Buyers versus Sellers: Who Initiates Trades and When?
37 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2011
There are 2 versions of this paper
Buyers Versus Sellers: Who Initiates Trades and When?
Date Written: March 9, 2011
Abstract
We study the relation between order imbalance and past returns and firm characteristics and test a number of hypothesis including the disposition effect, momentum and contrarian trading, tax-loss selling and flight-to-quality hypothesis. These hypotheses make predictions about investors' buy or sell decisions, but previous studies that test these hypotheses use turnover data that combine both buyer and seller-initiated trades. We find that investors behave as contrarians over short horizons and as momentum traders over longer horizons. We find strong support for seasonal tax induced trading but little evidence of flight-to-quality.
Keywords: Order imbalance, turnover, disposition effect, momentum, tax-loss selling, flight-to-quality
JEL Classification: G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation