 ,而企业法人治理结构的缺陷 ,则是公允价值在我国运用的根本限制。文章认为 ,会计的国际化不单纯是技术规范的国际化 ,而更应该是技术规范改革与制度改革并进的过程。     

Strategic trading and learning about liquidity

Many practitioners point out that the speculative profits of institutional traders are eroded by the difficulty in gauging the price impact of their trades. In this paper, we develop a model of strategic trading where speculators face such a dilemma because of incomplete information about time-varying market liquidity. Unlike the competitive market makers that they trade against, informed traders do not know the distribution of liquidity (“noise”) trades. Instead, they have to learn about liquidity from past prices and trading volume. This learning implies that strategic trades and market statistics such as informational efficiency are path-dependent on past market outcomes. Our paper also has normative implications for practitioners.     

Research Note: Revisiting Fair Value Accounting––Measuring Commercial Banks' Liabilities

IAS 39, Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement (IASB, 2000), requires assets to be marked to fair value if held-for-trading, available-for-sale purposes, or if they are derivatives; held-to-maturity securities, originated loans and originated securities are measured at amortized cost, providing they are not held-for-trading. Financial liabilities are measured at amortized cost except those that are held-for-trading or derivatives. A proposed amendment would accommodate improved fair value measurement of financial instruments. Commercial banks are greatly affected by any accounting standard concerning the recognition and measurement of financial instruments, whether related to assets or liabilities. This article demonstrates that the existing and proposed standards perpetuate the mismeasurement of interest rate risk for commercial banks. Under IAS 39 banks that have a balanced position, that is, no interest rate risk, counterfactually could show large changes in income through interest rate changes. An alternative accounting treatment, full fair value reporting of financial assets and liabilities, including all loans and deposits, is offered. Presently fair value data are mandated as footnote disclosure.     

Observable Consequences of Trading Structure Differences: On the Use of Variance Ratios in Microstructure Studies

This paper examines the variance ratio tests in studies of transitory volatility and concludes that the variance ratio is an appropriate test of trading structure differences only under certain assumptions regarding the evolution of underlying stock prices and the autocorrelation structure of returns. This result raises caution as to the interpretation of results bases upon the 24-hour variance ratio methodologies in studies of transitory volatility and trading structure effects. A numerical example indicates that errors in inferences can be severe.     

Binomial Option Pricing with Skewed Asset Returns

This research presents a method for estimating the parameters of the binomial option pricing model necessary to appropriately price calls on assets with asymmetric end-of-period return distributions. Parameters of the binomial model are shown to be a function of the mean, variance, and skewness of the underlying return distribution. It is also shown that failure to incorporate skewness results in the mispricing of the call.     

Measuring abnormal daily trading volume for samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities using parametric and nonparametric test statistics

We extend prior research on the empirical properties of daily trading volume and methods to detect abnormal trading volume in two ways. We compare the performance of a nonparametric test statistic with the parametric test statistic used in prior research and we study samples of NASDAQ securities as well as samples of NYSE/ASE securities. Prior research has focused exclusively on NYSE securities. We find the nonparametric test statistic is more powerful in detecting abnormal trading volume than the parametric test statistic in both samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities. We also document that abnormal trading volume will be detected more often in samples of NYSE/ASE securities compared to NASDAQ securities.     

Do corporate insiders circumvent insider trading regulations? The case of stock repurchases

We use calculated values of standardized abnormal insider trading activity to investigate for patterns of unusual insider activity around fixed-price and Dutch auction repurchase announcements. Firms are classified according to whether the repurchase is signaling information about future cash flows, about the distribution of excess free cash flows, or about management's attempts to maintain control in the presence of a takeover. We find below normal levels of sales well before the event and above normal levels of sales after the event. This tendency is strongest for fixed-price offers and for firm's conveying information about future cash flows, and is absent for firms involved in takeovers. No evidence exists of abnormal levels of purchases before or after the event. We interpret the evidence as consistent with insiders successfully circumventing policies and regulations designed to prevent the exploitation of private information by timing the pattern of their security sales.     

对金融衍生品市场内幕交易的一些新思考--澳大利亚现行的反内幕交易法及其带给我们的若干启示

本文着眼于澳大利亚在治理金融衍生品市场内幕交易中积累的丰富经验,针对一个崭新的前瞻性课题,即金融衍生品市场的内幕交易问题展开研究。作者认为,由于内幕交易与信息非对称性之间存在的内在冲突,实际上反内幕交易法规很难有效地阻止金融衍生品的内幕交易行为,过于复杂的反内幕交易法规会对市场产生一些负面影响,而放松内幕交易监管这一新思维将对市场的良性发展更为有益,应该让市场来决定内幕交易行为的“存亡”。但目前最为现实、温和的选择仍然是修改现行反内幕交易法,以维护市场的公平性和有效性。最后,笔者对如何缓解中国目前内幕交易猖獗的现状提出建议。     

另类交易系统的法律界定

作为一种新型证券交易场所，另类交易系统是一种以互联网为基础的，依据一定规则自动聚集并撮合投资者委托买卖证券指令的电子交易系统。它属于场外交易场所的范畴，与传统交易所相比，其交易对象更广，交易流程更为便捷，交易规则特殊，同投资者之间的法律关系也不同。它的出现，不仅对传统交易所和中介机构的地位产生了强烈冲击，而且对传统的证券监管体制和证券诉讼也产生了深刻影响。本文在国外对另类交易系统概念界定的基础上，论述了其基本概念和特征，以期为将来我国另类交易系统的立法和监管提供理论参考。