Abstracts » Business

Cream-skimming or profit-sharing? The curious role of purchased order flow

Article Abstract:

Purchased order flow refers to the practice of dealers or trading locales paying brokers for retail order flow. It is alleged that such agreements are used to "cream skim" uninformed liquidity trades, leaving the information-based trades to established markets. We develop a test of this hypothesis, using a model of the stochastic process of trades. We then estimate the model for a sample of stocks known to be used in order purchase agreements that trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Cincinnati Stock Exchange. Our main empirical result is that there is a significant difference in the information content of orders executed in New York and Cincinnati, and that this difference is consistent with cream-skimming. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Market makers (Securities trading)

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Short sales are almost instantaneously bad news: evidence from the Australian Stock Exchange

Article Abstract:

This paper investigates the market reaction to short sales on an intraday basis in a market setting where short sales are transparent immediately following execution. We find a mean reassessment of stock value following short sales of up to -0.20 percent with adverse information impounded within fifteen minutes or twenty trades. Short sales executed near the end of the financial year and those related to arbitrage and hedging activities are associated with a smaller price reaction; trades near information events precipitate larger price reactions. The evidence is generally weaker for short sales executed using limit orders relative to market orders. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Stocks, Australian Stock Exchange Ltd., Short selling

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