ETF effects: The role of primary versus secondary market activities

Carole Comerton-Forde and Thomas Marta

Journal of Financial Markets, 2025, vol. 75, issue C

Abstract: High-frequency traders (HFTs) dominate secondary market trading in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) but do not engage in ETF arbitrage. By contrast, primary market arbitrageurs enforce the law of one price, but their activities are infrequent and limited by arbitrage costs. We find that primary market activity is associated with increased volatility and illiquidity in overweighted ETF constituent stocks, while HFT activity is linked to narrower bid–ask spreads. Using a quasi-natural experiment in Japan, we show that while ETF primary market activity can temporarily disrupt market quality, the liquidity benefits of secondary market trading ultimately outweigh these negative effects.

Keywords: Exchange traded funds; HFT; Volatility; Arbitrage; Liquidity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G15 G23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418125000230
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finmar:v:75:y:2025:i:c:s1386418125000230

DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2025.100983

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Markets is currently edited by B. Lehmann, D. Seppi and A. Subrahmanyam

More articles in Journal of Financial Markets from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().