Pricing behavior in an off-hours computerized market

Investment management & financial innovations, 2017

This paper studies the impacts of the computerized trading system on the market liquidity in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). The findings suggest that the automated trading system accomplishes its mission of increasing volume; however, it fails to reduce the asymmetric information among market participants. This may in general suggest that automation improves the trading efficiency and lowers the transaction costs. On the other hand, it fails to improve information asymmetry as the computerized trading system is outweighed by the information loss from the floor system. JEL Classification: G10; G14

Annual Review of Financial Economics, 2012

In recent decades, US equity markets have changed from predominantly manual markets with limited competition to highly automated and competitive markets. These changes occurred earlier for NASDAQ stocks (primarily between 1994 and 2004) and later for NYSE-listed stocks (mostly following Reg NMS and the 2006 introduction of the NYSE hybrid market). This paper surveys the evidence of how these changes impacted market quality and shows that overall market quality has improved significantly, including bid-ask spreads, liquidity, and transitory price impacts (measured by short-term variance ratios). The greater improvement in market quality for NYSE-listed stocks relative to NASDAQ stocks beginning in 2006 suggests causal links between the staggered market structure changes and market quality. Using proprietary data sets, provided by two exchanges, that identify the activity of high frequency trading firms, studies show these firms contributed directly to narrowing bid-ask spreads, incre...

In this paper, we determine whether intraday price dynamics observed on Euronext help characterize market liquidity in real time. We generate 15-minute price movement configurations based on High-Low-Open-Close (HLOC) patterns and measure liquidity in terms of spread, depth, order imbalance, dispersion and slope. We also consider trading activity and volatility measures. Based on an event study methodology, we find that particular HLOC configurations are associated with higher liquidity in the limit order book. Although these effects are short-lived, market participants could benefit from temporary higher liquidity by executing their trades when these price configurations occur.

Accounting and Finance Research, 2012

In this study, we examine the information links between daytime and overnight trading sessions in the E-mini futures markets. Our analysis includes the overnight session which hitherto remains unexplored in the E-mini literature. Overall, the results suggest that, for the sample period considered, despite being 24-hour markets, the daytime and overnight sessions appear to be segmented and that the daytime session behaves like a separate daytime market. Also, the overnight session facilitates an efficient flow of information from one daytime session to the next, thereby mitigating the pricing errors in the process.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

We study whether the presence of low-latency traders (including high-frequency traders (HFTs)) in the pre-opening period contributes to market quality, defined by price discovery and liquidity provision, in the opening auction. We use a unique dataset from the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) based on server-IDs and find that HFTs dynamically alter their presence in di↵erent stocks and on di↵erent days. In spite of the lack of immediate execution, about one quarter of HFTs participate in the pre-opening period, and contribute significantly to market quality in the pre-opening period, the opening auction that ensues and the continuous trading period. Their contribution is largely di↵erent from that of the other HFTs during the continuous period.

2008

We examine liquidity across different types of markets by using execution costs as a proxy for liquidity. We conduct a thorough analysis of execution costs on the NYSE versus Electronic Markets. We adopt a variety of techniques attempting to correct for the selection bias problem. Unlike current literature, we find that Electronic Markets offer lower execution costs even after controlling for selection biases. In addition to controlling for selection biases at the sample average level of order difficulty, we also carry out our analysis at different levels of order difficulty, measured by a vector of control variables. Our results are robust under different model specifications. Finally, our what-if analysis shows that Electronic Markets' (the NYSE's) orders would have been worse (better) off, had they been executed by the NYSE (Electronic Markets). Overall, our results highlight the superiority of Electronic Markets' liquidity and execution quality.

International Journal of the Economics of Business, 2013

We investigate the impact of after-hours trading on magnitude and timing of price discovery over the close-to-close period on the world's largest carbon trading platform, the European Climate Exchange (ECX). Low volume trading in carbon financial instruments can lead to relatively high levels of price discovery but the generated pricing has low efficiency levels. This is associated with high levels of informed trades and low levels of liquidity trades. Our results show higher trading volume per minute and greater price efficiency for after-hours when compared with regular trading hours. As a result of a higher proportion of informed trades, adverse selection costs for trades during the after-hours are significantly larger than those for trades during the regular trading-day.

Review of Financial Studies, 1995

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Stock exchanges around the world are challenged by extreme liquidity events. We examine how trading design affects the ability of markets under liquidity stress to incorporate information efficiently. We examine the opening of trade and the expiration of stock index derivatives. To give markets time to incorporate overnight and weekend information efficiently, most exchanges open trading using a preopening period followed by a call auction. To improve their ability to accommodate extreme liquidity events exchanges have switched from fixed to random opening times. We investigate the effects of opening time randomization on informational efficiency of opening and preopening stock prices on stock index options expiration days and other days.

Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, 1998

Previous literature has suggested that automated exchanges such as the Deutsche Terminborse (DTB) may be less liquid than their open-outcry counterparts such as the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE), although evidence provided on this issue has been mixed. This paper provides new evidence on the relative magnitudes of bid-ask spreads in the Bund contract traded on the DTB and LIFFE using intraday data from a period in which each exchanges share of total Bund trading was closer than previous research. The findings suggest that quoted bid-ask spreads are wider on the LIFFE than the DTB, even after controlling for their determinants. Furthermore, bid-ask spreads on the DTB increase more rapidly as price volatility increases relative to the LIFFE. Overall, this evidence implies that while automated exchanges are capable of providing more liquidity than floor traded exchanges, the relative performance of automated exchanges deteriorates during periods of higher volatility.