Financial intermediation and the role of price discrimination in the foreign exchange market

Foreign exchange trading is performed in opaque and decentralized markets. The two-tier market structure consisting of a customer segment and an interdealer segment to which only market makers have access gives rise to the possibility of price discrimination. We develop a theoretical pricing model that accounts for market-power considerations and analyze a database of the trades of a foreign exchange market maker. We find that the market maker generally exerts low bargaining power vis-á-vis customers. The dealer earns lower average spreads on trades with financial customers than commercial customers, even though the former are perceived to convey exchange-rate-relevant information.     

The impact of aggressive orders in an order-driven market: a simulation approach

This article investigates resiliency in an order-driven market. On basis of a vector autoregressive model capturing various dimensions of liquidity and their interactions, I simulate the effect of a large liquidity shock, measured by a very aggressive market order. I show that, despite the absence of market makers, the market is resilient. All dimensions of liquidity (spread, depth at the best prices and order book imbalances) revert to their steady-state values within 15 orders after the shock. For prices, a long run effect is found. Furthermore, different dimensions of liquidity interact. Immediately after a liquidity shock, the spread becomes wider than in the steady state, implying that one dimension of liquidity deteriorates, while at the same time, depth at the best prices increases, meaning an improvement of another liquidity dimension. In subsequent periods, the spread reverts back to the steady-state level but also depth decreases. Also, I find evidence for asymmetries in the impact of shocks on the ask and bid side. Shocks on the ask side have a stronger impact than shocks on the bid side. Finally, resiliency is higher for less-frequently traded stocks and stocks with a larger relative tick size.     

Optimal informed trading in the foreign exchange market

We formulate a market microstructure model of exchange determination that we employ to investigate the impact of informed trading on exchange rates and on foreign exchange (FX) market conditions. With our formulation, we show how strategic informed agents influence exchange rates via both the portfolio-balance and information effects. We outline the connection which exists between the private value of information, market efficiency, liquidity and exchange rate volatility. Our model is also consistent with recent empirical research on the micro-structure of FX markets.     

Heterogeneous real-time trading strategies in the foreign exchange market

The foreign exchange (FX) market is worldwide, but the dealers differ in their geographical locations (time zones), working hours, time horizons, home currencies, access to information,transaction costs, and other institutional constraints. The variety of time horizones is large: from intra-day dealers, who close their positions every evening, to long-term investors and central banks. Depending on the constraints, the different market participats need different strategies to reach their goal, which is usually maximizing the profit, or rather a utility function including risk. Different intra-day trading strategies can be studied only if high-density data are available. Oslen & Associates (O & A) has collected and analysed large amounts of FX quotes by market makers around the clock (up to 5000 non-equally spaced prices per day for the German mark against US$). Based on these data, a set of real-time intra-day trading models has been developed. These models give explicit trading recommendations under realistic constraints. They are allowed to trade only during the opening hours of a market, depending on the time zone and local holidays. The models have been running real-time for more than three years, thus leading to an ex ante test. The test results, obtained with a risk-sensitive performance measure, are presented. All these trading models are profitable, but they differ in their risk behaviour and dealing frequency. If a certain profitable intra-day algorithm is tested with different working hours, its success can considerably change. A systematic study shows that the best choice of working hours is usually when the most important markets for the particular FX rate are active. All the results demonstrate that the assumption of a homogeneous 24-hour FX market with identical dealers, following an identical ‘rational expectation’, is far from reality. To explain the market dynamics, a heterogeneous model of the market with different types of dealers is more appropriate.     

Liquidity Trading in Market Microstructure Theory

Liquidity trading is an important component of market microstructure models. In most cases, its role is primarily to ensure existence of equilibrium and therefore that trading occurs among asymmetrically informed agents. While most market microstructure models allege that agents trade based upon rational expectations, the rationality of the type of liquidity trading assumed in these models remains to be verified. Specifically, liquidity traders are often assumed to submit price-inelastic orders for reasons exogenous to the model at hand. But whether price-inelastic trading is consistent with rational utility maximizing behavior remains to be shown.     

Liquidity and stock returns in pure order-driven markets: evidence from the Australian stock market

This paper examines the relationship between liquidity and stock returns in the pure order-driven stock market of Australia. The bid-ask spread, turnover rate, and amortized spread are used as proxies for liquidity. In addition to liquidity, other factors that have been found to influence stock returns, such as beta and size, are also considered. Seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) and the cross-sectionally correlated timewise autoregressive (CSCTA) model form the methodological basis for this research. A small liquidity premium is found in the Australian market, which persists for the entire year. There is also strong evidence of a negative size effect.     

当前中国商业银行流动性过剩的成因及政策建议

现有的对流动性过剩原因分析多数是从定性的角度进行.事实上,商业银行流动性过剩成因复杂,必须从宏观和微观两个层面上选取具有代表性的因素加以实证分析才能得到令人信服的结论.由实证分析结果可知,我国商业银行流动性过剩是多种因素造成的,包括宏观上的外汇占款过大、居民储蓄率过高等,也包括微观上的金融市场结构不合理、直接融资相对份额不高、商业银行在经营上过于依赖存贷业务等.因此,既要改革汇率形成机制,适当抑制出口,同时也要完善社会保障机制,促进消费.     

Liquidity and stock returns: Evidence from a pure order-driven market using a new liquidity proxy

Liquidity has been found to be a determinant of stock returns in large hybrid quote-driven markets. Liquidity proxies have ranged from trade-based measures such as turnover rate to order-based measures such as the bid-ask spread. The relationship between return and liquidity in small pure order-driven markets is less clear, with different liquidity proxies yielding conflicting results. This study adds to the existing literature by considering the return-liquidity relationship on the Australian Stock Exchange, a small pure order-driven market, using a new liquidity measure, Weighted Order Value (WOV). Liquidity is found to be an important determinant of returns.     

Taiwan's Foreign Exchange Market—Volatile but Still Efficient?

This paper investigates the importance of return heterogeneity and volatility for the foreign exchange rate on the New Taiwan (NT) dollar in terms of the U. S. dollar. We describe the price behavior of the foreign exchange market through the Power GARCH (1,1) and EGARCH (1,1) models. The time knots of market events are found to have deep impacts on the behavior of both market agents and the intraday characteristics of the price process. Evidence also reveals that Taiwan's foreign exchange market is semi-strong efficient.     

Universal price impact functions of individual trades in an order-driven market

The trade size ω has a direct impact on the price formation of the stock traded. Econophysical analyses of transaction data for the US and Australian stock markets have uncovered market-specific scaling laws, where a master curve of price impact can be obtained in each market when stock capitalization C is included as an argument in the scaling relation. However, the rationale of introducing stock capitalization in the scaling is unclear and the anomalous negative correlation between price change r and trade size ω for small trades is unexplained. Here we show that these issues can be addressed by taking into account the aggressiveness of orders that result in trades together with a proper normalization technique. Using order book data from the Chinese market, we show that trades from filled and partially filled limit orders have very different price impacts. The price impact of trades from partially filled orders is constant when the volume is not too large, while that of filled orders shows power-law behavior r?～?ω^α with α?≈?2/3. When returns and volumes are normalized by stock-dependent averages, capitalization-independent scaling laws emerge for both types of trades. However, no scaling relation in terms of stock capitalization can be constructed. In addition, the relation α?=?α_ω/α _r is verified for some individual stocks and for the whole data set containing all stocks using partially filled trades, where α_ω and α _r are the tail exponents of trade sizes and returns. These observations also enable us to explain the anomalous negative correlation between r and ω for small-size trades.     

Information shares in a two-tier FX market

Using several measures of information share, we examine price discovery across the inter-dealer and dealer–customer market tiers in the currencies market. In the spot market, the information share of the inter-dealer tier is higher than that of the dealer–customer one for non-financial sector trades and is lower than the dealer–customer tier for foreign investors’ sell trades. In the forward market, the dealer–customer tier generally has the greater information share at the dealer’s buy side. Our results indicate the market where customers’ trades are the most informative and demonstrate how exogenous events affect price discovery across markets and market tiers.     

Liquidity, Transaction Costs, and Reintermediation in Electronic Markets

Relationships between trading cost, technology, and the nature of intermediation in the trading services industry are discussed. Electronic markets are linked to reductions in trading costs. Lower explicit costs are related to system development and operating costs. Electronic order book information is identified as a means of realizing implicit cost savings. The concept of liquidity management in electronic environments is introduced, and its potential is empirically illustrated. The empirical results suggest new roles for brokerage and exchange operations, and competition between the two. Competitive advantage with respect to the provision of liquidity management services is compared across types of intermediaries.     

Order cancellations across investor groups: evidence from an emerging order-driven market

Employing comprehensive limit-order data that unambiguously identify investor groups, this paper examines the order-cancellation behavior across investor groups in the Taiwan Stock Exchange. First, facing trade-offs between the monitoring cost and limit-order risks, such as non-execution and free-trade-option risks, behavioral differences exist across investor groups. Foreign investors closely monitoring the market cancel their limit orders most actively, while individual investors with the highest monitoring cost do so least actively. Second, Tobit regressions show that the order cancellations by foreign investors are the most sensitive to the free-trade-option and non-execution risks, while those by individual investors are the least sensitive.     

Strategic timing of annual earnings announcements: evidence from an order-driven market

Using Spanish data, this paper examines, for the first time, the differences in the intraday response of an order-driven market to earnings announcements made during trading and non-trading hours. We show that the speed of reaction depends on timing of the announcement: for overnight (daytime) announcements, the improvement in liquidity is (not) immediate. This finding could explain why Spanish firms prefer to release the bad (good) earnings announcement in trading (non-trading) hours. This strategic timing differs from the traditional disclosure policy in American markets, suggesting that different microstructures may react differently to news releases and, consequently, drive the strategic timing of corporate disclosures.

从汇率制度视角看我国商业银行的流动性过剩

从汇率制度角度透视我国当前的商业银行流动性过剩现象,目的在于为经济金融的进一步开放提供理论依据和决策参考。本文通过对“三元悖论”理论的解读和1998～2006年各季度数据的实证检验,揭示了我国商业银行流动性过剩与汇率制度之间存在密切相关性,即在我国现行的汇率制度下,外汇储备的不断增加直接导致了商业银行存差的扩大,造成金融系统乃至整个社会的流动性过剩。基于上述研究,作者提出了如下相关建议:完善我国汇率形成的市场机制,培育相对均衡汇率;深化我国外汇管理体制改革,有序开放资本市场;汇率制度改革要与其他政策改革协调配合。     

从汇率制度视角看我国商业银行的流动性过剩

从汇率制度角度透视我国当前的商业银行流动性过剩现象，目的在于为经济金融的进一步开放提供理论依据和决策参考。本文通过对“三元悖论”理论的解读和1998～2006年各季度数据的实证检验，揭示了我国商业银行流动性过剩与汇率制度之间存在密切相关性，即在我国现行的；汇率制度下，外汇储备的不断增加直接导致了商业银行存差的扩大，造成金融系统乃至整个社会的流动性过剩。基于上述研究，作者提出了如下相关建议：完善我国汇率形成的市场机制，培育相对均衡汇率；深化我国外汇管理体制改革，有序开放资本市场；汇率制度改革要与其他政策改革协调配合。     

外汇管理部门支持宁夏涉外经济的思考

调查发现,宁夏涉外经济发展中存在的困难和问题是：总量太小,结构失衡;缺少大型国际生产出口企业,资源依赖性强;国际市场复杂性增大,国内竞争加剧。因此,外汇管理部门应积极参与重点领域改革,支持涉外企业加快发展;加快外汇市场发展,支持开展跨境贸易人民币结算试点;扎实落实进口核销改革政策,支持能源及原材料进口,改善宁夏贸易进出口结构。     

中国债券市场发展回顾与展望

改革开放30年来,中国债券市场已经发展成以银行间市场为主、交易所市场为辅,涵盖各类机构投资者和债券投资品种的多层次债券市场体系。文章介绍了中国债券市场的发展历程与目前的运行结构,并从推进市场创新、完善债券收益率曲线等方面对债券市场的发展前景进行了展望。     

Price Clustering in the U.S. Dollar/Taiwan Dollar Swap Market

Price clustering in financial markets is pervasive. Using transaction‐level data from the world's largest financial market, this study is the first to examine price clustering behavior in the foreign exchange swap market. In addition to existing hypotheses, we investigate new determinants of price clustering including the expected return, contract liquidity, and trader's identity. The results support both negotiation and price resolution hypotheses. We find a positive effect from the level of expected return on price clustering. Markets with greater liquidity experience reduced clustering. Transactions involving domestic banks have less clustering suggesting an information advantage over foreign banks.     

The Components of Electronic Inter-Dealer Spot FX Bid-Ask Spreads

Abstract:  This paper applies an established bid-ask spread decomposition model to the inter-dealer spot foreign exchange market. In addition, the paper presents and tests a modified decomposition model which is specifically adapted to the features of order-driven markets and which is found to produce more plausible results than the original model. Price clustering is introduced as a new explanatory factor within this framework and is shown to be vitally important in understanding the composition of bid-ask spreads in this market.