INFORMATION-BASED TRADING

Abstract

We consider a pair of traders in a market where the information available to the second trader is a strict subset of the information available to the first trader. The traders make prices based on information concerning a security that pays a random cash flow at a fixed time $T$ in the future. Market information is modeled in line with the scheme of Brody, Hughston, and Macrina. The risk-neutral distribution of the cash flow is known to the traders, who make prices with a fixed multiplicative bid-offer spread and report their prices to a game master who declares that a trade has been made when the bid price of one of the traders crosses the offer price of the other. We prove that the value of the first trader’s position is strictly greater than that of the second. The results are analyzed by use of simulation studies and generalized to situations where (a) there is a hierarchy of traders, (b) there are multiple successive trades, and (c) there is inventory aversion. In these settings, we show that information is superior to strategy.