Business Commons^™

Fragmentation And Consolidation Of Dark Order Books, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker, Jay Majtyka

Thomas Henker

No abstract provided.

Retail Investor Preferences And The Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker, Deborah Tan

Thomas Henker

We explain the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns observed by previous researchers. We argue that, based on the observation described in prospect theory, retail investors prefer stocks with a high level of idiosyncratic volatility and are consequently willing to overpay for those stocks. In support of our argument, we find that the negative idiosyncratic-volatility return relation is present in the Australian market, and that this relation is affected by the magnitude of retail trading. The relation is particularly strong when returns and realized volatility are measured at a daily frequency.

Style Drift Analysis Of Hedge Funds, Lin Xu, Thomas Henker, Julia Henker

Thomas Henker

It is well established in the literature that mutual fund managers are susceptible to style drift. However, less is understood regarding the existence of the style behaviours in a closely linked alternative investment vehicle class – hedge funds. We investigate the existence of style drift within the hedge fund industry and examine the relationship between style drift and both stages of the funds’ lives and the past returns. There are two key contributions made in this study. Firstly, we consider fund risk return profiles directly, rather than classifying funds by their self-described strategies. Secondly, we implement a K-Means clustering algorithm …

Realized Idiosyncratic Volatility And Retail Investors, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker, Deborah Tan

Thomas Henker

No abstract provided.

Do Investors Herd Intraday In Australian Equities?, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker, Anna Mitsios

Thomas Henker

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to consider whether market wide herding occurs intraday.

Design/methodology/approach – Using the 1995 Christie and Huang and the 2000 Chang et al. models, the paper tests whether market wide and industry sector herding occurs intraday in the Australian equities market.

Findings – Neither market wide nor industry sector herding occurs intraday.

Research limitations/implications – Both herding measures focus on one specific type of herding, herding evidenced by changes in the cross-sectional return distribution. Therefore the herding measures are ill suited to capture the effects of period specific abnormally high or low market …

The Effect Of The Ban On Short Selling On Market Efficiency And Volatility, Uwe Helmes, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

We examine the effects of the short selling ban, imposed by Australian regulators in the wake of the global financial crisis, on trading of financial stocks. Unlike other developed markets, where regulators imposed short-selling restrictions for brief periods of time at the height of the financial crisis, the ban on short selling of financial stocks on the Australian Stock Exchange lasted eight months, including both the tumultuous end of 2008 and the calmer period up to May 2009. Our control group consists of matched Canadian financial institutions which were unaffected by a short selling ban. We analyze the impact of …

Survivorship Bias And Alternative Explanations Of Momentum Effect, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker, Thanh Huynh

Thomas Henker

This paper provides the first detailed examination of momentum effect in Australian equity market. In contrast to previous research, we find that momentum effect has not been present in Australian market since late 1970s. We argue that previous research found strong momentum effect because they assumed perfect foresight of future delisting or acquisitions in the sampling process. In addition, we find that Fama and French three-factor model cannot explain the mean momentum returns although it can fully rationalize the returns on winners and losers portfolios. Our findings raise awareness in the literature that momentum effect is not robust to different …

Dividend Drop Ratios And Tax Theory: An Intraday Analysis Under Different Tax And Price Quoting Regimes, Vyas Balasubramaniam, William Bertin, Thomas Henker, Laurie Prather

Thomas Henker

We calculate dividend drop ratios over periods with changing quotation and taxation frameworks to assess the validity of competing explanations. Using intraday prices adjusted for non-trading, we provide a more accurate picture of price changes due to dividend payments than those produced in previous literature. Intraday estimates for dividend drop ratios are consistently higher than those calculated with end of day prices. Further findings indicate that stocks trading ex-dividend, on average, underperform the market over the following month. We attribute this phenomenon to dividend capture trading by tax advantaged and tax indifferent market participants.

Mutual Fund Characteristics, Managerial Attributes, And Fund Performance, Laurie Prather, William Bertin, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

This study provides a comprehensive examination of recent mutual fund performance by analyzing a large set of both mutual funds and fund attributes in an effort to link performance to fund-specific characteristics. The results indicate that the hypothesized relationships between performance and the explanatory variables are generally upheld. After taking into consideration general market conditions and fund investment objective, the characteristic variables that relate to fund popularity, growth, cost, and management also explain performance. Finally, after controlling for survivorship and benchmark error as well as fund-specific factors, the results refute the performance persistence phenomenon.

A New Look At Mutual Fund Performance, Laurie Prather, William Bertin, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

This study goes beyond the scope of the typical analysis of mutual fund performance by considering a broader set of fund-specific factors uniquely categorized in terms of their impact on returns. Also unique to this study is a detailed exposition of the linkages between fund characteristics and performance. Traditional regression techniques explore these relationships in an attempt to predict fund performance, while the sample of funds examined is screened for survivor bias in a non-conventional fashion. The results suggest that our unique categories of fund popularity, agility, and growth, as well as the standard cost and managerial factors are relevant …

Bid And Ask Spreads In Futures Markets, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

This dissertation examines a number of empirical issues that arise in the trading of equity index futures and in research conducted using high frequency futures market data. Both essays benefit from a data set unique to futures market research. The dissertation consists of two essays. ^ The Bid and Ask spread of the FTSE-100 futures contract, presents evidence that bid-ask spreads of the FTSE-100 index futures market are wider than microstructure theory would predict because full point price quotes are systematically preferred over half point price quotes by market makers. The findings are even more pronounced for electronic trading in …

Re-Examining The Dividend Drop Ratios With Dividend Capture Trading, Vyas Balasubramaniam, William Bertin, Thomas Henker, Laurie Prather

Thomas Henker

We calculate dividend drop ratios over periods with changing quotation and taxation frameworks to assess the veracity of competing explanations. We use intraday prices, adjusted for non-trading, to provide a more accurate picture of price changes due to dividend payments than those produced in previous literature. Intraday estimates for dividend drop ratios are consistently higher than those calculated with end of day prices. Further we find that stocks trading ex-dividend, on average, underperform the market by a large amount over the following month. We attribute this phenomenon to dividend capture trading by tax advantaged and tax indifferent market participants.

Are Retail Investors The Culprits? Evidence From Australian Individual Stock Price Bubbles, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

We address the question of whether the trading of retail investors causes stock price anomalies. Our intent is to study settings in which retail investors are most likely to have influence on market prices. Previous research suggests that retail investors have more influence in small capitalization stocks, and argues that retail investors are most likely to be irrational. Most theories of stock price anomalies hypothesize the presence of irrational traders. Consequently, we focus on stock price anomalies in primarily small capitalization stocks. Our data are from the Australian Stock Exchange Clearinghouse. The Australian stock market is characterized by a high …

Noise And Efficient Variance In The Indonesia Stock Exchange, Thomas Henker, Zaafri Husodo

Thomas Henker

We separate noise from information related variance for stocks traded on the Indonesian Stock Exchange with a realized variance estimator. We find that the average optimal sampling frequency to estimate the realized variance is 9 min and that market quality has improved after 2004. The positive relation between the standard deviation of the noise variance and the square root of the efficient realized variance implies that as uncertainty about asset values increases the risk of transacting with traders with superior information increases as well. Furthermore, variance ratio comparisons reveal that private information is a significant trading component on the IDX.

Spread Decomposition With Common Spread Components, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

Purpose – This paper aims to incorporate a market wide buying and selling pressure cost component into a spread decomposition model as spread cost component.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper extends a commonly used trade indicator spread decomposition model to include a component common to all stocks of a specialist firm and a market wide component common to all stocks.

Findings – Strong evidence is found that specialists consider this common factor cost component when they set bid and ask quotes. Some specialist firms also take the next logical step and specifically manage their firm wide stock inventories. The common factor …

Transaction Sizes And Spreads: An Informational Approach, David Feldman, Thomas Henker, Robert Kohn, Yuewen Xiao

Thomas Henker

We introduce an informational approach (IA) for exploring association between variables, an alternative to the prevalent parametric, thus restrictive, regression analysis. The IA uses data to (non-parametrically) construct the joint distribution of variables. Then, it uses theory to develop restrictions on the joint distributions. These restrictions will typically be orderings of functions of conditional distributions induced by the joint distribution. Finally, it attempts refuting the restrictions. We implement IA examining the relation between trading sizes and spreads, a main concern. Following insights and results of Milgrom (1981), Feldman (2004), and Feldman and Winer (2004), we use NYSE data and kernel …

Migration Of Trading And The Introduction Of Single Stock Futures On The Underlying Us Stocks, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

This study investigates where liquidity and informed trading takes place following the introduction of single stock futures (SSF) contracts on the OneChicago futures exchange. Specifically, we analyze the size and composition of proportional spreads for two sets of stocks, those that have single stock futures contracts and a matched control sample that does not have such contracts. We find that, after controlling for changes in spread determinants, the average proportional spreads, on average, decrease significantly after SSF are introduced. For NYSE stocks, while the average daily trading volume in the cash market is reduced by 389,000 shares, we find a …

The Short-Term Dynamics Of Information Risk, Thomas Henker, Shah A. H. Shah-Idil, Jianxin Wang

Thomas Henker

We introduce an informational approach (IA) for exploring association between variables, an alternative to the prevalent parametric, thus restrictive, regression analysis. The IA uses data to (non-parametrically) construct the joint distribution of variables. Then, it uses theory to develop restrictions on the joint distributions. These restrictions will typically be orderings of functions of conditional distributions induced by the joint distribution. Finally, it attempts refuting the restrictions. We implement IA examining the relation between trading sizes and spreads, a main concern. Following insights and results of Milgrom (1981), Feldman (2004), and Feldman and Winer (2004), we use NYSE data and kernel …

Price Discovery And Liquidity In Basket Securities, Thomas Henker, Martin Martens

Thomas Henker

Basket securities enable investors to purchase a broad portfolio of securities in a single transaction. We examine the link between HOLDRS, a basket security comprising stocks from an industry or sector, and the underlying stocks. We find that the price of the portfolio of underlying securities leads and is more informative than the basket price. Our results are contrary to the findings of empirical studies that use futures, which are basket securities with features less like those of the underlying equities. Our findings suggest uninformed investors can minimize adverse selection costs by trading basket securities rather than the underlying stocks.

Intraday Pattern And The Speed Of Adjustment In The Jakarta Stock Exchange, Zaafri Husodo, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

High frequency study at individual level in the Jakarta Stock Exchange is conducted in this research to reveal the dynamics at intraday level. Several apparent patterns emerge from analyzing the relation among the speed of adjustment coefficients, noise, and noise variance. It is found that the noise and noise variance are at a low level when the speed of adjustment coefficients achieves a fair level. The speed of adjustment coefficients, both at market and individual level show a periodic adjustment pattern at a daily interval. This justifies the importance of studying the dynamics of the price discovery as estimated in …

Calling The End Of The Bubble: Are There Trends In Order Imbalances, Julia Henker, Thomas Henker

Thomas Henker

Extract:
Can traders effectively conceal their information processing from the rest of the market, or is it there for the alert investor to observe? Could we see, for example, the reduction in demand that leads to the crash of a stock price bubble, or can investors keep their sentiment private?

We might expect that if we look carefully at buy and sell orders over several days, we could forecast the change from an upward to a downward trend in asset prices, but we would be wrong.

In this article, we investigate whether stock price bubble crashes are foreshadowed in order …

Naive And Planned Diversification For Managed Futures, Thomas Henker, George Martin

Thomas Henker

No abstract provided.