FIN-00-032


Dynamic Volume-Return Relation of Individual Stocks

August 15, 2000

Guillermo Llorente, Roni Michaely, Gideon Saar, and Jiang Wang

ABSTRACT

We examine the dynamic relation between return and volume of individual stocks. Using a simple model in which investors trade to share risk or speculate on private information, we show that returns generated by risk-sharing trades tend to reverse themselves while returns generated by speculative trades tend to continue themselves. We test this theoretical prediction by analyzing the relation between daily volume and first-order return autocorrelation for individual stocks listed on the NYSE and AMEX. We find that the cross-sectional variation in the relation between volume and return autocorrelation is related to the extent of informed trading in a manner consistent with the theoretical prediction.

Subject
Investments/Market Efficiency; Investments/Predictability of Asset Returns; Market Microstructure

Classification
Empirical/Theoretical

Guillermo Llorente

Institution: Facultad de C. Economicas, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
Email: ttguiller@uam.es
Telephone: 34-91-397-4812

Roni Michaely
Institution: Johnson School of Management, Cornell University
Email: rm34@cornell.edu
Telephone: 607-255-7209

Gideon Saar
Institution: Stern School of Business, New York University
Email: gsaar@stern.nyu.edu
Telephone: (212) 998-0318
Home Page: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~gsaar/

Jiang Wang
Institution: Sloan School of Management, MIT and the National Bureau of Economic Research
Email: wangj@mit.edu
Telephone: (617) 253-2632

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