The purpose of this thesis was to test the hypothesis that multiple-listing of equity options leads to lower bid-ask spreads because of increased competition. This competition can come in two forms, actual or potential, both of which are theorized to have the same effect on spreads. A model of the determinants of the bid-ask spread was formulated. Separate tests were conducted on 1985 and on 1992 CBOE data. The first test arose from the fact that in 1985, only a certain number of options were multiple-listed, or eligible to be multiple-listed. Spreads for multiple-listed options were conjectured to be below spreads for single-listed options across low levels of volume, and equal to single-listed option spreads at higher levels of volume. The evidence for this was mixed based on several regressions with different functional forms. The second test arose from the fact that in 1992, because of an SEC rule change, all options were eligible to be multiple-listed but still only a few were. Spreads for multiple-listed options were conjectured to be equal to spreads for single-listed options because the single-listed options had the potential to become multiple-listed. Again, the evidence for this was mixed. It appears that the actual and potential competitive effects from multiple-listing had yet to come to fruition as of 1992. Further testing revealed that, on an option-by-option basis, spreads generally rose from 1985 to 1992. / Master of Arts

In this paper, we use the high frequency trading data of New York Stock Exchange to analyze the bid-ask spread components. It is found that there is an exponential relationship between the log returns of quoted midpoints and the trade volume. We also observe a negative linear correlation between the changes of quoted depth and the trade volume. Furthermore, changes of the quoted ask depth and the quoted bid depth are asymmetric due to the trading direction. Furthermore, statistical quality control charts, p-charts, are built for fixed number of trades to monitor unusual trades entering the market. Finally, logistic regression models are established to predict the probabilities of unusual trades entering the market based on the quotes and the quoted depth adjustments of the market makers.

Previous studies (e.g. Benston and Hagerman, 1974, Bagehot, 1971 and Stoll, 1978) suggest that the bid-ask spread consists of three components: asymmetric information cost, inventory holding cost, and order processing cost. Other literature (e.g. Brock and Kleidon, 1992, Hef-lin et al, 2007, and McInish and Van Ness, 2002) reports that the bid-ask spread varies during a trading day following a U-shaped pattern. One explanation for this observation is that it is the result of changes in information asymmetry costs over the trading hours, assuming the other costs are fixed. However, no empirical study directly measures how information asym-metry changes over the trading day. We explore how this measure relates to the spread as well as the quote depth.<p> Our research divides a trading day into 13 half-hour trading intervals and measures in-formation asymmetry during each interval following the model developed by Madhavan and Smidt (1991) and Noronha et al (1996). Their model can directly estimate the level of infor-mation asymmetry in each interval. This enables us to observe the intraday pattern of infor-mation asymmetry directly and compare it to the patterns of the spread and the quote depth. Furthermore, we test the relationship between the spread and the information asymmetry and the relationship between the depth and the information asymmetry in a dynamic context to see how market makers manage information risk over trading hours.<p> We find that the risk of information asymmetry varies significantly during the trading day. There is a large drop over the first interval, and another large drop over the last interval, with smaller fluctuations over the remaining intervals. Moreover, we show that the spread is consistent with an L-shaped pattern as opposed to the U-shaped pattern proposed by previous studies while the depth is increasing throughout the 13 trading intervals. Furthermore, we ob-serve that the variations of the spread and the depth are respectively positively and negatively related to the intraday variations in the degree of information asymmetry across the trading intervals. In particular, a large decline in information asymmetry at the beginning of the day is associated with a large reduction in the spread, whereas a large decline in information asymmetry at the end of the day is associated with a large increase in the quote depth. This emphasises the importance of studying both measures of liquidity simultaneously.

Previous studies (e.g. Benston and Hagerman, 1974, Bagehot, 1971 and Stoll, 1978) suggest that the bid-ask spread consists of three components: asymmetric information cost, inventory holding cost, and order processing cost. Other literature (e.g. Brock and Kleidon, 1992, Hef-lin et al, 2007, and McInish and Van Ness, 2002) reports that the bid-ask spread varies during a trading day following a U-shaped pattern. One explanation for this observation is that it is the result of changes in information asymmetry costs over the trading hours, assuming the other costs are fixed. However, no empirical study directly measures how information asym-metry changes over the trading day. We explore how this measure relates to the spread as well as the quote depth.<p> Our research divides a trading day into 13 half-hour trading intervals and measures in-formation asymmetry during each interval following the model developed by Madhavan and Smidt (1991) and Noronha et al (1996). Their model can directly estimate the level of infor-mation asymmetry in each interval. This enables us to observe the intraday pattern of infor-mation asymmetry directly and compare it to the patterns of the spread and the quote depth. Furthermore, we test the relationship between the spread and the information asymmetry and the relationship between the depth and the information asymmetry in a dynamic context to see how market makers manage information risk over trading hours.<p> We find that the risk of information asymmetry varies significantly during the trading day. There is a large drop over the first interval, and another large drop over the last interval, with smaller fluctuations over the remaining intervals. Moreover, we show that the spread is consistent with an L-shaped pattern as opposed to the U-shaped pattern proposed by previous studies while the depth is increasing throughout the 13 trading intervals. Furthermore, we ob-serve that the variations of the spread and the depth are respectively positively and negatively related to the intraday variations in the degree of information asymmetry across the trading intervals. In particular, a large decline in information asymmetry at the beginning of the day is associated with a large reduction in the spread, whereas a large decline in information asymmetry at the end of the day is associated with a large increase in the quote depth. This emphasises the importance of studying both measures of liquidity simultaneously.

The bid-ask spread costs consist of three components, which include order processing costs, inventory-holding costs, and adverse selection costs. In this paper, we model the inventory-holding costs of the bid-ask spread by option hedging. Theinventory-holding costs are hedged by call or put option positions. Since trades deal with the adverse selection traders are unobservable. We treat it as a latent variable, and Expected-Maximization (EM) algorithm are applied to estimate the related parameters of the model. Simulation studies are performed for several different models. Empirical results of NYSE high frequency data show that the proposed model are obtain appropriate parameter estimation when the returns satisfied normality assumption.

Family or group-owned corporations and informed trading are two features of Taiwan¡¦s capital market. Is there any relationship between the two features? Can we solve this kind of problem by some mechanism of corporate governance? These issues are common concerns for participants of capital markets and government policy makers, therefore, there are many scholars devoting themselves in the related research. This study adopts the work of McInish and Wood (1992), who measure informed trading by calculating standardized bid-ask spread. Moreover, some variables, such as trading volume, risk, stock price, company size, and listing market are taken into account because the literature indicates they may affect bid-ask spread. According to the concept of voting rights and cash flow rights introduced by La Porta, Lopez-De-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny (2002) and the concept of fraction of cash flow rights on the voting rights introduced by Claessens, Djankov, and Lang (2000), we use the difference ratio, which is one minus the fraction of voting rights over the cash flow rights, to measure the degree of central agency problems. The corporate governance variables, such as board size, the proportion of outside directors, and institutional shareholdings are employed as moderating variables. Multiple regression models are used to test the hypotheses. According to the test results, we find that the more cash flow rights deviate from voting rights the more informed trading will be and it can be alleviated by increasing board size and hiring big CPA firms for audit purpose; while it can be worsen by adopting more outside directors and institutional shareholdings.

Using the intraday data on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE), we address the issue of the informativeness of the limit order book in the periodic call market. We find that the pre-call information variables, i.e., the market order and the radius of the order book, have significant impacts on the trade variables, i.e., trading volume, the post-call bid-ask spread, and the trader surplus. Furthermore, we are able to show that the radius, as well as the market order, contains two differential forces in impacting these trade variables.

Univ., Diss.--Frankfurt, 2004.

Yes / We study liquidity on the London Stock Exchange. We find that the average bid-ask spread declines, but that the skewness of the spread increases. These results are robust to firm size, trading volume and price level. Our findings hold when the bid-ask spread is estimated utilising high frequency data. We find that the bid-ask spread prior to earnings announcements dates is significantly higher than that of post earnings announcements, suggesting that asymmetric information has driven the increase in liquidity skewness. We also find that the effect of earnings announcements is more pronounced in the 2007 global financial crisis, consistent with the notion that extreme market downturns amplify asymmetric information. Our overall evidence also implies that increased competition and transparent trading environments limit market makers' abilities to cross-subsidize bid-ask spreads between periods of high and low levels of asymmetric information. / National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71571197)

The purpose of this paper is to compare the liquidity and the components of the bid-ask spread for thinly traded firms switching from a dealer market (Emerging Stock Market (ESM)) to an order driven market (Taiwan Stock Exchanges (TSE) or GreTai Securities Market (GTSM)). Firstly, we follow Christie and Huang’s (1994) method to measure the liquidity performance. Our finding shows that thinly traded firms could improve their liquidity by switching from a dealer market to an order driven market. Secondly, we apply Huang and Stoll’s (1997) and Lin et al.’s (1995) model to estimate the bid-ask spread components. Our results show that the adverse selection cost is significantly smaller on ESM than TSE or GTSM using both Huang and Stoll’s (1997) and Lin et al.’s (1995) model. The inventory holding cost is lower on ESM than TSE or GTSM estimated by Huang and Stoll’s (1997) model. However, the estimates of order processing cost and the probability of trade reversal do not produce consistent results by applying Huang and Stoll’s (1997) and Lin et al.’s (1995) model.