Narrow Results

Theories are inconclusive about the various impacts of the introduction of basket securities on the underlying stocks. We explore those effects for the first time around the launch of options on exchange traded funds (ETFs), employing the listing of the options on the S&P 500 Depository Receipts (SPDRs) in January 2005. With known factors controlled respectively, we find that the introduction of the SPDRs options leads to lower trading volume, higher bid–ask spread, higher systematic and total risks, and lower prices for the underlying stocks, consistent with the theory that the advent of basket derivatives alters the mix of various types of portfolio traders in the related markets when they are fully integrated.

I use five separate measures of deviation from Put-Call Parity of options on a stock without splits or dividends as separate negative measures for market efficiency. I rely upon the theory of trading volume as a function of short sales costs, etc., and that of market efficiency as a function of trading volume, etc. derived by Bhattacharya (2019). I use Three-Stage Least Squares (3SLS) to estimate this structural system, separately for Nasdaq and non-Nasdaq U.S. stocks. I find, contrary to much previous theoretical and empirical work, that the impact of short sales costs & constraints on market efficiency is not significantly negative and that the impact of trading volume on market efficiency is not significantly positive, and my results are robust to various econometric specifications and financial economic assumptions.

We employ neural networks to understand volatility surface movements. We first use daily data on options on the S&P 500 index to derive a relationship between the expected change in implied volatility and three variables: the return on the index, the moneyness of the option, and the remaining life of the option. This model provides an improvement of 10.72% compared with a simpler analytic model. We then enhance the model with an additional feature: the level of the VIX index prior to the change being observed. This produces a further improvement of 62.12% and shows that the expected response of the volatility surface to movements in the index is quite different in high and low volatility environments.

Previous studies of the limit order book report that low depths accompany wide spreads and that spreads widen and depths fall in response to higher volume, but some postulate a positive relationship between spreads and depth during normal trading periods. We calculate the option value of the limit order book at 11:00 a.m. for 10 actively traded firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Simultaneously this approach enables us to consider the spread and depth of the limit order book. We find that 33.1% of the option value of the limit order book is provided at the best ask and 34.7% at the best bid. We find that the option value of the limit order book is greatest at the best bid price and the best ask price and is more stable through time than the option value of individual shares or share quantities in the book. Also, consistent with the arguments of Cohen et al. (1981), we find evidence of equilibrium in the supply and demand of liquidity.