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Does a unique “T+1 trading rule” in China incur return difference between daytime and overnight periods?

Xundi Diao (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China)
Hongyang Qiu (Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities, Shanghai, China)
Bin Tong (Donghua University, Shanghai, China)

China Finance Review International

ISSN: 2044-1398

Article publication date: 12 December 2017

Issue publication date: 14 February 2018

447

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the difference between the daytime (open-to-close) and overnight (close-to-open) returns of CSI 300 index and its derivative futures.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores the difference between the daytime and overnight time returns by using nonparametric techniques. Moreover, investigation on some factors such as short selling, trading rules, risks are made to seek the sources of the day and night effects based on a large number of empirical analysis. In the end, further analyses on daytime and overnight returns are given by the use of high-frequency data and linear regression technique.

Findings

The authors show that the daytime returns of CSI 300 index are no less than its overnight returns, while the daytime returns of CSI 300 index futures are no more than its overnight returns, even after removing the heteroscedasticity of the researched time series. Specifically, the PM returns (13:05 to close) play a quite important role in the intra-day time. The findings also suggest that the unique “T+1 trading rule” in China may be a reason that incurs the lower opening price in the morning and the higher closing price in the afternoon, resulting in the statistically significant differences between the daytime and overnight returns.

Practical implications

The findings are of great importance for investors to decide when to buy and sell stock and futures portfolios in Chinese financial markets.

Originality/value

This study empirically analyzes why there the higher daytime returns and the lower overnight returns exist in the Chinese stock markets from different aspects and contributes the existing literature on day and night effects because of periodic market closures.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors benefited from the discussions with Professor Duan Li and his group team in The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors are especially grateful to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for very extensive and helpful feedback. The authors also wish to acknowledge the R Core Team (2014) and all the contributors and maintainers of the packages utilized for empirical analysis in the paper. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71201100, 71320107002, 71771147). All remaining errors are that of the authors alone.

Citation

Diao, X., Qiu, H. and Tong, B. (2018), "Does a unique “T+1 trading rule” in China incur return difference between daytime and overnight periods?", China Finance Review International, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 2-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/CFRI-12-2016-0130

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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