Does trade size restriction affect trading behavior? Evidence from Indian single stock futures market

Algorithmic traders use their advantage of speed to execute a large number of small-sized trades in a very short time. In the presence of a minimum trading unit (MTU) restriction, they are forced to trade at the smallest possible sizes, often restricted by the MTU. Using a novel data set of single stock futures market obtained from the National Stock Exchange of India, we show that the MTU restriction acts as a binding constraint for traders while optimizing trade sizes. Contrary to expectation, we find weak evidence that liquidity is positively impacted by the contract size revision.