Determining the integrated volatility via limit order books with multiple records

The integrated volatility plays an important role in risk management and portfolio selection, the estimation methods regarding the quantity have been widely investigated, either under low-frequency data or high-frequency data, or a combination of both. In this paper, we propose a measure for the integrated volatility via limit order book data with possible presence of multiple records. The estimator is valid under mild conditions and it is easily implemented. The finite sample performance of the proposed estimator has been verified by simulation studies and we apply the method to some real high-frequency data-sets as well.     

The Crash of 1882 and the Bailout of the Paris Bourse

The crash of the French stock market in 1882 presented the Paris Bourse with its worst crisis of the nineteenth century. Its structure was similar in key respects to today’s futures markets, with a dominant forward market leading the Bourse to adopt a common fund to guarantee transactions and liquidity. While this mutualization of risk protects clients and brokers from idiosyncratic shocks, it is generally assumed that it also provides considerable protection against systemic shocks, as no twentieth century exchange has been forced to shut down. Using new archival data, this paper shows how a stock market crash overwhelmed the Bourse’s common fund. Only an emergency loan from the Bank of France, intermediated by the largest banks, prevented a closure of the Bourse.

序列相关的微观结构噪声估计

基于股票有效价格计算的已实现波动率(Realized Variance)可作为股票收益波动率的估计,且在一定条件下,这一估计是无偏的和一致的。然而实际观测到的价格由于受到市场微观结构导致的噪声的干扰,与有效价格并不一致。因此,在高频数据环境下必须考虑如何降低噪声干扰。本文基于Hansen和Lunde给出的在噪声序列存在相关性假设下的一种关于RV的无偏估计,进一步推导出在此情形下估计噪声方差的方法。我们的估计挖掘了不同频率下的股票交易高频数据所反映出的信息,利用传统的在噪声影响下的有偏RV估计与Hansen和Lunde的无偏RV估计之间的差估计噪声。同时,本文也给出了在实践中如何确定这些频率的方法。     

噪声交易与市场质量

本文通过行业、规模、负债和成长能力的配对,建立起32家上证50成份股上市公司的控制样本,然后运用合理的计量方法,首次估计出符合我国股市微观结构的噪声交易高频时间序列,在此基础上深入分析噪声交易与信息不对称、流动性、波动性和有效性等市场质量指标之间的经验关系,发现:我国股市私人信息具有较高的相关性和持久性;噪声交易提高了交投活跃程度,同时却扩大了执行成本和价格波动幅度;噪声交易与信息不对称的关系不大;噪声交易使实际价差缩小,进而削弱了市场有效性。由此可见,噪声交易是一把"双刃剑",只有继续改革价格形成机制、增强价值投资力量、引导长期资金入市、完善信息披露制度并强化交易监控,才能进一步提高我国股市的质量。     

纯粹中介与套利中间人——一个普通商品市场微观结构内生化模型

本文给出了一个包括两种交易方式的普通商品市场微观结构内生化模型，其中，商品的买者、卖者不可以直接进行交易，但被允许在两种相互竞争的中介交易方式——“套利中间人交易”与被现有文献所忽略但又非常重要的“纯粹中介交易”——中进行选择。对于微观结构的内生性，模型给出了如下结论：交易意愿较高的个体倾向于通过套利中间人进行交易，而意愿相对较低的则会选择纯粹中介作为交易媒介；市场的微观结构决定于三个参数——跨期替代率、纯粹中介单位交易量的交易成本与最有效率的套利中间人单位交易量的成本。     

Exchange rates and order flow in the long run

Several recent papers have underlined the importance of microstructure effects in understanding exchange rate behavior by documenting stable long-run relationships between cumulated order flows and spot exchange rates. This stands in contrast to the widely-studied failure of exchange rates to conform to the long-run behavior implied by “conventional” macroeconomic models and is consistent with the prediction of micro-structure models. We re-examine the evidence for stable long-run relationships. We find that such evidence exists only for a small number of the major currencies we examine and that it is statistically fragile. We conclude that this implication of microstructure models does not fit the data as well as previous studies suggest.     

The influence of intraday seasonality on volatility transmission pattern

Using data on a five-minute interval basis, this article analyses the effects of intraday seasonality on volatility transmission between the spot and futures markets of the CAC40, DAX30 and FTSE100. Remarkable differences in the impulse response analysis and in the dynamic and directional measurement of volatility spillovers are encountered depending on whether the intraday periodic component is considered. Thus, the convenience of removing intraday seasonality seems to be critical to reduce the risk of spurious causality when employing high-frequency data in volatility transmission. Moreover, the impact of market microstructure noise seems negligible when using an optimal frequency of observations.     

Segmentation and time-of-day patterns in foreign exchange markets

This paper sheds light on a puzzling pattern in spot foreign exchange markets: domestic currencies appreciate (depreciate) systematically during foreign (domestic) working hours. This phenomenon spans many years and several exchange rates, and overrides calendar effects. We argue that it is mainly due to liquidity and inventory patterns that emerge from the combination of two factors: domestic agents tend to be net buyers of foreign currency and to trade mostly in their country’s working hours. The prevalence of domestic (foreign) traders demanding the counterpart currency during domestic (foreign) working hours implies sell-price (buy-price) pressure on the domestic currency during domestic (foreign) working hours.     

Price discovery in tick time

This paper develops a tick time model for the quote setting dynamics on Nasdaq. The model decomposes quotes into an efficient price, asymmetric information and noise. Both the evolution of the efficient price and the information contents of quotes depend on quote durations. New measures for the contribution to price discovery are defined within this model. When aggregated to fixed calendar time intervals, they relate closely to Hasbrouck [Hasbrouck, Joel, 1995, One security, many markets: determining the contribution to price discovery, Journal of Finance 50, 1175–1199] information shares. Empirical results for 20 Nasdaq stocks indicate that ECNs, in particular Island, contribute most to price discovery for active stocks. For less active stocks, wholesale market makers contribute most.     

FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATE EXPECTATIONS: SURVEY AND SYNTHESIS

Abstract.  This paper reviews the empirical literature on foreign exchange rate expectations. Prominent issues are the forward premium puzzle, expectations formation in financial markets, heterogeneity of expectations, market microstructure, time-varying risk premiums and forecast performance. Although much has been learned in each field, this survey highlights the areas of research in which our understanding of the mechanism of exchange rate expectations is still incomplete. Our survey suggests that both irrational expectations and time-varying risk premiums account for the forward discount anomaly, that long-term expectations reverse towards their long-run equilibrium values and that heterogeneous behaviour of market participants has the potential of explaining some of the empirical regularities in the international finance literature.