Dark Pool Trading and Information Acquisition

Author(s):  
Jonathan Brogaard ◽  
Jing Pan

Abstract Theory suggests that dark pools may facilitate or discourage information acquisition. We find that more dark pool trading leads to greater information acquisition. We measure information acquisition using stock price dynamics around earnings announcements. To overcome endogeneity concerns, we exploit a large exogenous decrease to dark pool trading that results from the implementation of the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) Tick Size Pilot Program. The results cannot be explained by lit venue liquidity, algorithmic trading, or informational efficiency. A battery of additional tests, such as documenting a shift in SEC EDGAR searches, supports the information acquisition interpretation.

Author(s):  
Charles M. C. Lee ◽  
Edward M. Watts

This study examines how an increase in tick size affects algorithmic trading (AT), fundamental information acquisition (FIA), and the price discovery process around earnings announcements (EAs). Leveraging the SECs randomized Tick Size Pilot experiment, we show a tick size increase results in a decline in AT and a sharp drop in absolute cumulative abnormal returns and volume around EAs. More importantly, we find increased FIA in the pre-announcement period. Specifically, we show: (a) treatment firms pre-announcement returns better anticipate next quarters standardized unexpected earnings; (b) these firms experience an increase in EDGAR web traffic prior to EAs; and (c) they exhibit a drop in price synchronicity with index returns. Taken together, our evidence suggests that while an increase in tick size reduces AT and abnormal market reaction after EAs, it also increases FIA activities prior to EAs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haiyan Jiang ◽  
Donghua Zhou ◽  
Joseph H. Zhang

SYNOPSIS Against the backdrop of the Chinese Directive 40 (China's Reg FD) issued in 2007 as an attempt to curb insider trading and to level the information playing field, this study investigates whether analysts' private information acquisition influences the extent to which firm-specific information is impounded into stock prices, i.e., stock price synchronicity, and how the restrictions on selective disclosures imposed by Directive 40 have shaped the relationship between analyst information acquisition and synchronicity. Using a pre-Directive 40 sample, we show that synchronicity is negatively related to analysts' private information acquisition, which provides support for the “information advantage” argument of analysts' information production. However, the ability of analysts' private information acquisition in improving firm-specific information incorporated into stock price is mitigated post-Directive 40 due to a restriction on selective disclosures and/or private communication. Moreover, we find that this regulatory impact varies for firms being followed by affiliated analysts versus non-affiliated analysts. JEL Classifications: G14; G15; G17; G18.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Chang ◽  
Xiaoyun Yu

AbstractThis paper investigates how a firm’s capital structure choice affects the informational efficiency of its security prices in the secondary markets. We identify two new determinants of a firm’s capital structure policy: the liquidity (adverse selection) premium due to investors’ anticipated losses to informed trading, and operating efficiency improvement due to information revelation from the firm’s security prices. We show that the capital structure decision affects traders’ incentives to acquire information and subsequently, the distribution of informed traders across debt and equity claims. When information is less imperative for improving its operating decisions, a firm issues zero or negative debt (i.e., holding excess cash reserves) in order to reduce socially wasteful information acquisition and the liquidity premium associated with it. When information is crucial for a firm’s operating decisions, the optimal debt level is one that achieves maximum information revelation at the lowest possible liquidity cost. Our model can explain why many firms consistently hold no debt. It also provides new implications for financial system design and for the relationship among leverage, liquidity premium, profitability, and the cost of information acquisition.


1996 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Pincus ◽  
Charles E. Wasley

We examine the behavior of stock prices at the time of post-1974–75 LIFO adoption announcements. We exploit recent theoretical and empirical developments in the LIFO adoption literature in an attempt to resolve some of the mixed findings in Hand (1993). We study LIFO adoptions announced prior to as well as at the time of annual earnings announcements. Previous research has mostly centered on 1974–75 adoptions made at the time of annual earnings announcements. Our study of LIFO adoptions announced prior to annual earnings announcement dates enables us to provide evidence on whether the early announcement of a LIFO adoption is used by firms to signal positive information about earnings growth. Collectively, our results suggest that in explaining the market response to LIFO adoption announcements, extant models of the LIFO adoption decision do not fully capture the richness of differing inflationary environments or of alternative disclosure times.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Imen Lamiri ◽  
Adel Boubaker

<p>This article explores the informational role of three essential modern financial markets actors such IFRS norms, the Big”4” and the financial analysts for a panel of emergent and developed countries during the period from 2001 to 2010. We hypothesis that these mechanisms help improving the quality of specific information incorporated into stock prices measured by the stock price synchronicity (SPS). The main result is that both financial analyst’s coverage and IFRS adoption's effects seem to be stronger for emerging than developed markets. The results also show a negative relationship between auditors’ opinion and coefficient of determination (R<sup>2</sup>).</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Catherine Chiang ◽  
Yaw M. Mensah

In this paper, we propose a new method for assessing the usefulness of information, its inferential value. In the context of accounting and finance, we define the inferential value of information about a firm as how efficaciously the information enables investors to draw correct inferences regarding its future financial performance. On the basis of this definition, we develop a stylized model to measure the proximity of a firm’s future realized rates of return to the estimated rates of return implied by its current stock price. We then use the new measure to test the hypothesis that quarterly earnings announcements have a higher inferential value than other information arriving during interim (non-earnings announcement) periods. Our empirical findings suggest that investors are able to make more informative inferences about a firm’s future profitability based on quarterly earnings announcement than based on information available during interim periods. However, our findings also suggest that, in general, investors do not correctly anticipate future losses. Finally, we find that earnings announcements are as important in anticipating future profitability for larger firms as they are for smaller firms.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Hanlei Hu ◽  
Zheng Yin ◽  
Weipeng Yuan

In financial markets with volatility uncertainty, we assume that their risks are caused by uncertain volatilities and their assets are effectively allocated in the risk-free asset and a risky stock, whose price process is supposed to follow a geometric G-Brownian motion rather than a classical Brownian motion. The concept of arbitrage is used to deal with this complex situation and we consider stock price dynamics with no-arbitrage opportunities. For general European contingent claims, we deduce the interval of no-arbitrage price and the clear results are derived in the Markovian case.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. e82771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Liu ◽  
Jianrong Wei ◽  
Jiping Huang
Keyword(s):  

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