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Strategic trading in the wrong direction by a large institutional insider

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  • Giambona, Erasmo
  • Golec, Joseph

Abstract

Many theoretical papers suggest that large informed traders should make misleading or random trades to disguise their trading. Alternatively, informed traders may trade purely on their estimate of stock value. This paper examines the trading behavior of a large institutional insider that periodically trades in the wrong direction, i.e., makes occasional sell (buy) trades within packages of buy (sell) trades. Using a hand-collected data set, we find that three quarters of the trade packages include wrong-direction trades. Wrong trades appear to be used mostly to disguise right-direction trades. We find that the wrong-trade stocks are larger and have less noisy returns, hence, they lack natural disguise. Wrong trades are relatively small, used to accentuate return volatility, distributed evenly during a package of trades, and are not consistently profitable.

Suggested Citation

  • Giambona, Erasmo & Golec, Joseph, 2010. "Strategic trading in the wrong direction by a large institutional insider," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-22, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:17:y:2010:i:1:p:1-22
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    3. Donald Lien & Pi-Hsia Hung, 2023. "Whose trades contribute more to price discovery? Evidence from the Taiwan stock exchange," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 213-263, July.

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