Large Trades and Intraday Futures Price Behavior
Journal of Futures Markets, Vol. 28, No. 12, pp. 1147-1181, December 2008
49 Pages Posted: 18 Dec 2008
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of large trades executed by outside customer on the prices of futures contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. We find that, on average, large buyer-initiated trades have a larger permanent price impact (information effect) than large seller-initiated trades, while the opposite is found for the temporary price impact (liquidity effects) of large trades. These results are consistent with previous findings for block and institutional trades in equity markets. However, we also find that the information effects of large sells are larger than large buys in bearish markets, while the results are the reverse in bullish markets. The liquidity price effects of buys are larger than the liquidity price effects of sells in bearish markets whereas the reverse results hold in bullish markets. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the current economic condition is a key determinant of asymmetric price effects between large buys and large sells.
Keywords: Market Price Impacts, Liquidity Effects, Information Effects, Large Trades, Futures Price Behavior
JEL Classification: G10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation