A previously unrecognized channel through which index options trading impacts the underlying market is that delta hedges of expiring cash-settled index options are unwound at expiration. This contrasts with physically-settled options, where the delta hedge positions in the underlier are used to settle the options position. We use proprietary data to determine market maker positions in expiring S&P 500 index options, and show that hedge unwinding trades have important impacts on index futures returns and volatility during the 30 minutes before options expiration. We also study the impact of options market maker hedge rebalancing trades on market volatility.

Several influential studies show that transformations of implied volatilities calculated from options prices predict stock returns. This predictability is puzzling because market participants readily observe options prices. We find that this predictability is consistent with implied volatilities reflecting stock borrow fees that are known to predict stock returns. We derive a formula relating the option-implied volatility spread to the borrow fee. Motivated by this relation, we show that the return predictability from implied volatility spread and skew decreases by at least two-thirds if high-fee stocks are excluded. The patterns for other predictors computed from option implied volatilities are similar.

Short-sale costs eliminate the abnormal returns on asset pricing anomaly portfolios. While many anomalies persist out-of-sample before accounting for short-sale costs, they cannot be exploited with long-short strategies due to stock borrow fees. Using a comprehensive sample of 162 anomalies, the average long-short portfolio return is a significant 0.14% per month before short-sale costs, and the returns are due to the short leg. However, the average is -0.01% once returns are adjusted for borrow fees. Moreover, anomalies are not profitable even before fees if the high-fee observations, representing 12% of stock dates, are excluded from the analysis.

ABSTRACT In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data‐generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence‐generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty—nonstandard errors (NSEs). We study NSEs by letting 164 teams test the same hypotheses on the same data. NSEs turn out to be sizable, but smaller for more reproducible or higher rated research. Adding peer‐review stages reduces NSEs. We further find that this type of uncertainty is underestimated by participants.

Among the many possible complex options trades, just a few dominate the market. Two simple roles largely explain their use. Using a new approach to identify complex trades, we find that vertical, vertical ratio, calendar, and diagonal spreads account for most complex volume, and volatility trades such as straddles and strangles account for a much smaller fraction. Many trades are executed not to obtain the payoffs of the complex packages, but instead to adjust simple options positions by changing either strikes or expiration dates. Others appear intended to make simple bets on price movements with small initial investments.

Execution protocols for complex options orders allow market participants to execute multi-leg trades such as verticals, calendars, straddles, strangles, and others as a single trade at a net price. The costs to execute complex orders are significantly lower than the costs of simple orders. Part of the difference is explained by different characteristics of the options traded, but a large difference remains even after controlling for factors that affect trading costs. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the differences in the ways the complex and simple orders are executed contribute to the differences in trading costs.

ABSTRACTWe use retail structured equity product (SEP) issuances to construct a new sentiment measure for large capitalization stocks. The SEP sentiment measure predicts negative abnormal returns on the SEP reference stocks based on a variety of factor models, and also predicts returns in Fama‐MacBeth regressions that include a wide range of covariates. Consistent with our interpretation that SEP issuances reflect investor sentiment, aggregate SEP issuances are highly correlated with the Baker‐Wurgler sentiment index. Tobit regressions reveal that proxies for attention and sentiment predict SEP issuance volumes, providing additional evidence consistent with the hypothesis that SEP issuances reflect sentiment.

We use Chinese brokerage account records over a long period to show that the relation between stock market exit and an investor’s lifetime return resembles an inverted V, with a sharp peak at zero. This pattern, and additional results, are consistent with cumulative prospect theory (CPT), and inconsistent with learning. Thus, CPT appears to explain important features of risk taking over long horizons, involving many trades. The relation between exit and lifetime return implies that the investors who remain in the market tend to have worse lifetime performance than those who exit, resulting in a market dominated by poorly-performing investors.

We find that short sale costs eliminate the abnormal profits generated by asset pricing anomalies. While many anomalies persist out-of-sample, they cannot be profitably exploited due to stock borrow fees. Using a comprehensive sample of 162 anomalies, we show that the average of these long-short anomalies earns a significant 0.15% per month before costs. However, this average is -0.02% once portfolio returns are adjusted for stock borrow fees. Moreover, the anomalies are not profitable before accounting for borrow fees if the stocks with high borrow fees, 12% of all stocks, are excluded from the analysis. Thus, short sale costs explain why these anomalies exist despite arbitrageurs' best efforts to exploit them.

ABSTRACT Recent research argues that uncertainty about future stock borrowing fees hinders short‐selling, and this risk explains the performance of short strategies. One possible mechanism is that borrowing fee risk carries a risk premium. Since the present value of the uncertain borrowing fee is reflected in options prices, the difference between option‐implied and realized fees estimates this premium. We find that the risk premium is small. Moreover, if the risk premium is substantial, it should be reflected in the returns to short‐selling stock after adjusting for stock borrowing fees. However, borrowing fee risk does not predict fee‐adjusted returns.

We use brokerage account records to study trading during the Chinese put warrants bubble and find evidence consistent with extrapolative theories of speculative asset price bubbles. We identify the event that started the bubble and show that investors engaged in a form of feedback trading based on their own past returns. The interaction of feedback trading with the precipitating event caused additional buying and price increases in a feedback loop, and estimates of the trading volume due to this mechanism explain prices and returns during the bubble.

The question of whether and to what extent option trading affects underlying stock prices has been of interest to researchers since exchange-based options trading began in 1973. Recent research presents evidence of an informational channel through which option trading affects stock prices by showing that option market makers’ stock trades to hedge new options positions cause the information reflected in option trading to be impounded into underlying equity prices. This paper provides evidence of a noninformational channel through which option market maker hedge rebalancing affects stock return volatility and the probability of large stock price moves.

We examine the profitability of hedge fund equity short sales. We identify opening and closing trades by combining data on funds’ transactions and holdings. Short sales covered within five trading days are highly profitable, but those kept open longer are not. Some of the profitability is due to trading on information and some stems from liquidity provision in both opening and covering trades. The finding that longer-term short trades are not profitable indicates that it is difficult to achieve the returns that results in the short-selling literature suggest should be readily attainable. Short selling profitability is persistent, consistent with skill.

Conventional estimates of the costs of taking liquidity in options markets are large. Nonetheless, options trading volume is high. We resolve this puzzle by showing that options price changes are predictable at high frequency, and many traders time executions by buying (selling) when the option fair value is close to the ask (bid). Effective spreads of traders who time executions are less than 40% of the size of conventional measures, and the overall average effective spread is one-quarter smaller than conventional estimates. Price impact measures are also affected. These findings alter conclusions about the after-cost profitability of options trading strategies.

We find evidence consistent with previously unrecognized market manipulation by broker-dealers. Specifically, we show that pre-trade hedging, which is distinct from front-running, alters prices at which derivative trades occur. We show this behavior is intentional by exploiting variation in the design of structured equity products (SEPs). We find positive abnormal returns on SEP pricing dates for which issuers benefit from altering closing stock prices but no such returns on pricing dates of otherwise similar SEPs. We also show that large buy trades near the close of trading are more frequent when SEP issuers have incentives to alter closing stock prices.

The inelastic markets hypothesis states that the aggregate stock market price elasticity of demand is small, implying that flows have large impacts on prices. We exploit demand shocks created as investor funds are frozen and unfrozen during Chinese IPOs to estimate the impact of demand shocks on the Chinese stock market. Using brokerage account records, we observe the selling and buying as investors raise cash to subscribe for IPOs and then reinvest the funds that supported unsuccessful subscriptions. Using an instrumental variables estimator, a 10 bps demand shock increases the aggregate stock market level by between 30 and 48 bps.

Using recent U.S. data, we find that long-horizon abnormal returns following repurchase announcements made after 2001 are much lower than those following earlier announcements. The equity-linked compensation of senior management of buyback firms exceeds that of matching firms, especially for repurchases announced after 2001. Transient institutional investors equity holdings of buyback firms are smaller than their holdings of matching firms following buyback announcements by repeat repurchasers during 2002–2006. The results suggest that many recent buybacks have not been motivated by fundamentals-based factors such as undervaluation, and that non-fundamentals-based factors such as managerial self-interest have become more important.

Download This Paper Open PDF in Browser Add Paper to My Library Share: Permalink Using these links will ensure access to this page indefinitely Copy URL Copy DOI

Trillions of dollars of derivatives are trading in many markets regularly, but little is known about the direct interactions between different types of derivatives referencing the same firm. This study is the first to examine the impact of credit derivatives on equity derivatives. We show that equity options of firms with credit default swaps (CDS) are more expensive than non-CDS firms’ options. Our main results are based on delta-hedged option returns. The CDS effect on options is robust to different measures of option pricing and sample period, likely to be causal, and is stronger when the funding costs for derivatives dealers are higher. Our findings are consistent with the view that derivatives pricing is influenced by dealers’ intermediation capacity and supportive of the intermediary asset pricing theory.