Adverse Selection Costs Research Articles

Are target leverage ratios stable? Investigating the impact of corporate asset restructuring

Abstract If firms balance the benefits and costs of leverage, then we might expect corporate asset shocks to trigger a change in corporate target leverage. We investigate the impact of corporate asset restructuring and find that target leverage after restructuring is reduced for downsizing firms and increased for upsizing firms. Changes in target leverage are stabilized by the second year after the restructuring event and are monotonic relative to the degree of restructuring. Decomposition analysis shows that corporate asset restructuring directly and significantly affects target debt ratios. Compared to control firms, downsizing firms adjust claims by repurchasing debt while upsizing firms issue debt securities. As expected, debt repurchases are associated with lower tax liabilities while debt issuance decisions correspond to lower growth proxies and are consistent with a higher adverse selection cost of issuing equity, positive leverage deficit, higher tax liabilities, and lower bankruptcy risk.

Data-Driven Incentive Alignment in Capitation Schemes

This paper explores whether Big Data, taking the form of extensive high dimensional records, can reduce the cost of adverse selection by private service providers in government-run capitation schemes, such as Medicare Advantage. We argue that using data to improve the ex ante precision of capitation regressions is unlikely to be helpful. Even if types become essentially observable, the high dimensionality of covariates makes it infeasible to precisely estimate the cost of serving a given type: Big Data makes types observable, but not necessarily interpretable. This gives an informed private operator scope to select types that are relatively cheap to serve. Instead, we argue that data can be used to align incentives by forming unbiased and non-manipulable ex post estimates of a private operator’s gains from selection.

The informativeness of pro forma and street earnings: an examination of information asymmetry around earnings announcements

Using adverse-selection cost as a proxy for information asymmetry, we find evidence that non-GAAP earnings numbers issued by management (pro forma earnings) and analysts (street earnings) improve price discovery. First, information asymmetry before an earnings announcement is positively associated with the probability of a non-GAAP earnings number at the forthcoming earnings announcement. Second, the post-announcement reduction in information asymmetry is greater when managers or analysts issue non-GAAP earnings at the earnings announcement and when the magnitude of the non-GAAP earnings adjustment is larger. Our results suggest that earnings adjustments by analysts and managers increase the amount and precision of earnings information and help to narrow information asymmetry between informed and uninformed traders following earnings announcements. Alternatively, the findings may be attributable to characteristics of non-GAAP firms and overall better reporting quality for those firms rather than non-GAAP earnings disclosure per se.

Do Share Repurchases Enhance Liquidity? Evidence from UK Closed-End Funds

Can companies increase the liquidity of their shares through repurchases? On the one hand, the presence of informed insiders increases adverse selection costs; on the other hand, repurchasing firms increase the demand of shares and therefore improves the liquidity. This paper examines the competing hypotheses on the effects of individual repurchase transactions on the stock liquidity (bid-ask spread and trading volume) in the context of closed-end funds that are much less heterogeneous and more transparent than conventional firms. Based on a sample of 119 closed-end funds listed on the London Stock Exchange between 1998 and 2009, we find that repurchases effectively improve share liquidity, suggesting the role of repurchasing funds as “competing market makers”. In addition, we study the regulatory reform on repurchases and show that the positive effect on liquidity is more pronounced when funds have been allowed to hold repurchased shares in treasury for future reinsurance since 2003. Finally, we explore the property of the liquidity effect and document continuity in the liquidity effect of the repurchase program as a result of the high frequency of fund repurchase transactions.

Liquidity Benefits from IPO Underpricing: Ownership Dispersion or Information Effect

The positive correlation between initial underpricing and liquidity in the secondary market several months after an initial public offering (IPO) has previously been attributed to ownership dispersion induced by underpricing. We find that public information production is another channel by which underpricing improves liquidity. Using a sample of IPOs from Euronext, we find that analyst coverage engendered by initial underpricing reduces information asymmetry costs and illiquidity in the secondary market. The impact of information asymmetry is statistically more significant on measures based on adverse selection costs than on those based on the proportion of informed traders in the market.

Monopolistic Insurance and the Value of Information

The value of information regarding risk class for a monopoly insurer and its customers is examined in both symmetric and asymmetric information environments. A monopolist always prefers contracting with uninformed customers as this maximizes the rent extracted under symmetric information while also avoiding the cost of adverse selection when information is held asymmetrically. Although customers are indifferent to symmetric information when they are initially uninformed, they prefer contracting with hidden knowledge rather than symmetric information since the monopoly responds to adverse selection by sharing gains from trade with high-risk customers when low risks are predominant in the insurance pool. However, utilitarian social welfare is highest when customers are uninformed, and is higher when information is symmetric rather than asymmetric.

Signaling with convertible debt in the renewable energy industry?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how convertible debt is used in the renewable energy industry. The authors argue that there is an investor rationing component to the design and market impact of convertible debt securities. Design/methodology/approach – The authors apply event study methodology, option pricing theory and risk shift analysis to examine capital market reactions following the issuance of convertible debt by exchange-listed companies of the renewable energy sector. Findings – Contrary to prior cross-industry research findings, the authors show that convertible debt in the renewable energy industry tends to have a debt-like structure, and its issue is associated with strongly negative announcement returns. The authors further show that convertible issuers face high business risk and adverse selection costs. Practical implications – The results have important implications for both renewable energy industry companies and investors. For example, one problem is that the risk-mitigating features of convertible debt may not materialize, if issuers fail to credibly signal firm quality to the markets. Furthermore, excessive growth assumptions and mismatches between project risk/return and financing costs may render it more difficult to create credible signals. Originality/value – The paper contributes to three primary strands of literature. One is the research on finance and growth. Here, this paper provides new insights into risk-mitigating securities that should more effectively mirror the risk and return distributions of emerging industry issuers. Additionally, it extends the research on the motives for convertible debt offerings and provides insight on stock returns around such announcements.

Game Options Analysis of the Information Role of Call Policies in Convertible Bonds

In debt financing, existence of information asymmetry on the firm quality between the firm management and bond investors may lead to significant adverse selection costs. We develop the two-stage sequential dynamic two-person game option models to analyse the market signalling role of the callable feature in convertible bonds. We show that firms with positive private information on earning potential may signal their type to investors via the callable feature in a convertible bond. We present the variational inequalities formulation with respect to various equilibrium strategies in the two-person game option models via characterization of the optimal stopping rules adopted by the bond issuer and bondholders. The bondholders’ belief system on the firm quality may be revealed with the passage of time when the issuer follows his optimal strategy of declaring call or bankruptcy. Under separating equilibrium, the quality status of the firm is revealed so the information asymmetry game becomes a new game under complete information. To analyse pooling equilibrium, the corresponding incentive compatibility constraint is derived. We manage to deduce the sufficient conditions for the existence of signalling equilibrium of our game option model under information asymmetry. We analyse how the callable feature may lower the adverse selection costs in convertible bond financing. We show how a low-quality firm may benefit from information asymmetry and vice versa, underpricing of the value of debt issued by a high-quality firm.

The securitization of gold and its potential impact on gold stocks

Abstract We study the market impact of a very successful financial innovation – the SPDR Gold Trust exchange-traded fund (GLD). GLD holds physical gold, and provides traders with a convenient and cost-effective way to gain exposure to gold. We find that after the introduction of GLD, the liquidity of gold company stocks declined, and their adverse-selection risk increased. Over the two-month period after GLD’s introduction, the stocks’ relative effective bid-ask spreads increased by over 15%, while their adverse-selection cost, as measured by the price impact of trades, went up by more than 30%. Gold stocks also experienced significant negative abnormal returns (−12% on average) in the month after GLD started trading. Our findings suggest that GLD attracted traders, especially uninformed traders, away from gold company stocks, and that the resulting negative demand shocks and decrease in the stocks’ liquidity caused their prices to decline. Our results show that existing securities can be seriously adversely affected when a new security enters the market.

Anticipatory Traders and Trading Speed

We investigate a class of market participants who follow strategies that anticipate local price trends. These anticipatory traders can correctly process information prior to the overall market and systematically act before other participants. They use manual and automated order entry methods and exhibit varying processing speeds, but most are not fast enough to be high frequency traders. In certain cases, other participants are shown to gain by detecting such trading and reacting to avoid adverse selection costs. To identify these traders, we devise methods to isolate local price paths using order book data from the WTI crude oil futures market.

Information asymmetry around S&P 500 index changes

Purpose – This study aims to explore information asymmetry (IA) (as measured by the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread) around S&P 500 revisions. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use adverse selection cost of trading measures to examine the effects of S&P 500 index composition changes on the trading environment from 2001 to 2010. Findings – The authors find that the adverse selection cost of trading significantly decreases post-addition and increases post-deletion. However, the intraday price dynamics of additions to the index seem to be distinct from those of deletions from the index. The event period cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) for additions are significantly associated with the change in the adverse selection cost of trading. However, this association is non-significant for deletions. The CARs for deletion events are found to be significantly associated with the change in realized spreads. Realized spreads are a measure of revenue earned by liquidity providers in the market. Originality/value – This study helps better understand the dynamics of two types of IA – one from a firm to investor and the other between investors – and presents evidence of the role of adverse selection in index changes. By doing so, it helps better understand the mechanism driving price formation post-addition to and deletion from an index.

Signaling in Online Credit Markets

This paper studies how signaling can facilitate the functioning of a market with classical adverse selection problems. Using data from Prosper.com, an online credit market where loans are funded through auctions, we provide evidence that reserve interest rates that borrowers post can serve as a signaling device. We then develop and estimate a structural model of borrowers and lenders where low reserve interest rates can credibly signal low default risk. Announcing a high reserve interest rate increases the probability of receiving funding at the cost of higher expected interest payments conditional on obtaining a loan. Borrowers regard this trade-off differentially, which results in a separating equilibrium. Using the estimated parameters of the model, we compare the credit supply curve and welfare under three alternative market designs in our counterfactual policy experiment -- a market with signaling, a market without signaling, and a market with no asymmetric information. We find that the cost of adverse selection can be as much as 16% of the total surplus created under no asymmetric information, up to 95% of which can be restored with signaling. We also estimate the credit supply curves for each of the three market designs and find backward-bending supply curves for some of the markets, consistent with the prediction of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981).

Order Flow Volatility and Equity Costs of Capital

We propose that the volatility of order flow is a proxy for costs of information asymmetry, as order flow volatility varies positively with parameters that also influence adverse selection costs of trading. Empirically, order flow volatility is significantly higher prior to earnings or merger announcements when information asymmetry is likely to be elevated. Levels of and shocks to order flow volatility are positively and significantly correlated with existing illiquidity proxies, and strongly predict stock returns in the cross section. The impact of order imbalance volatility shocks on stock prices is reflected within one month in large, visible stocks but takes up to four months to be fully reflected in small, “neglected” stocks. The Internet appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2848 . This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Subsidizing Liquidity: The Impact of Make/Take Fees on Market Quality

ABSTRACTFacing increased competition over the last decade, many stock exchanges changed their trading fees to maker‐taker pricing, an incentive scheme that rewards liquidity suppliers and charges liquidity demanders. Using a change in trading fees on the Toronto Stock Exchange, we study whether and why the breakdown of trading fees between liquidity demanders and suppliers matters. Posted quotes adjust after the change in fee composition, but the transaction costs for liquidity demanders remain unaffected once fees are taken into account. However, as posted bid‐ask spreads decline, traders (particularly retail) use aggressive orders more frequently, and adverse selection costs decrease.

Uninformed Trading and Information Uncertainty in the Post-IPO Market

Underpricing in the initial public offering (IPO) market has been traditionally explained as a means of attracting liquidity traders. We find strong evidence suggesting that the intensity of trading coming from these uninformed traders and the rate of idiosyncratic information arrival play important roles in determining the level of adverse selection cost of trading in the post-IPO market. Timeseries analysis reveals that this cost is lowest immediately post-IPO and it increases monotonically in the first 8–12 weeks of secondary market trading. Order flow variability and the fraction of small trades (both proxies for the extent of uninformed trading) are at their highest in the immediate aftermarket and their levels decay for the next 8–12 weeks. Our results allude to the existence of a negative relationship between underpricing and the adverse selection problem in the post-IPO market, mediated by the intensity of uninformed trading.

Price Discovery in Gold Markets: China and the US

This dissertation contains four studies on different market structures and their impact on market quality.Article I studies the effect of introducing stock index futures contracts on the underlying stocks. The results indicate a lower liquidity level in the underlying stocks. However, after introducing market makers to the futures market, liquidity improves in the underlying stocks while trading activity and volatility remain unchanged.Article II investigates price discovery in the gold futures markets in China and the US. The gold supply and demand from China have been among the world’s largest in recent years. The results show that the gold futures markets in China and the US are cointegrated. Despite its short history, the Chinese gold futures market contributes more to the price discovery than the US market.Article III examines the order aggressiveness of high-frequency traders (HFTs) and non-HFTs. We find that market-making HFTs follow their own group's previous order more than they follow other traders’ orders. Opportunistic HFTs and non-HFTs tend to split market orders into small portions and submit them in sequences. HFTs adhere strongly to the trade-off between waiting cost and the cost of immediate execution. Non-HFTs care less about this trade-off, but react somewhat stronger to volatility than HFTs.Article IV studies the impact of introducing contracted liquidity providers to the liquid stocks in Sweden. The results show that liquidity improves after the liquidity providers’ introduction. The liquidity improvement is not accompanied by a lower liquidity level on Chi-X, a major competitor to the Swedish market. Both the order processing cost and adverse selection cost reduce on the Swedish stock market after contracting the liquidity providers.

The Securitization of Gold and Its Potential Impact on Gold Stocks

We study the market impact of a very successful financial innovation – the SPDR Gold Trust exchange-traded fund (GLD). GLD holds physical gold, and provides traders with a convenient and cost-effective way to gain exposure to gold. We find that after the introduction of GLD, the liquidity of gold company stocks declined, and their adverse-selection risk increased. Over the two-month period after GLD's introduction, the stocks' relative effective bid-ask spreads increased by over 15%, while their adverse-selection cost, as measured by the price impact of trades, went up by more than 30%. Gold stocks also experienced significant negative abnormal returns (–12% on average) in the month after GLD started trading. Our findings suggest that GLD attracted traders, especially uninformed traders, away from gold company stocks, and that the resulting negative demand shocks and decrease in the stocks' liquidity caused their prices to decline. Our results show that existing securities can be seriously adversely affected when a new security enters the market.

Order-Flow and Liquidity Provision

We show how to optimally take positions in the limit order book by placing limit orders at-the-touch when the midprice of the asset is affected by the trading activity of the market. The midprice dynamics have a short-term-alpha component which reflects how instantaneous net order-flow, the difference between the number of market buy and market sell orders, affects the asset's drift. If net-order flow is positive (negative), so short-term-alpha is positive (negative), the strategy may even withdraw from the sell (buy) side of the limit order book to take advantage of inventory appreciation (depreciation) and to protect the trading strategy from adverse selection costs.

Spread component costs and stock trading characteristics in the Spanish Stock Exchange. Two flexible fractional response models

This paper investigates relationships between the spread component costs (adverse selection, order processing and inventory costs) and stock trading characteristics in the Spanish Stock Exchange (SSE), taking into account the random nature of these costs. First, we analyse the statistical properties of estimated spread components in the market, which are obtained by using two statistical models to decompose the bid–ask spread. We then propose a fractional response regression model based on two flexible cross-sectional probability density functions with covariates which accommodate certain aspects of the empirical estimates, such as skewness and bounded distribution. Our model has two main advantages: (i) it can be implemented easily in a maximum likelihood framework; (ii) in contrast to linear regression models, it provides a useful estimate of the statistical significance of the parameters, and predicts costs not only at the conditional mean but also by using quantiles of the estimated conditional distribution. The empirical results corroborate the presence of statistically significant large order processing costs and smaller adverse selection and inventory costs in the SSE. These spread components have a skewed empirical distribution and the proposed fractional regression models represent the behaviour of these costs reasonably well, surpassing the linear regression model in various specification tests.

Enhancing Trading Strategies with Order Book Signals

We use high-frequency data from the Nasdaq exchange to build a measure of volume imbalance in the limit order book (LOB). We show that our measure is a good predictor of the sign of the next market order (MO), i.e. buy or sell, and also helps to predict price changes immediately after the arrival of an MO. Based on these empirical findings, we introduce and calibrate a Markov chain modulated pure jump model of price, spread, LO and MO arrivals, and volume imbalance. As an application of the model, we pose and solve a stochastic control problem for an agent who maximizes terminal wealth, subject to inventory penalties, by executing trades using LOs. We use in-sample-data (January to June 2014) to calibrate the model to ten equities traded in the Nasdaq exchange, and use out-of-sample data (July to December 2014) to test the performance of the strategy. We show that introducing our volume imbalance measure into the optimization problem considerably boosts the profits of the strategy. Profits increase because employing our imbalance measure reduces adverse selection costs and positions LOs in the book to take advantage of favorable price movements.