Equity investment: What is tick size and how do investors benefit

EQUITY investment strategies take account of many factors, including tick sizes which are set by a stock exchange.

Here is a primer on tick sizes and how investors benefit from a smaller value.

This educative article is in conjunction with the introduction of a smaller tick size which will be made available by Bursa Malaysia and is planned for implementation on Aug 3.

Equity investors rely a lot on research and information to forecast the potential price appreciation of a stock. This ranges from fundamental analysis of the company to a technical analysis of its historical price movements. There is also a little known indicator known as a spread that can be used by investors to gauge the near-term movement of a particular stock. A stock’s spread is closely influenced by a “tick size”.

Understanding Spreads. Every share that trades on the stock market has a best buy and a best sell price. The best buy price is the highest price in the order book placed by interested buyers for a specific share while the best sell price is the lowest price in the order book placed by interested sellers.

These two prices are determined by demand and supply, which can be seen as a negotiation process between two parties.

The spread is the difference between a share’s best buy and best sell price. The general belief is that a consistently large spread signals low volume for that respective stock.

On the other hand, a narrow spread can indicate that a transaction will occur soon. For example, a stock with a buy/sell price of RM10 and RM10.02 suggests that buyers and sellers are very close to making a trade. If the narrow spread continues, volume for the respective share is expected to be high. A wider spread means that greater changes in the share’s buy or sell price is needed before a transaction can conclude.

Tick Sizes in a Spread. The magnitude of a stock spread is influenced by the tick size or the minimum tick size structure.

This refers to the smallest allowable price variation between the buy and sell price of a stock. The spread of a share can narrow if the tick size is reduced.

In the past few years, many global stock exchanges reduced their permitted tick size as this initiative was found to boost liquidity and efficiency to the capital market as a whole.

To stay competitive and relevant, Bursa Malaysia is also implementing a smaller minimum tick size for all shares and exchange traded funds (ETFs) trading on the local market (see table 1 and 2). Under the new structure, a share with a buy price under RM5 will have a new tick size of 1 sen instead 5 sen. This means, interested buyers or sellers of this respective stock can now enter a buy or sell price of 1 sen instead of 5 sen.

The equity ETFs on the main board also benefit from a smaller tick size. Smaller tick sizes encourage active trading as there are many benefits for retail investors (see box story).

The reduction of tick size is expected to attract more trading volume due to improved opportunities as investors now will have more choice of entering or exiting the market just by smaller trading ticks. In short, this reduction of tick sizes will enable price discovery, leading to a positive impact on market liquidity.

In respect to the bidding price for buying-in, the exchange will retain the 10 ticks. Arising from this, the buying-in price will be based on the current tick sizes instead of the new tick sizes to ensure that the buying-in price is attractive to potential sellers.

This article is contributed by Bursa Malaysia