Money and liquidity in financial markets

We argue that there is a connection between the interbank market for liquidity and the broader financial markets, which has its basis in demand for liquidity by banks. Tightness in the market for liquidity leads banks to engage in what we term “liquidity pull-back,” which involves selling financial assets either by banks directly or by levered investors. Empirical tests on the stock market are supportive. Tighter interbank markets are associated with relatively more volume in more liquid stocks; selling pressure, especially in more liquid stocks; and transitory negative returns. We control for market-wide uncertainty and in the process also contribute to the literature on portfolio rebalancing. Our general point is that money matters in financial markets.     

Measuring liquidity commonality in financial markets

This paper contributes to the literature by developing a new methodology, termed the beta index, for measuring liquidity commonality in financial markets which is derived from the dynamics of liquidity co-movements. We show that computing the beta index is a straightforward process. In addition, not only is the proposed beta index more efficient in controlling for confounding factors and addressing the associated statistical inference issues, but it will also enhance the accuracy of estimation. We apply the beta index to track liquidity commonality in the foreign exchange markets over the study period and to identify important financial and economic events that caused liquidity commonality. We detect periods of high and low liquidity commonalities that would especially benefit active market traders who frequently rebalance portfolios and require knowledge of liquidity commonality as an important early signal and indication of diversification benefit.     

Capital markets,financial intermediaries,and liquidity supply

We study a dynamic economy endowed with a sequence of overlapping generations of consumers and production processes, and where productive assets are illiquid and consumption preferences are subject to uninsurable demand for liquidity. We characterize the steady states that can be achieved with alternative financial systems. We show that infinitely lived financial intermediaries offering a liability with age-dependent restrictions may implement a social optimum with full insurance. If, instead, they offer anonymous, unrestricted contracts, then only second-best consumption allocations with partial insurance obtain. We also examine the consumption allocations available when agents can trade shares in competitive stock markets. While allowing for trade across generations may or may not improve upon generational autarky, we show that this competitive equilibrium is not a social optimum, and is dominated by a system of infinitely lived, unrestricted intermediaries.     

Measuring the multi-faceted dimension of liquidity in financial markets: A literature review

This paper provides a thorough review of the liquidity measures that are used in the empirical literature to measure liquidity. A wide range of papers have emphasized its role and the need to manage and understand this topic, which had hitherto not been deeply explored. Literature on liquidity proposes a wide set of liquidity measures and proxies intended to measure the different characteristics and dimensions that liquidity presents. Early papers analyzing the liquidity issue were based on quotation data or on end-of-month prices, given that databases with widely complete transaction information were not available. The recent availability of high frequency databases has allowed researchers not only to develop new measures but also to adapt to other markets a comprehensive set of existing measures. In this paper, we classify and describe the variety of the existing liquidity measures and proxies depending on the aspect of liquidity that one wants to address.     

Internet search intensity,liquidity and returns in emerging markets

Using a sample of listed companies in the Vietnam stock market from 2013 to 2018, this paper investigates the linkage between Internet search intenseness and stock returns and trading volume. The empirical results confirm the “price pressure hypothesis” that search intensity is positively associated with subsequent stock returns and trading volume. It also finds that the positive effects on stock returns are not temporary but remain for the long term although some reversals occur. The results show that the effects of search intensity on stock returns are higher for large stocks than for small stocks. The findings also reveal that stocks that attract more attention from the public are exposed to higher market risk. These findings have not been documented in the literature so they enrich the information on the relationship between Internet search intenseness and stock market returns, especially for emerging markets where Internet user numbers are sharply increasing.     

Bank liquidity creation,monetary policy,and financial crises

This paper examines the interplay among bank liquidity creation (which incorporates all bank on- and off-balance sheet activities), monetary policy, and financial crises. We find that: (1) high liquidity creation (relative to trend) – particularly off-balance sheet liquidity creation – helps predict crises, controlling for other factors; (2) monetary policy has statistically significant, but economically minor effects on liquidity creation by small banks during normal times, and these effects are even weaker during financial crises; (3) monetary policy has very little effects on medium and large bank liquidity creation during both normal times and crises. These findings suggest that authorities may wish to monitor bank liquidity creation closely in order to predict and perhaps lessen the likelihood of financial crises. They might also consider other tools to control bank liquidity creation, such as capital and liquidity requirements.     

The response of the external finance premium in Asian corporate bond markets to financial characteristics,financial constraints and two financial crises

Empirical investigation of the external finance premium has been conducted on the margin between internal finance and bank borrowing or equities but little attention has been given to corporate bonds, especially for the emerging Asian market. In this paper, we hypothesize that balance sheet indicators of creditworthiness could affect the external finance premium for bonds as they do for premia in other markets. Using bond-specific and firm-specific data for China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand during 1995–2009 we find that firms with better financial health face lower external finance premia in all countries. When we introduce firm-level heterogeneity, we show that financial variables appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more important for financially constrained firms. Finally, when we examine the effects of the 1997–1998 Asian crisis and the 2007–2009 global financial crisis, we find that the sensitivity of the premium is greater for constrained firms during the Asian crisis compared to other times.     

Insider and liquidity trading in stock and options markets

We analyze the introduction of a nonredundant option, whichcompletes the markets, and the effects of this on informationrevelation and risk sharing. The option alters the interactionbetween liquidity and insider trading. We find that the optionmitigates the market breakdown problem created by the combinationof market incompleteness and asymmetric information. The introductionof the option has ambiguous consequences on the informationalefficiency of the market. On the one hand, by avoiding marketbreakdown, it enables trades to occur and convey information.On the other hand, the introduction of the option enlarges theset of trading strategies the insider can follow. This can makeit more difficult for the market makers to interpret the informationcontent of trades and consequently can reduce the informationalefficiency of the market. The introduction of the option alsohas an ambiguous effect on the profitability of insider trades,which can either increase or decrease depending on parametervalues.     

Banks,financial markets,and social welfare

This paper constructs a general equilibrium model of banking and financial markets. The model allows to compare financial systems in which banks have access to financial markets with financial systems in which banks do not have access to financial markets. Allen and Gale [A welfare comparison of intermediaries and financial markets in Germany and the US. European Economic Review 39 (1995) 179–209] find that the Anglo-Saxon model of financial intermediation in which financial markets play a dominant role does not necessarily improve social welfare in comparison with the German model in which banks dominate. Our model provides a theoretical foundation for this view.     

Market liquidity in the financial crisis: The role of liquidity commonality and flight-to-quality

We examine the dynamics and the drivers of market liquidity during the financial crisis, using a unique volume-weighted spread measure. According to the literature we find that market liquidity is impaired when stock markets decline, implying a positive relation between market and liquidity risk. Moreover, this relationship is the stronger the deeper one digs into the order book. Even more interestingly, this paper sheds further light on so far puzzling features of market liquidity: liquidity commonality and flight-to-quality. We show that liquidity commonality varies over time, increases during market downturns, peaks at major crisis events and becomes weaker the deeper we look into the limit order book. Consistent with recent theoretical models that argue for a spiral effect between the financial sector’s funding liquidity and an asset’s market liquidity, we find that funding liquidity tightness induces an increase in liquidity commonality which then leads to market-wide liquidity dry-ups. Therefore our findings corroborate the view that market liquidity can be a driving force for financial contagion. Finally, we show that there is a positive relationship between credit risk and liquidity risk, i.e., there is a spread between liquidity costs of high and low credit quality stocks, and that in times of increased market uncertainty the impact of credit risk on liquidity risk intensifies. This corroborates the existence of a flight-to-quality or flight-to-liquidity phenomenon also on the stock markets.     

Balance,growth and diversity of financial markets

A financial market comprising of a certain number of distinct companies is considered, and the following statement is proved: either a specific agent will surely beat the whole market unconditionally in the long run, or (and this “or” is not exclusive) all the capital of the market will accumulate in one company. Thus, absence of any “free unbounded lunches relative to the total capital” opportunities lead to the most dramatic failure of diversity in the market: one company takes over all other until the end of time. In order to prove this, we introduce the notion of perfectly balanced markets, which is an equilibrium state in which the relative capitalization of each company is a martingale under the physical probability. Then, the weaker notion of balanced markets is discussed where the martingale property of the relative capitalizations holds only approximately, we show how these concepts relate to growth-optimality and efficiency of the market, as well as how we can infer a shadow interest rate that is implied in the economy in the absence of a bank.      

Diversification in financial and crypto markets

This article investigates the conditional value at risk (CVaR) of two portfolio optimiza- tion approaches containing assets from the financial and crypto markets. We first catch the conditional interdependence structure among each variable through the vine-copula-GARCH model before merging it with the Mean-CVaR model. We then optimize each portfolio and find out the optimal allocation while evaluating the precise risk. The results indicate that the D-Vine copula is more suitable for both portfolios and that, when different conditional stock indices information are being taken into consideration, the crypto-market components can act as a weak hedge/safe haven against financial market indices. Furthermore, as CVaR is found to outperform the mean-variance of Markowitz in both portfolios, both risk measures similarly show that when including cryptocurrencies in a portfolio, the S&P 500 shall not be included. Additionally, the inclusion of Ethereum in a portfolio already containing Bitcoin does not boost the return.     

Understanding liquidity and credit risks in the financial crisis

This paper develops a structured dynamic factor model for the spreads between London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and overnight index swap (OIS) rates for a panel of banks. Our model involves latent factors which reflect liquidity and credit risk. Our empirical results show that surges in the short term LIBOR-OIS spreads during the 2007-2009 financial crisis were largely driven by liquidity risk. However, credit risk played a more significant role in the longer term (twelve-month) LIBOR-OIS spread. The liquidity risk factors are more volatile than the credit risk factor. Most of the familiar events in the financial crisis are linked more to movements in liquidity risk than credit risk.     

全球流动性过剩、对冲基金发展与中国金融稳定

全球流动性过剩导致全球金融资产激增,推动对冲基金业规模迅速膨胀,也使得对冲基金业在结构和投资动向上也出现了新的变化。对冲基金在全球寻找套利和投机机会,对全球的金融稳定产生一定的影响,在此背景下,中国需要审慎资本项目开放和加强对冲基金的监管。     

资金流动性与风险性的权衡——国外大额资金转账系统的演进

大额资金转账系统在过去20年里有着迅猛的发展,并不断努力在流动性供给和结算风险控制之间寻求平衡。该系统在设计和风险管理策略上的不断变化,是与系统交易价值在这段时间的快速增长分不开的。例如,在美国,基于Fedwire(美联储大额资金转账系统)的交易价值在1989年约为当年GDP的50倍,而到了     

VPIN,liquidity, and return volatility in the U.S. equity markets

We examine the volume-synchronized probability of informed trading metric (the VPIN flow toxicity metric, developed by Easley, Lopez de Prado, & O'Hara, 2012) as a real-time risk management tool for liquidity deteriorations in the U.S. equity markets. We find that VPIN provides information about market liquidity and stock return volatility on ex-ante basis. These results indicate that VPIN can be a useful risk-management tool for market makers, regulators and traders in the U.S. equity markets. We also document that VPIN is negatively associated with volume and number of trades, but positively associated with trade size and volume fragmentation. These findings suggest that VPIN indicates the adverse selection problem of liquidity providers by capturing the information in volume.     

Adaptive learning in financial markets

We investigate adaptive or evolutionary learning in a repeatedversion of the Grossman and Stiglit (1980) model. We demonstratethat any process that is a monotonic selection dynamic willconverge to the rational expectations asset demands if the proportionof informed traders is fixed. We also show that these learningprocesses have a unique asymptotically stable fixed point atthe Grossman-Stiglitz (GS) equilibrium. The robustness of learningto noisy experimentation is studied using Binmore and Samuelson's(1999) deterministic drift approximation. Conditions on economicand learning process parameters for adaptive learning to leadto the GS rational expectations equilibrium are presented.     

Information provision in financial markets

We set up a rational expectations model in which investors trade a risky asset based on a private signal they receive about the quality of the asset, and a public signal that represents a noisy aggregation of the private signals of all investors. Our model allows us to examine what happens to market performance (market depth, price efficiency, volume of trade, and expected welfare) when regulators can induce improved information provision in one of two ways. Regulations can be designed that either provide investors with more accurate information by improving the quality of prior information, or that enhance the transparency of the market by improving the quality of the public signal. In our rational expectations equilibrium, improving the quality of the public signal can be interpreted as a way of providing information about the anticipations and trading motives of all market participants. We find that both alternatives improve market depth. However, in the limit, we show that improving the precision of prior information is a more efficient way to do so. More accurate prior information decreases asymmetric information problems and consequently reduces the informativeness of prices, while a more accurate public signal increases price informativeness. The volume of trade is independent of the quality of prior information and is increasing in the quality of the public signal. Finally, expected welfare can sometimes fall as prior information or the public signal become more precise.     

Capital markets,financial institutions,and corporate finance in China

This paper provides a modern overview of capital markets, financial institutions, and corporate finance in China. In our discussions, we highlight and describe what is unique to China. We also describe how papers in the Special Issue advance our understanding of financial markets, institutions, and corporate finance in China and in general.