{"title":"Strategic Trading in the Wrong Direction By a Large Institutional Insider","authors":"J. Golec, Erasmo Giambona","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.908708","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Many theoretical papers suggest that large informed traders should make misleading or random trades to disguise their trading. Alternatively, informed traders may trade purely on their estimate of stock value. This paper examines the trading behavior of a large institutional insider that periodically trades in the wrong direction, i.e., makes occasional sell (buy) trades within packages of buy (sell) trades. Using a hand-collected data set, we find that three quarters of the trade packages include wrong-direction trades. Wrong trades appear to be used mostly to disguise right-direction trades. We find that the wrong-trade stocks are larger and have less noisy returns, hence, they lack natural disguise. Wrong trades are relatively small, used to accentuate return volatility, distributed evenly during a package of trades, and are not consistently profitable.","PeriodicalId":40006,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Derivatives","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2009-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Derivatives","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.908708","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
Many theoretical papers suggest that large informed traders should make misleading or random trades to disguise their trading. Alternatively, informed traders may trade purely on their estimate of stock value. This paper examines the trading behavior of a large institutional insider that periodically trades in the wrong direction, i.e., makes occasional sell (buy) trades within packages of buy (sell) trades. Using a hand-collected data set, we find that three quarters of the trade packages include wrong-direction trades. Wrong trades appear to be used mostly to disguise right-direction trades. We find that the wrong-trade stocks are larger and have less noisy returns, hence, they lack natural disguise. Wrong trades are relatively small, used to accentuate return volatility, distributed evenly during a package of trades, and are not consistently profitable.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Derivatives (JOD) is the leading analytical journal on derivatives, providing detailed analyses of theoretical models and how they are used in practice. JOD gives you results-oriented analysis and provides full treatment of mathematical and statistical information on derivatives products and techniques. JOD includes articles about: •The latest valuation and hedging models for derivative instruments and securities •New tools and models for financial risk management •How to apply academic derivatives theory and research to real-world problems •Illustration and rigorous analysis of key innovations in derivative securities and derivative markets