Activity of informed traders and stock returns

PurposeRecent studies suggested the ratio of option to stock volume reflected the private information. Informed traders were drawn to the options market for its leverage effect and relatively low transaction costs. Informed traders use different intervals of option moneyness to execute their strategies. The question is which types of option moneyness were traded by informed traders and what information was reflected in the market. In this study, the authors focused on this question and constructed a method for capturing the activity of informed traders in the options and stock markets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors constructed the daily measure, moneyness option trading volume to stock trading volume ratio (MOS), to capture the activity of informed traders in the market. The authors formed quintile portfolios sorted with respect to the moneyness option to stock trading volume ratio and provided the capital asset pricing model and Fama-French five-factor alphas. To determine whether MOS had predictive ability on future stock returns after controlling for company characteristic effects, the authors formed double-sorted portfolios and performed Fama-Macbeth regressions.FindingsThe authors found that the firms in the lowest moneyness option trading volume to stock trading volume ratio for put quintile outperform the highest quintile by 0.698% per week (approximately 36% per year). The firms in the highest moneyness option trading volume to stock trading volume ratio for call quintile outperform the lowest quintile by 0.575% per week (approximately 30% per year).Originality/valueThe authors first propose the measures, moneyness option trading volume to stock trading volume ratio, that combined with the trading volume and option moneyness. The authors provide evidence that the measures have the predictive ability to the future stock returns.