nep-mst New Economics Papers
on Market Microstructure
Issue of 2021‒07‒26
five papers chosen by
Thanos Verousis


  1. Quantifying the High-Frequency Trading "Arms Race" By Matteo Aquilina; Eric Budish; Peter O'Neill
  2. Order Book Queue Hawkes-Markovian Modeling By Philip Protter; Qianfan Wu; Shihao Yang
  3. The Role of Binance in Bitcoin Volatility Transmission By Carol Alexander; Daniel Heck; Andreas Kaeck
  4. UNISWAP: Impermanent Loss and Risk Profile of a Liquidity Provider By Andreas A. Aigner; Gurvinder Dhaliwal
  5. Intraday Timing of General Collateral Repo Markets By Kevin Clark; Adam Copeland; Robert Jay Kahn; Antoine Martin; Mark Paddrik; Benjamin Taylor

  1. By: Matteo Aquilina; Eric Budish; Peter O'Neill
    Abstract: We use stock exchange message data to quantify the negative aspect of high-frequency trading, known as “latency arbitrage.” The key difference between message data and widely-familiar limit order book data is that message data contain attempts to trade or cancel that fail. This allows the researcher to observe both winners and losers in a race, whereas in limit order book data you cannot see the losers, so you cannot directly see the races. We find that latency-arbitrage races are very frequent (about one per minute per symbol for FTSE 100 stocks), extremely fast (the modal race lasts 5-10 millionths of a second), and account for a remarkably large portion of overall trading volume (about 20%). Race participation is concentrated, with the top 6 firms accounting for over 80% of all race wins and losses. The average race is worth just a small amount (about half a price tick), but because of the large volumes the stakes add up. Our main estimates suggest that races constitute roughly one-third of price impact and the effective spread (key microstructure measures of the cost of liquidity), that latency arbitrage imposes a roughly 0.5 basis point tax on trading, that market designs that eliminate latency arbitrage would reduce the market's cost of liquidity by 17%, and that the total sums at stake are on the order of $5 billion per year in global equity markets alone.
    JEL: D47 G1 G12 G14
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29011&r=
  2. By: Philip Protter; Qianfan Wu; Shihao Yang
    Abstract: This article presents a Hawkes process model with Markovian baseline intensities for high-frequency order book data modeling. We classify intraday order book trading events into a range of categories based on their order types and the price changes after their arrivals. To capture the stimulating effects between multiple types of order book events, we use the multivariate Hawkes process to model the self- and mutually-exciting event arrivals. We also integrate a Markovian baseline intensity into the event arrival dynamic, by including the impacts of order book liquidity state and time factor to the baseline intensity. A regression-based non-parametric estimation procedure is adopted to estimate the model parameters in our Hawkes+Markovian model. To eliminate redundant model parameters, LASSO regularization is incorporated in the estimation procedure. Besides, model selection method based on Akaike Information Criteria is applied to evaluate the effect of each part of the proposed model. An implementation example based on real LOB data is provided. Through the example, we study the empirical shapes of Hawkes excitement functions, the effects of liquidity state as well as time factors, the LASSO variable selection, and the explanatory power of Hawkes and Markovian elements to the dynamics of the order book.
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2107.09629&r=
  3. By: Carol Alexander; Daniel Heck; Andreas Kaeck
    Abstract: We analyse high-frequency realised volatility dynamics and spillovers in the bitcoin market, focusing on two pairs: bitcoin against the US dollar (the main fiat-crypto pair) and trading bitcoin against tether (the main crypto-crypto pair). We find that the tether-margined perpetual contract on Binance is clearly the main source of volatility, continuously transmitting strong flows to all other instruments and receiving only a little volatility. Moreover, we find that (i) during US trading hours, traders pay more attention and are more reactive to prevailing market conditions when updating their expectations and (ii) the crypto market exhibits a higher interconnectedness when traditional Western stock markets are open. Our results highlight that regulators should not only consider spot exchanges offering bitcoin-fiat trading but also the tether-margined derivatives products available on most unregulated exchanges, most importantly Binance.
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2107.00298&r=
  4. By: Andreas A. Aigner; Gurvinder Dhaliwal
    Abstract: Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and was first launched on November 2, 2018 on the Ethereum mainnet [1] and is part of an Ecosystem of products in Decentralized Finance (DeFi). It replaces a traditional order book type of trading common on centralized exchanges (CEX) with a deterministic model that swaps currencies (or tokens/assets) along a fixed price function determined by the amount of currencies supplied by the liquidity providers. Liquidity providers can be regarded as investors in the decentralized exchange and earn fixed commissions per trade. They lock up funds in liquidity pools for distinct pairs of currencies allowing market participants to swap them using the fixed price function. Liquidity providers take on market risk as a liquidity provider in exchange for earning commissions on each trade. Here we analyze the risk profile of a liquidity provider and the so called impermanent (unrealized) loss in particular. We provide an improved version of the commonly denoted impermanent loss function for Uniswap v2 on the semi-infinite domain. The differences between Uniswap v2 and v3 are also discussed.
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2106.14404&r=
  5. By: Kevin Clark; Adam Copeland; Robert Jay Kahn; Antoine Martin; Mark Paddrik; Benjamin Taylor
    Abstract: Market participants have often noted that general collateral (GC) repo trades happen very early in the morning, with most activity being completed soon after markets open at 7 a.m. Data on intraday repo volumes timing are not publicly available however, obscuring those dynamics to outside observers. In this post, we use confidential data collected by the Office of Financial Research (OFR) to describe the intraday timing dynamics of GC repo in the interdealer market. We demonstrate that a significant majority of interdealer overnight Treasury repo is completed prior to 8:30 a.m. (all times Eastern time), and explore the various factors that are driving repo traders to secure funding in the early morning.
    Keywords: repo; intra-day timing
    JEL: G1
    Date: 2021–07–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednls:92894&r=

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