Market liquidity and depth on two different electronic trading systems: A comparison of Bund futures trading on the APT and DTB

This paper investigates the liquidity of two different electronic trading systems – the APT system at LIFFE and the DTB system. First we describe the different characteristics of the trading systems and give potential reasons as to why they might differ in liquidity. Second we investigate empirically the liquidity provided by the two trading system. The comparison is especially interesting because the Bund Futures instruments traded are identical and the markets are open simultaneously. The intra-day data used in the study is from August 1997 to February 1998. The results show that the APT has smaller spread but the DTB is slightly deeper.     

Insider trading and risk aversion

This paper is a continuous time version of Holden and Subrahmanyam (Economics Letters 44 (1994) 181). The paper extends Kyle (Econometrica 53 (1985) 1315) by introducing risk aversion on the side of the monopolist informed trader and allows for the liquidity traders instantaneous demand to depend on cost of trading, as well as on the risk of the stock. The main result of the paper is that, in equilibrium, the price pressure decreases with time regardless of the elasticity of the liquidity demand function.     

Stock market dynamics with rational liquidity traders

In the Kyle (1985) finite horizon model of stock market dynamics with a trader who holds long-lived information, informed trading intensities rise with time, and the slopes of the equilibrium price schedules fall. This paper shows that this result depends crucially on the irrational liquidity trader assumption. We replace the irrational noise traders with a sequence of rational, risk averse, liquidity traders who receive endowment shocks to their holdings of the risky asset. We demonstrate that unless liquidity traders are sufficiently risk averse, the slope of equilibrium price schedule rises over time, while informed trading intensities fall. In particular, Kyle's result holds only when liquidity traders are so risk averse that they ‘over-rebalance’ their portfolio's holdings of the risky asset, so that their final holdings of the risky asset have the opposite sign of their initial position.     

High-frequency trading and stock liquidity: An intraday analysis

This paper studies the impact of high-frequency trading (HFT) on intraday liquidity of CAC40 stocks listed on Euronext. Spreads display an intraday L-shaped pattern, while quoted depth follows an inverse pattern: low at the open and increasing towards the end of the trading day. When liquidity demand is particularly high, there is a high rate of order cancellations attributable to high-frequency traders who use frequent order cancellations to strategically manage their limit orders and close positions near the market close. Using the generalized method of moments estimator, we generate strong evidence that greater intensity of HFT is associated with lower spreads and higher depth. The positive effect of HFT on liquidity is due mainly to decreased adverse selection costs arising from asymmetric information among market participants.     

Insider trading with correlation between liquidity trading and a public signal

We analyse a Kyle-type continuous-time market model in which liquidity trading is correlated with a noisy public signal that is released continuously. We show that, in contrast to the previous literature, Kyle's λ, the price sensitivity to the order flow, can even be non-monotonic, depending on the correlation structure. We also show that the introduction of an additional public signal does not necessarily improve the informational efficiency of the market, depending on the correlation.     

Endogenous liquidity in credit derivatives

We study the determination of liquidity provision in the single-name credit default swap (CDS) market as measured by the number of distinct dealers providing quotes. We find that liquidity is concentrated among large obligors and those near the investment-grade/speculative-grade cutoff. Consistent with endogenous liquidity provision by informed financial institutions, more liquidity is associated with obligors for which there is a greater information flow from the CDS market to the stock market ahead of major credit events. Furthermore, the level of information heterogeneity plays an important role in how liquidity provision responds to transaction demand and how liquidity is priced into the CDS premium.     

The dark and the bright side of liquidity risks: Evidence from open-end real estate funds in Germany

During the 6-month period from December 2005 to June 2006, the German Real Estate mutual fund industry suffered an unprecedented liquidity crisis. We investigate to what extend competing theories of liquidity crises help explain this event. Our results show that fundamental factors not only mattered for the liquidity outflow in normal times but also during the crisis. However, strategic complementarities accelerated the withdrawals during the crisis suggesting that pure panic behavior contributed substantially to the massive outflows. Thus higher liquidity buffers might help mitigating these tail events. Furthermore, we find that funds with a lower fraction of shares held by institutional investors suffered from less significant outflows suggesting that a segmentation of funds for different investor groups might help mitigate panics.     

Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book

We use a recent, high-quality data set from Nasdaq to perform an empirical analysis of order flow in a limit order book before and after the arrival of a market order. For each of the stocks that we study, we identify a sequence of distinct phases across which the net flow of orders differs considerably. We note that some of our results are consistent with the widely reported phenomenon of stimulated refill, but that others are not. We therefore propose alternative mechanical and strategic motivations for the behaviour that we observe. Based on our findings, we argue that strategic liquidity providers consider both adverse selection and expected waiting costs when deciding how to act.     

Multimarket trading and liquidity: a transaction data analysis of Canada–US interlistings

We use transaction data for Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) listed stocks to examine the impact on trading costs of the decision to interlist on a US exchange. We measure trading costs using both ‘posted’ bid-ask spreads and ‘effective’ bid-ask spreads that measure actual transaction prices relative to standing bid-ask quotes. After controlling for price level, trade size and trading volume effects, we find that overall posted and effective spreads in the domestic (TSE) market decrease subsequent to the interlisting. However, the decrease in trading costs is concentrated in those TSE stocks that experience a significant shift of total trading volume (TSE and US) to the US exchange after listing. We interpret this result in the context of theories of multimarket trading as a competitive response by TSE market makers to the additional presence of US market makers.     

Commonality in liquidity and multilateral trading facilities

We use the introduction of two multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) to examine the impact of market fragmentation on commonality in liquidity. We find that the introduction of MTFs following the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive increases the comovement of stocks’ liquidity with MTF liquidity, while the comovement with the home market liquidity generally decreases. We also find that the higher the MTF trading volume or the number of MTFs trading a stock, the stronger the effect. Further, we find that the commonality in liquidity remains unchanged for a matched control sample of stocks that do not trade on MTFs.     

Low-latency trading

We define low-latency activity as strategies that respond to market events in the millisecond environment, the hallmark of proprietary trading by high-frequency traders though it could include other algorithmic activity as well. We propose a new measure of low-latency activity to investigate the impact of high-frequency trading on the market environment. Our measure is highly correlated with NASDAQ-constructed estimates of high-frequency trading, but it can be computed from widely-available message data. We use this measure to study how low-latency activity affects market quality both during normal market conditions and during a period of declining prices and heightened economic uncertainty. Our analysis suggests that increased low-latency activity improves traditional market quality measures—decreasing spreads, increasing displayed depth in the limit order book, and lowering short-term volatility. Our findings suggest that given the current market structure for U.S. equities, increased low-latency activity need not work to the detriment of long-term investors.     

High-frequency trading and institutional trading costs

Using data on Canadian bond futures, we examine how high-frequency traders (HFTs) interact with institutions building large positions. In contrast to recent findings, we find HFTs in the data act as small-sized liquidity suppliers, and we reject the hypothesis that they engage in back running, a predatory trading strategy. Using a quasi-experiment in November 2011, in which a number of HFTs started trading the bond future, we run a difference-in-differences event study and find more competition among HFTs improves implementation shortfall, effective spreads, and short-term price impacts for institutional trading in Canadian bond futures.     

Dynamic liquidity in endowment economies

This paper analyzes endogenous variations in aggregate liquidity that arise in standard representative-agent endowment economies. I introduce a natural definition of liquidity, essentially a shadow elasticity, that characterizes the price impact function or bid/ask spread that a small trader would experience. I compute this quantity for some tractable examples and uncover a rich variety of predictions that, in some cases, appear consistent with levels and covariations observed in the data. The results have important implications for the pricing and hedging of liquidity risk.     

Against the tide: the commencement of short selling and margin trading in mainland China

China's recent removal of short‐selling and margin trading bans on selected stocks enables testing of the relative effect of margin trading and short selling. We find the prices of the shortable stocks decrease, on average, relative to peer A‐shares and cross‐listed H‐shares, suggesting that short selling dominates margin trading effects. Contrary to the regulators' intention and recent developed market empirical evidence, liquidity declines and bid‐ask spreads increase in these shortable stocks. Consistent with Ausubel (1990), these results imply that uninformed investors avoid the shortable stocks to reduce the risk of trading with informed investors.     

Measuring the liquidity part of volume

Based on the concept that the presence of liquidity frictions can increase the daily traded volume, we develop an extended version of the mixture of distribution hypothesis model (MDH) along the lines of Tauchen and Pitts (1983) to measure the liquidity portion of volume. Our approach relies on a structural definition of liquidity frictions arising from the theoretical framework of Grossman and Miller (1988), which explains how liquidity shocks affect the way in which information is incorporated into daily trading characteristics. In addition, we propose an econometric setup exploiting the volatility–volume relationship to filter the liquidity portion of volume and infer the presence of liquidity frictions using daily data. Finally, based on FTSE 100 stocks, we show that the extended MDH model proposed here outperforms that of Andersen (1996) and that the liquidity frictions are priced in the cross-section of stock returns.     

Aggregate liquidity shortages, idiosyncratic liquidity smoothing and banking regulation

This paper develops a model of banking fragility driven by aggregate liquidity shortages. Inefficiencies arise from a failure of the interbank market to smooth the available liquidity in such a shortage. We find that a standard lender of last resort policy is ineffective in restoring efficiency as it leads to offsetting changes in the banks’ supply of liquidity. In contrast, subsidizing the purchase of assets from troubled banks increases welfare by improving the banks’ liquidity holdings. The first best, however, is achieved by redistributing existing liquidity from healthy to troubled banks in a crisis.     

The optimal bid-ask price strategies of high-frequency trading and the effect on market liquidity

We propose a model for determining the optimal bid-ask spread strategy by a high-frequency trader (HFT) who has an informational advantage and receives information about the true value of a security. We employ an information cost function that includes volatility and the volume of the asset. Subsequently, we characterize the optimal bid-ask price strategies and obtain a stable bid-ask spread. We assume that orders submitted by low-frequency traders (LFTs) and news events arrive at the market with Poisson processes. Additionally, our model supports the trading of the two-sided quote in one period. We find that more LFTs and a higher exchange latency both hurt market liquidity. The HFT prefers to choose a two-sided quote to gain more profits while cautiously chooses a one-sided quote during times of high volatility. The model generates some testable implications with supporting empirical evidence from the NASDAQ-OMX Nordic Market.     

Contagion of a liquidity crisis between two firms

This paper presents a model in which the contagion of a liquidity crisis between two nonfinancial institutions occurs because of learning activity within a common creditor pool. After creditors observe what occurs in a rollover game for a firm, they conjecture one another's “type” or attitude toward the risk associated with the firm's investment project. Creditors' inference about one another's type then influences their decision to lend to the next firm. By providing an analysis of the “incidence of failure” (the threshold for a liquidity crisis) for each firm, this paper demonstrates that the risk of contagion increases sharply if it originates ex ante from a firm facing a low probability of failure. In addition, the paper proposes some policy measures for mitigating the severity of contagion during a liquidity crisis.     

Strategic insider trading around earnings announcements in Australia

This paper tests, within the Australian setting, whether directors strategically time trades in their own firms, around earnings announcements, in the context of impediments to trading in the immediately preceding period. I show that both signed and unsigned trade activity are insignificantly different from zero in the preceding period, and significantly negative and positive after the event. Further, directors in Australia significantly sell following positive earnings news, and buy after negative news, providing evidence of ‘indirect’ trading. Directors’ trades in the longer-term pre-announcement period are also negatively related to the news content sentiment, contrary to expectation. Finally, I find evidence of positive autocorrelation between directors’ trades over the longer-term past, and those executed after earnings announcements, which, in the absence of the ‘short-swing’ rule in Australia, casts doubt over short-term strategic insider trading, more generally.     

Closing call auctions and liquidity

The present paper examines the impact of closing call auctions on liquidity. It exploits the natural experiment offered by the introduction of a closing call auction on the Australian Stock Exchange on 10 February 1997. The introduction of the closing call auction is associated with a reduction in trading volume at the close of continuous trading. However, bid‐ask spreads during continuous trading are largely unaffected by the introduction of the closing call auction. Therefore, closing call auctions consolidate liquidity at a single point in time without having any adverse effect on the cost of trading.