IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v20y2014icp151-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are trading imbalances indicative of private information?

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Sukwon Thomas
  • Stoll, Hans R.

Abstract

Trading imbalances are often interpreted to be the result of informed trading. Yet imbalances may simply reflect random shocks or the results of liquidity trading. If trading imbalances reflect informed trading, they should anticipate major news events. Using announcements of earnings, acquisition targets, and seasoned equity offerings as our information events, we examine whether prior trading imbalances are related to the subsequent news. We conclude that imbalances do not well reflect the information held by informed traders. Trading imbalances do have price effects, but they are contemporaneous and are not significantly correlated with the forthcoming announcements.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Sukwon Thomas & Stoll, Hans R., 2014. "Are trading imbalances indicative of private information?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 151-174.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:20:y:2014:i:c:p:151-174
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2014.03.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418114000172
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2014.03.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duarte, Jefferson & Young, Lance, 2009. "Why is PIN priced?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 119-138, February.
    2. Bernard, Victor L. & Thomas, Jacob K., 1990. "Evidence that stock prices do not fully reflect the implications of current earnings for future earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 305-340, December.
    3. Madhavan, Ananth & Richardson, Matthew & Roomans, Mark, 1997. "Why Do Security Prices Change? A Transaction-Level Analysis of NYSE Stocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 1035-1064.
    4. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    5. Huang, Roger D & Stoll, Hans R, 1994. "Market Microstructure and Stock Return Predictions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 179-213.
    6. Andrade, Sandro C. & Chang, Charles & Seasholes, Mark S., 2008. "Trading imbalances, predictable reversals, and cross-stock price pressure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 406-423, May.
    7. David Easley & Robert F. Engle & Maureen O'Hara & Liuren Wu, 2008. "Time-Varying Arrival Rates of Informed and Uninformed Trades," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 171-207, Spring.
    8. Lin, Ji-Chai & Sanger, Gary C & Booth, G Geoffrey, 1995. "Trade Size and Components of the Bid-Ask Spread," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(4), pages 1153-1183.
    9. Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2004. "Order imbalance and individual stock returns: Theory and evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 485-518, June.
    10. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2002. "Order imbalance, liquidity, and market returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 111-130, July.
    11. Aktas, Nihat & de Bodt, Eric & Declerck, Fany & Van Oppens, Herve, 2007. "The PIN anomaly around M&A announcements," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 169-191, May.
    12. Easley, David & Kiefer, Nicholas M & O'Hara, Maureen, 1997. "One Day in the Life of a Very Common Stock," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(3), pages 805-835.
    13. Richard R. Mendenhall, 2004. "Arbitrage Risk and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 875-894, October.
    14. Ron Kaniel & Shuming Liu & Gideon Saar & Sheridan Titman, 2012. "Individual Investor Trading and Return Patterns around Earnings Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 639-680, April.
    15. Campbell, John Y. & Ramadorai, Tarun & Schwartz, Allie, 2009. "Caught on tape: Institutional trading, stock returns, and earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 66-91, April.
    16. Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos, 2012. "Do prices reveal the presence of informed trading?," NBER Working Papers 18452, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Kraus, Alan & Stoll, Hans R, 1972. "Price Impacts of Block Trading on the New York Stock Exchange," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 569-588, June.
    18. Hans R. Stoll, 2000. "Presidential Address: Friction," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1479-1514, August.
    19. Easley, David, et al, 1996. "Liquidity, Information, and Infrequently Traded Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1405-1436, September.
    20. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    21. A. Inci & H. Seyhun, 2012. "How do quotes and prices evolve around isolated informed trades?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 36(2), pages 499-519, April.
    22. Michael J. Fleming & Eli M. Remolona, 1999. "Price Formation and Liquidity in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Response to Public Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1901-1915, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alasdair Brown & Fuyu Yang, 2017. "The Role of Speculative Trade in Market Efficiency: Evidence from a Betting Exchange," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 583-603.
    2. Abhinava Tripathi, 2021. "The Arrival of Information and Price Adjustment Across Extreme Quantiles: Global Evidence," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 10(1), pages 7-19, January.
    3. Jan Hanousek & Hoje Jo & Christos Pantzalis & Jung Chul Park, 2023. "A Dilemma of Self-interest vs. Ethical Responsibilities in Political Insider Trading," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 137-167, September.
    4. Chung, Y. Peter & Hong, Hyun A. & Kim, S. Thomas, 2019. "What causes the asymmetric correlation in stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 190-212.
    5. Jeffrey R. Black & Pankaj K. Jain & Wei Sun, 2023. "Trade-time clustering," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1209-1242, April.
    6. Hoang, Lai T. & Baur, Dirk G., 2022. "Loaded for bear: Bitcoin private wallets, exchange reserves and prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. Yang, Yung Chiang & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Chu, 2020. "Is information risk priced? Evidence from abnormal idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 528-554.
    8. Abad, David & Massot, Magdalena & Pascual, Roberto, 2018. "Evaluating VPIN as a trigger for single-stock circuit breakers," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 21-36.
    9. Laurence Lescourret, 2017. "Cold Case File? Inventory Risk and Information Sharing during the pre†1997 NASDAQ," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 761-806, September.
    10. Zhang, Sijia & Gregoriou, Andros, 2021. "The impact of order flow on event study returns: New evidence from zero-leverage firms," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 627-634.
    11. Ting Zhang & George J. Jiang & Wei‐Xing Zhou, 2021. "Order imbalance and stock returns: New evidence from the Chinese stock market," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(2), pages 2809-2836, June.
    12. Justin Cox, 2021. "ISO order imbalances and individual stock returns," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(1), pages 5-23, April.
    13. Acheson, Graeme G. & Coyle, Christopher & Turner, John D., 2018. "Prices and informed trading: Evidence from an early stock market," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2018-05, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    14. Kim, Thomas, 2015. "Does individual-stock skewness/coskewness reflect portfolio risk?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 167-174.
    15. Duarte, Jefferson & Hu, Edwin & Young, Lance, 2020. "A comparison of some structural models of private information arrival," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 795-815.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chang, Sanders S. & Wang, F. Albert, 2015. "Adverse selection and the presence of informed trading," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 19-33.
    2. Chung, Dennis & Hrazdil, Karel, 2010. "Liquidity and market efficiency: A large sample study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2346-2357, October.
    3. Chung, Kee H. & Kim, Oliver & Lim, Steve C. & Yang, Sean, 2019. "An analytical measure of market underreaction to earnings news," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 612-624.
    4. Sun, Yuxin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2017. "Informed trading and the price impact of block trades: A high frequency trading analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 114-129.
    5. Lof, Matthijs & van Bommel, Jos, 2023. "Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    6. Mazza, Paolo, 2015. "Price dynamics and market liquidity: An intraday event study on Euronext," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 139-153.
    7. Lamoureux, Christopher G. & Wang, Qin, 2015. "Measuring private information in a specialist market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 92-119.
    8. Lof, Matthijs & Bommel, Jos van, 2018. "Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume," Research Discussion Papers 1, Bank of Finland.
    9. repec:zbw:bofrdp:001 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Madhavan, Ananth, 2000. "Market microstructure: A survey," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 205-258, August.
    11. Yan Han & Xue-Feng Shao & Xin Cui & Xiao-Guang Yue & Kelvin Joseph Bwalya & Otilia Manta, 2019. "Assessing Investor Belief: An Analysis of Trading for Sustainable Growth of Stock Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-18, October.
    12. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2018_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Agudelo, Diego A. & Giraldo, Santiago & Villarraga, Edwin, 2015. "Does PIN measure information? Informed trading effects on returns and liquidity in six emerging markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 149-161.
    14. Yue Zhao & Difang Wan, 2018. "Institutional high frequency trading and price discovery: Evidence from an emerging commodity futures market," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 243-270, February.
    15. Yanyi Ye & Yun Wang & Xiaoguang Yang, 2022. "Bank loan information and information asymmetry in the stock market: evidence from China," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-28, December.
    16. Patrick J. Kelly, 2014. "Information Efficiency and Firm-Specific Return Variation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-44.
    17. Zhi Da & Pengjie Gao & Ravi Jagannathan, 2008. "Informed Trading, Liquidity Provision, and Stock Selection by Mutual Funds," NBER Working Papers 14609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Ping-Chen Tsai & Chi-Ming Tsai, 2021. "Estimating the proportion of informed and speculative traders in financial markets: evidence from exchange rate," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(3), pages 443-470, July.
    19. Lei, Qin & Wu, Guojun, 2005. "Time-varying informed and uninformed trading activities," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 153-181, May.
    20. Cosmin Octavian Cepoi & Filip Mihai Toma, 2016. "Estimating Probability of Informed Trading on the Bucharest Stock Exchange," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 66(2), pages 140-160, April.
    21. Duarte, Jefferson & Hu, Edwin & Young, Lance, 2020. "A comparison of some structural models of private information arrival," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 795-815.
    22. Anna Obizhaeva, 2009. "Portfolio Transitions and Stock Price Dynamics," Working Papers w0224, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trading imbalance; Order imbalance; Informed trading; Private information; Earnings announcements; Mergers and acquisitions; Seasoned equity offerings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:20:y:2014:i:c:p:151-174. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/finmar .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.