After executing option orders, options market makers turn to the stock market to hedge away the underlying stock exposure. As a result, the stock exposure imbalance in option transactions translates into an imbalance in stock transactions. This paper decomposes the total stock order imbalance...

We estimate daily aggregate order flow of individual stocks from institutional investors as well as for hedge funds and other institutions separately. We find that the estimated institutional order imbalance positively predicts stock return on the next day and outperforms other institutional...

Despite abundant empirical evidence of informed trading ahead of major corporate events, no such evidence has been reported in the case of corporate spinoff (SP) announcements. This is surprising, as SP announcements are unexpected, and are also associated with a positive price jump in the...

We examine whether the distribution of trades along the set of strike prices of option contracts on the same stock contains information about underlying price discovery. We show that option traders' demand for delta exposure drives the volume-weighted average strike-spot price ratio (VWKS). In...

This paper investigates the market microstructure effects on client firms of equity holdings by relationship banks, i.e., lenders and/or underwriters, prior to the 2008 financial crisis. It intends to shed light on the need for “the Volcker Rule.” We find that banks' equity holdings of...