Impact of the Electronic Trading on the Stock Prices of Jordanian Listed Companies

Abstract

The development of economies has been significantly hampered by inadequate financing. The introduction of securities exchanges is considered as a key strategy for improving access to financing for organizations. The introduction of electronic trading systems in these markets is meant to enable them take advantage of technology and improve access to financing for listed companies. However, the system may have the adverse effect of increasing the level of stock price volatility. A quantitative study using data collected from the ASE is undertaken here. The increase in price volatility for the industrial stocks in the ASE was not statistically significant. The mean returns for the shares were similar in the period before and after the introduction of the system. The findings indicate that the electronic system increases the level of transparency in the market and improvement in efficiency is not accompanied by a change in the price volatility. It was expected that the change in market liquidity and portfolio flows would influence price changes in the market. This was not the case and it may be an indication that the level of returns in the market did not significantly increase.The market returns for the stocks of industrial listed companies are calculated. Using independent samples tests, the returns are evaluated for a period of 5 years before and after the introduction of the system.