Our empirical study follows two paths. First, we examine the raw daily data provided by
the exchanges to see whether a doubler may have been active during the period when
Leeson was active. Second, we look at the actual data on Leeson’s activities during the
final weeks of his career, in order to find out whether Leeson indeed followed a doubling
strategy. Based on the analysis of the raw data, we conclude that someone, probably
Leeson, did indeed follow a doubling strategy in these markets. This impression is
confirmed when we study his trading immediately prior to the failure of Barings. Leeson
clearly expanded his exposure substantially when prices fell, while selling off some of his
gains when price rose.
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 elaborates on the authorized and
unauthorized trading activities which led to the collapse of Barings, Section 3 focuses on
the issue of doubling in general. Section 4 discusses previous literature on the relationship
between volume and returns. Section 5 presents the data and the methodology, followed
by our empirical results in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 concludes.