Imperfect Information and Cross-Autocorrelation among Stock Prices.

Abstract

The author develops a model to explain why stock returns are positively cross-autocorrelated. When marketmakers observe noisy signals about the value of their stocks but cannot instantaneously condition prices on the signals of other stocks, which contain marketwide information, the pricing error of one stock is correlated with the other signals. As marketmakers adjust prices after observing true values or previous price changes of other stocks, stock returns become positively cross-autocorrelated. If the signal quality differs among stocks, the cross-autocorrelation pattern is asymmetric. The author shows that both own- and cross-autocorrelations are higher when market movements are larger. Copyright 1993 by American Finance Association.