IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v157y2024ics0304405x2400059x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tiny trades, big questions: Fractional shares

Author

Listed:
  • Bartlett, Robert P.
  • McCrary, Justin
  • O'Hara, Maureen

Abstract

This paper investigates fractional share trading. We develop a latency-based method for identifying a large sample of fractional share trades. We find that high-priced stocks, meme stocks, IPOs, SPACs, and popular retail stocks exhibit considerable numbers of these tiny trades. We surmise that this reflects dollar-based order entry, with many tiny trades being fractional components of larger orders. We show that our fractional trade measure is predictive of future liquidity and volatility, suggesting a new metric to capture the information in retail trades. We identify how data and reporting protocols preclude knowing the extent of fractional share trading, inflate volume data, and provide censured samples of these off-exchange trades.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartlett, Robert P. & McCrary, Justin & O'Hara, Maureen, 2024. "Tiny trades, big questions: Fractional shares," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:157:y:2024:i:c:s0304405x2400059x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X2400059X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2024.103836?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thierry Foucault & David Sraer & David J. Thesmar, 2011. "Individual Investors and Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1369-1406, August.
    2. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Ning Zhu, 2009. "Do Retail Trades Move Markets?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 151-186, January.
    3. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang & Xinran Zhang, 2021. "Tracking Retail Investor Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(5), pages 2249-2305, October.
    4. Jiafeng Chen & Jonathan Roth, 2024. "Logs with Zeros? Some Problems and Solutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(2), pages 891-936.
    5. Maureen O'Hara & Chen Yao & Mao Ye, 2014. "What's Not There: Odd Lots and Market Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2199-2236, October.
    6. Bartlett, Robert P. & McCrary, Justin, 2019. "How rigged are stock markets? Evidence from microsecond timestamps," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 37-60.
    7. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2003. "Herd Behaviour and Cascading in Capital Markets: a Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(1), pages 25-66, March.
    8. Lee, Charles M. C. & Radhakrishna, Balkrishna, 2000. "Inferring investor behavior: Evidence from TORQ data," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 83-111, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Qin & Zhang, Jun, 2015. "Does individual investor trading impact firm valuation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 120-135.
    2. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    3. Stephanie Kremer & Dieter Nautz, 2013. "Short†term Herding of Institutional Traders: New Evidence from the German Stock Market," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(4), pages 730-746, September.
    4. Jang, Jeewon, 2017. "Stock return anomalies and individual investors in the Korean stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA), pages 141-157.
    5. Fung, Scott & Obaid, Khaled & Tsai, Shih-Chuan, 2024. "Information acquisition and processing skills of institutions and retail investors around information shocks," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang & Xinran Zhang, 2021. "Tracking Retail Investor Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(5), pages 2249-2305, October.
    7. Kremer, Stephanie & Nautz, Dieter, 2011. "Short-term herding of institutional traders: New evidence from the German stock market," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2011-015, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    8. Kremer, Stephanie, 2010. "Herding of institutional traders," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2010-025, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    9. Joel Peress & Daniel Schmidt, 2020. "Glued to the TV: Distracted Noise Traders and Stock Market Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(2), pages 1083-1133, April.
    10. Tao Chen & Robert K. Larson & Han Mo, 2024. "Investor Herding and Price Informativeness in Global Markets: Evidence from Earnings Announcements," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 92-110, January.
    11. Jain, Pawan & Jiang, Christine, 2014. "Predicting future price volatility: Empirical evidence from an emerging limit order market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 72-93.
    12. David Ardia & Cl'ement Aymard & Tolga Cenesizoglu, 2024. "Revisiting Boehmer et al. (2021): Recent Period, Alternative Method, Different Conclusions," Papers 2403.17095, arXiv.org.
    13. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Menelaos Karanasos & Stavroula Yfanti & Aris Kartsaklas, 2021. "Investors' trading behaviour and stock market volatility during crisis periods: A dual long‐memory model for the Korean Stock Exchange," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 4441-4461, July.
    14. Aktas, Osman Ulas & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2014. "Market impacts of trades for stocks listed on the Borsa Istanbul," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 152-175.
    15. Chiou, Calvin J. & Zhou, Xiaozhou & Chan, Chang, 2022. "A taxonomy of individual liquidity provision: Evidence from the Taiwan stock exchange," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    16. Baginski, Stephen P. & Demers, Elizabeth & Kausar, Asad & Yu, Yingri Julia, 2018. "Linguistic tone and the small trader," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 68, pages 21-37.
    17. Owain Ap Gwilym & Iftekhar Hasan & Qingwei Wang & Ru Xie, 2016. "In Search of Concepts: The Effects of Speculative Demand on Stock Returns," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(3), pages 427-449, June.
    18. Greenwood, Robin & Thesmar, David, 2011. "Stock price fragility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 471-490.
    19. Rawley Heimer, 2014. "Can Leverage Constraints Help Investors?," Working Papers (Old Series) 1433, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    20. Boortz, Christopher & Kremer, Stephanie & Jurkatis, Simon & Nautz, Dieter, 2014. "Information risk, market stress and institutional herding in financial markets: New evidence through the lens of a simulated model," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2014-029, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fractional shares; Retail trade; Robinhood trading; FINRA; Trade reporting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:157:y:2024:i:c:s0304405x2400059x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.