If trading becomes easier and cheaper, does this attract more noise trades or more informed trades? We investigate this question in the Brussels market, where about 100 stocks were simultaneously traded in two parallel tiers, whereof one, the quot;forward'' segment, was organizationally far...

Until the mid-90s, the more active among the Brussels-listed stocks were traded in two parallel segments: quot;spot'' (that is, with (t 3) settlement) and quot;forward'' (periodic settlement at the end of a two- or three-week period). In this paper we study the opening prices from the angle of...