Abstract I demonstrate an important tension between acquiring information and incorporating it into asset prices. As a salient case, I analyze the rise of algorithmic trading (AT), which is typically associated with improved price efficiency. Using a new measure of the information content of...

We use a comprehensive panel of NYSE order book data to show that the liquidity and quoting efficiency improvements associated with algorithmic trading (AT) are attributable to enhanced monitoring by liquidity providers. We find that variation in liquidity provider monitoring uniquely explains...

Based on intraday data for a large cross-section of individual stocks and newly developed econometric procedures, we decompose the realized variation for each of the stocks into separate so-called realized up and down semi-variance measures, or “good” and “bad” volatilities, associated...

We investigate how and why relative tick sizes influence traders' order strategies, and how this affects liquidity provision in the market. Using unique NYSE data, we find that a larger relative tick size benefits HFT market makers: they leave orders in the book longer, trade more aggressively,...

We study performance and competition among high-frequency traders (HFTs). We construct measures of latency and find that differences in relative latency account for large differences in HFTs' trading performance. HFTs that improve their latency rank due to colocation upgrades see improved...

Do equity prices efficiently reflect fundamental information as the Efficient Markets Hypothesis suggests? The author challenges a widely held acceptance by financial academicians of the EMH. In a frictionless environment, information acquisition and trading would be costless, transaction prices...

The Chicago Board Options Exchange concurrently listed European-style and American-style options on the Standard and Poor?s 500 Index from April 2, 1986 through June 20, 1986. We match near-the-money American option quotes with the most nearly contemporaneous, otherwise identical, European...