Using a unique dataset of institutional investors’ equity transactions, we document that institutional trading desks can sustain relative performance over adjacent periods. The best institutional desks exhibit a persistent pattern of negative trading cost, suggesting that skilled traders have the ability to create positive (investment) alpha through their trading strategies. We investigate seve...

Economists and financial analysts have begun to recognise the importance of the actions of other agents in the decision-making process. Herding is the deliberate mimicking of the decisions of other agents. Examples of mimicry range from the choice of restaurant, fashion and financial market participants, to academic research. Herding may conjure negative images of irrational agents sheepishly f...

Based on the data samples using EUA spot and futures in the ICE and BLUENEXT exchange platform in the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), this paper propose the market behavior of convenience yields and examine the options feature of convenience yields for emission allowances. When the convenience yields of emission allowances are positive, the convenience yields are positively re...

This study examines whether the direction and magnitude of the aggregate order-imbalance of the index stocks can explain the arbitrage spread between index futures and the underlying cash index. The data are for the Asian financial crisis period and hence entail wide variations in order imbalance and the index-futures basis. The analysis controls for realistic trading costs and actual dividend ...

Futures exchanges require a margin requirement that ensures their competitiveness and protects against default risk. This paper applies extreme value theory in computing unconditional optimal margin levels for a selection of stock index futures traded on European exchanges. The theoretical framework focuses explicitly on tail returns, thereby properly accounting for large levels of risk in meas...