Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume

Information asymmetry; Informed trading; Trading volume; VCV; Business and International Management; Finance; Economics and Econometrics; Strategy and Management

Abstract :

[en] We propose the Volume Coefficient of Variation (VCV), the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean of trading volume, as a new and simple measure of information asymmetry in security markets. We use a microstructure model to demonstrate that VCV is strictly increasing in the proportion of informed trade. Empirically, we obtain VCV from daily observations of trading volume and provide extensive evidence supporting the hypothesis that VCV indicates information asymmetry, by studying return reversals, institutional ownership, and extant firm-level measures of asymmetric information in the cross-section of US stocks. Moreover, VCV increases following exogenous reductions in analyst coverage induced by brokerage closures, and steeply decreases around earnings announcements and other information disclosures.

Disciplines :

Finance

Author, co-author :

Lof, Matthijs ; Aalto University School of Business, Aalto, Finland

VAN BOMMEL, Jos ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Department of Economics and Management (DEM)

External co-authors :

Language :

English

Title :

Asymmetric information and the distribution of trading volume

Publication date :

October 2023

Journal title :

Journal of Corporate Finance

ISSN :

0929-1199

eISSN :

1872-6313

Publisher :

Elsevier B.V.

Volume :

Pages :

102464

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S092911992300113X?httpAccept=text/xml

Funding text :

☆ We thank an anonymous referee, Anna Bayona, Alex Boulatov, Darwin Choi, Jaewon Choi, Tarun Chordia, Jonathan Cohn, David Easley, Eliezer Fich, Carlos Forner Rodríguez, Thierry Foucault, Bruce Grundy, Alex Gümbel, Sam Hartzmark, Henry Jarva, Dirk Jenter, Pete Kyle, Albert Menkveld, Anna Obizhaeva, Deniz Okat, Conall O'Sullivan, Paolo Pasquariello, Jillian Popadak, Jorg Prokop, David Reiffen, Dagfinn Rime, Francesco Sangiorgi, Enrique Sentana, Andriy Shkilko, Valeri Sokolovski, Sorin Sorescu, Erik Theissen, Ian Tonks, Hugo van Buggenum, Michael Weber, Christian Westheide and participants at the ABFER, CEPR and CUHK Annual Symposium (Hong Kong), the American Economic Association (Chicago), the Eastern Finance Association (Philadelphia), the EBC network, the French Finance Association, the Future of Financial Information conference, the German Finance Association, the SAFE Market Microstructure Conference, the SFM conference (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), the Spanish Finance Association, Aalto University, the Bank of England, the Bank of Finland, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Higher School of Economics, Hong Kong Baptist University, University of Amsterdam, University of Liverpool, University of Maastricht, University of Toulouse, University of Turku, and VU Amsterdam for constructive comments. We thank Fabian Brunner and Nikolas Breikopf for help with the EDGAR data.

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