Treasury Safety,Liquidity, and Money Premium Dynamics: Evidence from Debt Limit Impasses

Treasury securities enjoy a “money premium” because they are ultra-safe and liquid. However, during debt limit impasses, the safety and liquidity of Treasury securities temporarily deteriorate, eroding the money premium. Using past impasses, we find the money premium eroded by roughly six basis points across all Treasury securities and up to 50 basis points for the shortest maturities at the greatest risk of a delayed principal payment. Safety and liquidity each accounted for about half of the erosion. The deterioration of safety and liquidity also appears to interact, consistent with theories of default-driven liquidity risk and the information sensitivity of debt.     

New Issue Yield Spreads in the 30-Year Treasury Bond Market

This paper investigates the seasoning process of yield spreads between newly issued and seasoned 30-year Treasury bonds. These securities provide a unique data set for analyzing this relationship in that they allow for control of noncoupon differences between securities that were present in previous studies on corporate bonds. The results indicate that, in contrast to the existing literature, there appears to be a price premium for newly issued securities. We attribute this difference primarily to be a function of a higher degree of liquidity inherent to newly issued Treasury bonds.     

Are Liquidity and Information Risks Priced in the Treasury Bond Market?

We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of the effects of liquidity and information risks on expected returns of Treasury bonds. We focus on the systematic liquidity risk of Pastor and Stambaugh as opposed to the traditional microstructure-based measures of liquidity. Information risk is measured by the probability of information-based trading (PIN). We document a strong positive relation between expected Treasury returns and liquidity and information risks, controlling for the effects of other systematic risk factors and bond characteristics. This relation is robust to many empirical specifications and a wide variety of traditional liquidity and informed trading proxies.     

Yield Spread and Term to Maturity: Default vs. Liquidity

The aim of this paper is the analysis of the yield spreads between Treasury and non–Treasury Spanish fixed income assets and its relationship with the term to maturity. We find a downward sloping term structure of yield spreads for investment–grade bonds that seems to be contrary to the 'crisis at maturity' theory. However, we claim that this outcome is caused mainly by the effect of liquidity on yield spreads. Once the effect of liquidity and other factors are removed we find that there is a positive relationship between default premiums and term to maturity. That result is now consistent with the existing literature.     

国债市场新券和旧券流动性实证研究

新券和旧券流动性差异一直以来都是国际学术界被广泛关注与研究的问题，本文选择在上海证券交易所上市交易的7年期，10年期和20年期国债，利用日内交易数据。实证研究了新券与旧券的流动性问题，研究发现新券和旧券在流动性上存在显著的差异，新券的流动性要明显好于旧券的流动性，论文对产生差异的原因进行了分析。     

The increasing default risk of US Treasury securities due to the financial crisis

This paper examines the impact of the current financial crisis on long-term US Treasury yields by testing the impact of a series of events from December 2007 to March 2009 on the spread between 10-year USD LIBOR swap and 10-year US Treasury (constant maturity) rates to measure risk associated with Treasuries. Controlling for the liquidity of the two markets, the default risk of the swap, and the net foreign purchases of Treasury securities, we find that 13 of the tested 20 events have significantly negative coefficients. We conclude that the lower spread is consistent with greater default risk for US Treasury securities.     

On the determinants of yield spreads between mortgage pass-through and Treasury securities

Yield spreads between mortgage pass-through and U.S. Treasury securities may reflect differences in taxation, phenomena affecting relative supply and demand, and compensation for default, call, and marketability risks on mortgage instruments. Our research empirically models differences in yields between pass-throughs and comparable-maturity Treasuries. We find that interest-rate volatility and the term structure of rates, factors often cited in the mortgage pricing literature as affecting the mortgage call premium, are the primary determinants of movements in these spreads. Moreover, these effects have grown in importance in recent years as exercise of the prepayment option has increased. We also find evidence that liquidity and credit concerns affect the pricing of pass-through securities.     

Liquidity,the Value of the Firm,and Corporate Finance

The theory of corporate finance has been based on the idea that a company's market value is determined mainly by just two variables: the company's expected after‐tax operating cash flows or earnings, and the risk associated with producing them. The authors argue that there is another important factor affecting a company's value: the liquidity of its own securities, debt as well as equity. The paper supports this argument by reviewing the large and growing body of evidence showing that differences—and changes—in liquidity can have major effects on the pricing of corporate stocks and bonds or, equivalently, on investors' required returns for holding them. The authors also suggest that the liquidity of a company's securities can be managed by corporate policies and actions. For those companies whose value is likely to be increased by having more liquid securities—which is by no means true of all companies (mature firms that don't need outside capital may well benefit from having more concentrated ownership and hence less liquidity)—management should consider actions such as reducing leverage and substituting dividends for stock repurchases as well as measures designed to increase the effectiveness of their disclosure and investor relations program and the size of their investor base.     

Liquidity,Maturity, and the Yields on U.S. Treasury Securities

The effects of asset liquidity on expected returns for assets with infinite maturities (stocks) are examined for bonds (Treasury notes and bills with matched maturities of less than 6 months). The yield to maturity is higher on notes, which have lower liquidity. The yield differential between notes and bills is a decreasing and convex function of the time to maturity. The results provide a robust confirmation of the liquidity effect in asset pricing.     

Relative Liquidity,Fund Flows and Short‐Term Demand: Evidence from Exchange‐Traded Funds

We show that highly liquid Exchange‐Traded Funds (ETFs), especially those that are more liquid than their underlying basket of securities (i.e., positive relative liquidity), are particularly attractive to investors. Using three definitions of liquidity, we find that relative liquidity predicts net fund flows, as well as inflows and outflows positively and significantly. We further document a liquidity clientele among institutional investors: (i) relative liquidity is significantly more important for short‐ than for long‐term investors; and (ii) relative liquidity is inversely related to investors’ average holding duration in the ETFs. These two findings provide evidence that relative liquidity encourages short‐term demand.     

Liquidity,the Value of the Firm,and Corporate Finance*

The theory of corporate finance has been based on the idea that a company's market value is determined mainly by just two variables: the company's expected aftertax operating cash flows or earnings, and the risk associated with producing them. The authors argue that there is another important factor affecting a company's value: the liquidity of its own securities, debt as well as equity. The paper supports this argument by reviewing the large and growing body of evidence showing that differences—and, perhaps even more important, sudden changes—in liquidity can have major effects on the pricing of corporate stocks and bonds or, equivalently, on investors' required returns for holding them. The authors also suggest that the liquidity of a company's securities can be managed by corporate policies and actions. For those companies whose value is likely to be increased by having more liquid securities—which is by no means true of all companies (for example, mature firms with little need for outside equity are likely to benefit from having more concentrated ownership and hence less liquidity)—management should consider actions such as reducing leverage and substituting dividends for stock repurchases as well as measures designed to increase the effectiveness of their disclosure and investor relations program and the size of their retail investor base.     

流动性补偿、市场内及跨市场“流动性转移”行为

本文分析了我国国债市场的流动性补偿问题,讨论了国债市场内部不同债券之间的流动性转移(Flight-to-liquidity)行为以及国债与企业债市场之间的跨市场流动性转移行为。研究结果发现:流动性显著影响我国国债市场收益率;我国国债市场上,国债市场内部不同债券之间的流动性转移行为显著,当投资者发现债券的流动性变差时,将在国债市场范围内选择流动性好的债券进行投资转移;国债市场与企业债券市场之间的跨市场流动性转移行为比较微弱。     

Liquidity,Reconstitution, and the Value of U.S. Treasury Strips

An apparent pricing anomaly exists in the market for U.S. Treasury strips: zero-coupon strips created from principal payments typically trade at significantly higher prices than otherwise identical zero-coupon strips created from coupon payments. In addition to documenting this phenomenon, this study demonstrates that differences in liquidity and differences in reconstitution characteristics explain much of this price variation.     

Price Discovery in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Impact of Orderflow and Liquidity on the Yield Curve

We examine the role of price discovery in the U.S. Treasury market through the empirical relationship between orderflow, liquidity, and the yield curve. We find that orderflow imbalances (excess buying or selling pressure) account for up to 26% of the day‐to‐day variation in yields on days without major macroeconomic announcements. The effect of orderflow on yields is permanent and strongest when liquidity is low. All of the evidence points toward an important role of price discovery in understanding the behavior of the yield curve.     

资产证券化流动性的系统协同分析

在系统协同视角下,资产证券化流动性具有三个层次,第一层次指被证券化资产的流动性,第二层次指资产支持证券的一级市场流动性,第三层次指资产支持证券的二级市场流动性,前两个层次流动性的成败最终取决于第三层次的流动性。资产证券化流动性的系统协同要素包括市场基础、工具创新以及风险监管。解决我国资产证券化流动性不足的出路在于层次和要素的系统协同。     

Liquidity risk of corporate bond returns: conditional approach

We study the exposure of the US corporate bond returns to liquidity shocks of stocks and Treasury bonds over the period 1973–2007 in a regime-switching model. In one regime, liquidity shocks have mostly insignificant effects on bond prices, whereas in another regime, a rise in illiquidity produces significant but conflicting effects: Prices of investment-grade bonds rise while prices of speculative-grade (junk) bonds fall substantially (relative to the market). Relating the probability of these regimes to macroeconomic conditions we find that the second regime can be predicted by economic conditions that are characterized as “stress.” These effects, which are robust to controlling for other systematic risks (term and default), suggest the existence of time-varying liquidity risk of corporate bond returns conditional on episodes of flight to liquidity. Our model can predict the out-of-sample bond returns for the stress years 2008–2009. We find a similar pattern for stocks classified by high or low book-to-market ratio, where again, liquidity shocks play a special role in periods characterized by adverse economic conditions.     

An Empirical Analysis of Stock and Bond Market Liquidity

This article explores cross-market liquidity dynamics by estimatinga vector autoregressive model for liquidity (bid-ask spreadand depth, returns, volatility, and order flow in the stockand Treasury bond markets). Innovations to stock and bond marketliquidity and volatility are significantly correlated, implyingthat common factors drive liquidity and volatility in thesemarkets. Volatility shocks are informative in predicting shiftsin liquidity. During crisis periods, monetary expansions areassociated with increased liquidity. Moreover, money flows togovernment bond funds forecast bond market liquidity. The resultsestablish a link between "macro" liquidity, or money flows,and "micro" or transactions liquidity.     

Tax and Liquidity Effects in Pricing Government Bonds

Daily data from interdealer government bond brokers are examined for tax and liquidity effects. We use two approaches to create cash flow matching portfolios of similar securities and look for pricing discrepancies associated with liquidity or tax effects. We also look for the presence of tax and liquidity effects by including a liquidity term when fitting a cubic spline to the after-tax yield curve. We find evidence of tax timing options and liquidity effects. However, the effects are much smaller than previously reported and the effects of liquidity are primarily due to high volume bonds with long maturities.     

Liquidity mergers

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions “liquidity mergers,” since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent.     

Liquidity risk in securities settlement

This paper studies the potential impact on securities settlement systems (SSSs) of a major market disruption, caused by the default of the largest player. A multi-period, multi-security model with intraday credit is used to simulate direct and second-round settlement failures triggered by the default, as well as the dynamics of settlement failures, arising from a lag in settlement relative to the date of trades. The effects of the defaulter’s net trade position, the numbers of securities and participants in the market, and participants’ trading behavior are also analyzed.We show that in SSSs – contrary to payment systems – large and persistent settlement failures are possible even when ample liquidity is provided. Central bank liquidity support to SSSs thus cannot eliminate settlement failures due to major market disruptions. This is due to the fact that securities transactions involve a cash leg and a securities leg, and liquidity can affect only the cash side of a transaction. Whereas a broad program of securities borrowing and lending might help, it is precisely during periods of market disruption that participants will be least willing to lend securities.Settlement failures can continue to occur beyond the period corresponding to the lag in settlement. This is due to the fact that, upon observation of a default, market participants must form expectations about the impact of the default, and these expectations affect current trading behavior. If, ex post, fewer of the previous trades settle than expected, new settlement failures will occur. This result has interesting implications for financial stability. On the one hand, conservative reactions by market participants to a default – for example by limiting the volume of trades – can result in a more rapid return of the settlement system to a normal level of efficiency. On the other hand, limitation of trading by market participants can reduce market liquidity, which may have a negative impact on financial stability.