The Value of the Floor
43 Pages Posted: 23 Jun 2009
Date Written: May 12, 2009
Abstract
Existing theoretical literature suggests that floor trading has discernable benefits over electronic trading. In particular floor relationships lead to a reduction in asymmetric information and hence lower spreads. The ability of floor brokers to participate in incoming order flow without revealing their supply and demand curves increases total liquidity and dampens liquidity shocks leading to lower volatility. We develop hypotheses and test them on a sample of stocks that switch from floor trading to an electronic system with fairly identical rules and pre-trade transparency. We find strong support for existing theory and our hypotheses. In particular asymmetric information and volatility are significantly higher on the electronic system. This leads to an increase in investor transaction costs which dwarfs the operational cost advantages of the electronic systems. Our results are robust to test involving samples that control for company specific factors and market wide trends.
Keywords: Microstructure, Asymmetric Information, Trading Floor, Volatility, Transaction Costs
JEL Classification: G1, G14, G18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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