The Influence of Trading Locations on Equity Returns

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of trading locations on equity returns by examining the stock price behaviour of three Anglo-Dutch dual-listed companies which result from mergers where two corporations agree to function as a single operating business, but maintain separate identities. The shares of these stocks are traded not only in their home market but also on several US stock exchanges in the form of American Depository Receipts. Regressing the return differentials on these dual-listed and cross-listed stocks on the relative market index returns and currency changes provides evidence of an apparent violation of the Law of One Price. The regression results show that the return on each part of dual-listed companies is highly correlated with the market on which it is most intensively traded. Similarly, returns on cross-listed stocks have considerably higher co-movement with US market indices and considerably lower co-movement with home-market indices than their home-market counterparts. Market risk premium is not a significant explanatory variable of the location of trade effect.