This study examines bid-ask spreads in the stock market around the introduction of the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500 index futures contract and tests the following competing hypotheses: (1) stock spreads may widen as uninformed traders migrate to futures and (2) spreads may narrow because...

An exclusive focus on bottom-line income misses important information contained in accruals (the difference between accounting earnings and cash flow) about the quality of earnings. Earnings increases that are accompanied by high accruals, suggesting low-quality earnings, are associated with...

The authors analyze the effects of a finite tick size and the practice of 'payment-for-order flow' on market competition. Even if the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) reservation price is superior to its non-NYSE counterpart, brokers may, because of payment-for-order flow, prefer to execute orders...