• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.165-190
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• 2008

The degree of informational asymmetry relating to the expiration of index derivatives is usually increased as an expiration day of index derivatives approaches. The increase in the degree of informational asymmetry may have some effects on trading behavior of investors. To examine what the effects look like, 'life cycle of index derivatives' in this study is defined as three adjacent periods around expiration day: pre-expiration period(a week before the expiration day), post-expiration period(a week after the expiration day), and remaining period. It is inspected whether stock investor's trading behavior is changed according to the life cycle of KOSPI200 derivatives and what the reason of the changing behavior is. We have four results. First, trading behavior of each investor group is categorized into three patterns: ㄱ-pattern, L-pattern and U-pattern. The level of trading activity is low for pre-expiration period and normal for other periods in the ㄱ-pattern. L-pattern means that the level of trading activity is high for post-expiration period and normal for other periods. In the U-pattern, the trading activity is reduced for remaining period compared to other periods. Second, individual investors have ㄱ-pattern of trading large stocks according to the life cycle of KOSPI200 index futures while they show U-pattern according to the life cycle of KOSPI200 index options. Their trading behavior is consistent with the prediction of Foster and Viswanathan(1990)'s model for strategic liquidity investors. Third, trading pattern of foreign investors in relation to life cycle of index derivatives is partially explained by the model, but trading pattern of institutional investors has nothing to do with the predictions of the model.