The impact of the introduction of futures contracts on the spot market volatility: the case of Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

In investigating the impact of futures trading on spot market volatility, it is not obvious to what extent the results obtained using data from well developed and highly liquid markets are applicable to emerging markets. This paper provides evidence on the impact of the introduction of futures trading on spot market volatility using data from both the underlying and non-underlying stocks in the emerging Malaysian stock market. Results show that the onset of futures trading increases spot market volatility and the flow of information to the spot market. It is found that the underlying stocks respond more to recent news, while the non-underlying stocks respond more to old news. The lead-lag and causal relationship between futures trading activity and spot market volatility is also examined. VAR results show that the impact of the previous day's futures trading activity on volatility is positive but short (only a day). This is further confirmed by Granger's causality test.