Round-number biases and informed trading in global markets

This paper investigates whether informed trading matters to round-number biases. We document the global presence of round-number biases by showing excessive buying (selling) pressure immediately below (above) a rounded threshold. Additionally, we demonstrate that trades surrounding 0-ending prices are likely to be initiated by informed traders who tend to buy (sell) at 9-ending (1-ending) prices. Moreover, small-sized (medium-sized) trades with 1-ending or 9-ending prices are revealed to be more informative and conducted persistently. Collectively, these findings seem to suggest that informed investors strategically engage in stealth trading by leveraging round-number biases of liquidity traders, which indirectly drives this anomaly in global markets.