We investigate how price discovery occurs in the options markets through traders' trade size choice. By employing transactions data on all options traded on a sample of 100 firms, we show that informed traders fragment their orders into small (medium) trades for low (high) volume contracts. We also find that almost 60% of the price discovery occurs in the exchange with the largest market share for a given option, where informed traders favor medium size trades. Upon examining distinct option series for a given stock, we find that at-the-money calls display the highest information share.

We explore the link between mutual funds and fragility risk in the corporate bond market. We classify a fund’s trading style based on its responses to signals of large dealer inventories. Trading style is persistent and the majority of funds demand liquidity. Notably, a subset of funds earn positive alpha by intentionally supplying liquidity during periods of sustained customer selling (with transitory price effects). Liquidity-supplying funds maintain their relative trading style when facing large outflows and elevated market stress, thus alleviating fragility risk. Our results add nuance to existing evidence that mutual funds pose a threat to market stability.