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On Inferring the Direction of Option Trades

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  • Savickas, Robert
  • Wilson, Arthur J.

Abstract

To sign option trades as buys and sells, researchers often employ stock trade classification rules including the quote, the Lee and Ready (1991), the Ellis, Michaely, and O'Hara (2000), and the tick methods. Using a proprietary CBOE dataset that reports trade direction, we find that these four rules sign correctly 83%, 80%, 77%, and 59% of all classifiable trades, respectively. These rates are based on separate classifiable samples because each of the four rules fails to classify some trades (e.g., the quote rulecannot classify midspread trades). Outside-quote and reversed-quote trades are highly misclassified by all four rules. The probability of such trades is related to trading frequency, trade size, moneyness, and maturity. Underlying asset price changes around the time of the trade improve classification precision. We find that the components of index option complex trades not executed on the Retail Automated Execution System are misclassified almost 50% of the time by any method. The elimination of these trades (15% of the sample) results in a success rate of over 87% for the quote rule.

Suggested Citation

  • Savickas, Robert & Wilson, Arthur J., 2003. "On Inferring the Direction of Option Trades," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 881-902, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:38:y:2003:i:04:p:881-902_00
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger & Sandås, Patrik, 2009. "Co-movements of index options and futures quotes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 151-163, January.
    2. Frömmel, Michael & D'Hoore, Dick & Lampaert, Kevin, 2021. "The Accuracy of Trade Classification Systems on the Foreign Exchange Market: Evidence from the RUB/USD Market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    3. Michael Frömmel & Eyup Kadioglu, 2023. "Impact of trading hours extensions on foreign exchange volatility: intraday evidence from the Moscow exchange," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, December.
    4. Fahlenbrach, Rudiger & Sandas, Patrik, 2005. "Market Frictions and Seemingly Anomalous Co-movements of Index Options and Index Futures Quotes," Working Paper Series 2005-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    5. Anand, Amber & Weaver, Daniel G., 2006. "The value of the specialist: Empirical evidence from the CBOE," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 100-118, May.
    6. Rourke, Thomas, 2014. "The delta- and vega-related information content of near-the-money option market trading activity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 175-193.
    7. Boehmer, Ekkehart & Grammig, Joachim & Theissen, Erik, 2007. "Estimating the probability of informed trading--does trade misclassification matter?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 26-47, February.
    8. David Michayluk & Laurie Prather, 2008. "A Liquidity Motivated Algorithm for Discerning Trade Direction," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 12(1-2), pages 45-66, March-Jun.
    9. Joshua V. Rosenberg & Leah G. Traub, 2006. "Price discovery in the foreign currency futures and spot market," Staff Reports 262, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    10. Ben Omrane, Walid & Welch, Robert, 2016. "Tick test accuracy in foreign exchange ECN markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 135-152.
    11. Muravyev, Dmitriy & Pearson, Neil D. & Paul Broussard, John, 2013. "Is there price discovery in equity options?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 259-283.
    12. Collver, Charles, 2009. "Measuring the impact of option market activity on the stock market: Bivariate point process models of stock and option transactions," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 87-106, February.
    13. Aktas, Osman Ulas & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2014. "Trade classification accuracy for the BIST," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 259-282.

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