Failure is an Option Impediments to Short Selling and Options.pdf

Failure is an Option: Impediments to Short Selling and Options Prices Richard B. Evans Christopher C. Geczy David K. Musto * Adam V. Reed This Version: December 7, 2005 Abstract Regulations allow market makers to short sell without borrowing stock, and the transactions of a major options market maker show that in most hard-to-borrow situations, it chooses not to borrow and instead fails to deliver stock to its buyers. Some of the value of failing passes through to option prices: when failing is cheaper than borrowing, the relation between borrowing costs and option prices is significantly weaker. The remaining value is profit to the market maker, and its ability to profit despite the usual competition between market makers appears to result from a cost advantage of larger market makers at failing. * Evans is from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Geczy and Musto are from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Reed is from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. We gratefully acknowledge important input from an anonymous referee, Michael Brandt, Greg Brown, Jennifer Conrad, George Constantinides, Patrick Dennis, Darrell Duffie, Bin Gao, Eitan Goldman, Jonathan Karpoff, Richard Rendleman and seminar participants at Notre Dame, USC, UT, Wharton and the Western Finance Association Meetings. We thank Wes Gray for excellent research assistance. The Frank Russell Company generously provided constitution lists for their Russell 3000 index. Corresponding Author: Adam Reed; Campus Box 3490, McColl Building; Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Phone: (919) 962-9785. E-mail: adam_reed@. The ma