The latest cutting-edge research on market microstructure Based on the December 2010 conference on market microstructure, organized with the help of the Institut Louis Bachelier, this guide brings together the leading thinkers to discuss this important field of modern finance. It provides readers with vital insight on the origin of the well-known anomalous "stylized facts" in financial prices series, namely heavy tails, volatility, and clustering, and illustrates their impact on the organization of markets, execution costs, price impact, organization liquidity in electronic markets, and other issues raised by high-frequency trading. World-class contributors cover topics including analysis of high-frequency data, statistics of high-frequency data, market impact, and optimal trading. This is a must-have guide for practitioners and academics in quantitative finance.
The foreign exchange market is the largest, fastest-growing financial market in the world. Yet conventional macroeconomic approaches do not explain why people trade foreign exchange. At the same time, they fail to explain the short-run determinants of the exchange rate. These nine innovative essays use a microstructure approach to analyze the workings of the foreign exchange market, with special emphasis on institutional aspects and the actual behavior of market participants. They examine the volume of transactions, heterogeneity of traders, the time of day and location of trading, the bid-ask spread, and the high level of exchange rate volatility that has puzzled many observers. They also consider the structure of the market, including such issues as nontransparency, asymmetric information, liquidity trading, the use of automated brokers, the relationship between spot and derivative markets, and the importance of systemic risk in the market. This timely volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the economics of international finance.
Focusing on market microstructure, Harris (chief economist, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) introduces the practices and regulations governing stock trading markets. Writing to be understandable to the lay reader, he examines the structure of trading, puts forward an economic theory of trading, discusses speculative trading strategies, explores liquidity and volatility, and considers the evaluation of trader performance. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
The interactions that occur in securities markets are among the fastest, most information intensive, and most highly strategic of all economic phenomena. This book is about the institutions that have evolved to handle our trading needs, the economic forces that guide our strategies, and statistical methods of using and interpreting the vast amount of information that these markets produce. The book includes numerous exercises.
This book discusses market microstructure environment within the context of the global financial crisis. In the first part, the market microstructure theory is recalled and the main microstructure models and hypotheses are discussed. The second part focuses on the main effects of the financial downturn through an examination of market microstructure dynamics. In particular, the effects of market imperfections and the limitations associated with microstructure models are discussed. Finally, the new regulations and recent developments for financial markets that aim to improve the market microstructure are discussed. Well-known experts on the subject contribute to the chapters in the book. A must-read for academic researchers, students and quantitative practitioners.
Corporate Payout Policy synthesizes the academic research on payout policy and explains "how much, when, and how". That is (i) the overall value of payouts over the life of the enterprise, (ii) the time profile of a firm's payouts across periods, and (iii) the form of those payouts. The authors conclude that today's theory does a good job of explaining the general features of corporate payout policies, but some important gaps remain. So while our emphasis is to clarify "what we know" about payout policy, the authors also identify a number of interesting unresolved questions for future research. Corporate Payout Policy discusses potential influences on corporate payout policy including managerial use of payouts to signal future earnings to outside investors, individuals' behavioral biases that lead to sentiment-based demands for distributions, the desire of large block stockholders to maintain corporate control, and personal tax incentives to defer payouts. The authors highlight four important "carry-away" points: the literature's focus on whether repurchases will (or should) drive out dividends is misplaced because it implicitly assumes that a single payout vehicle is optimal; extant empirical evidence is strongly incompatible with the notion that the primary purpose of dividends is to signal managers' views of future earnings to outside investors; over-confidence on the part of managers is potentially a first-order determinant of payout policy because it induces them to over-retain resources to invest in dubious projects and so behavioral biases may, in fact, turn out to be more important than agency costs in explaining why investors pressure firms to accelerate payouts; the influence of controlling stockholders on payout policy --- particularly in non-U.S. firms, where controlling stockholders are common --- is a promising area for future research. Corporate Payout Policy is required reading for both researchers and practitioners interested in understanding this central topic in corporate finance and governance.
This book, written by Joakim Westerholm, Professor of Finance and former trading professional, is intended to be used as basis for developing courses in Securities markets, Trading, and Market microstructure and connects theoretic rigor with practical real world applications.Market technology evolves, the roles of market participants change, and whole market segments disappear to be replaced by new ways to exchange securities. Yet, the same underlying economic principles continue to drive trading in securities markets. Thus, the scope of the book is global, providing a framework that is relevant both for current market designs and for future markets we will see develop. It is designed to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving field.The book contains a selection of lecture notes through which students will gain an in-depth understanding of the mechanism that drives trading in securities markets. The book also contains another set of lecture notes with more advanced, research-based material, suitable for Honours or Master level research students, or for PhD candidates. The material is self-explanatory and can also be used for self-study, preferably in conjunction with assigned readings.
This book exposes and comments on the consequences of Reg NMS and MiFID on market microstructure. It covers changes in market design, electronic trading, and investor and trader behaviors. The emergence of high frequency trading and critical events like the'Flash Crash' of 2010 are also analyzed in depth.Using a quantitative viewpoint, this book explains how an attrition of liquidity and regulatory changes can impact the whole microstructure of financial markets. A mathematical Appendix details the quantitative tools and indicators used through the book, allowing the reader to go further independently.This book is written by practitioners and theoretical experts and covers practical aspects (like the optimal infrastructure needed to trade electronically in modern markets) and abstract analyses (like the use on entropy measurements to understand the progress of market fragmentation).As market microstructure is a recent academic field, students will benefit from the book's overview of the current state of microstructure and will use the Appendix to understand important methodologies. Policy makers and regulators will use this book to access theoretical analyses on real cases. For readers who are practitioners, this book delivers data analysis and basic processes like the designs of Smart Order Routing and trade scheduling algorithms.In this second edition, the authors have added a large section on orderbook dynamics, showing how liquidity can predict future price moves, and how High Frequency Traders can profit from it. The section on market impact has also been updated to show how buying or selling pressure moves prices not only for a few hours, but even for days, and how prices relax (or not) after a period of intense pressure.Further, this edition includes pages on Dark Pools, Circuit Breakers and added information outside of Equity Trading, because MiFID 2 is likely to push fixed income markets towards more electronification. The authors explore what is to be expected from this change in microstructure. The appendix has also been augmented to include the propagator models (for intraday price impact), a simple version of Kyle's model (1985) for daily market impact, and a more sophisticated optimal trading framework, to support the design of trading algorithms.
This book explores various regulatory, legal, and competitive pressures that the U.S. securities industry is facing as a result of the intense regulatory scrutiny of the modern electronic marketplace and the heated public debate stirred by Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. This collection of previously published and unpublished materials includes the following articles and white papers: 1. 20 Predictions for the Future of the Market Structure Crisis - provides an overview of the current market structure crisis and offers forecasts for regulatory, legal, and commercial developments 2. Deconstructing Maker-Taker - analyzes the nature and implications of the maker-taker pricing model and discusses its role in the current market structure 3. Reigniting the Order Type Debate - reviews recent order type-related rule submissions by securities exchange and discusses the nature of "undocumented" order type features and order matching engine practices 4. The Problem of Fragmentation and Potential Solutions - presents various issues related to the "dispersed" trading process, analyzes different order flow allocation mechanisms, such as maker-taker and payment for order flow arrangements, and reviews potential regulatory solutions 5. HFT Regulation and Market Structure Reform - discusses the emergence of HFT regulation, including various proposals concerning restraints on electronic trading, approaches to slowing down or mechanically restraining the trading process, and the elimination of certain shortcuts embedded in the current market structure 6. Leveling the Playing Field: Lit and Dark Trading Venues - reviews recent enforcement actions directed at trading venues, analyzes the doctrine of regulatory immunity, and addresses a variety of other issues relevant for trading venues 7. Protecting Customers and Achieving Best Execution: Issues for Retail and Institutional Brokers - analyzes various concerns relevant for retail and institutional brokers, including the evolving duty of best execution and its extension to other parties, maker-taker and payment for order flow arrangements, and special order types 8. Litigation and the Impact of Enforcement: The Market Structure Perspective - provides as overview of the litigation landscape for market structure-related issues, including private lawsuits directed at major trading venues and brokerage firms, and discusses the significance of enforcement actions 9. Public Comment Letter on Several Order Type-Related Modifications Proposed by the New York Stock Exchange - offers a critique of the proposed functionalities and discusses the phenomenon of post-only intermarket sweep orders 10. The Flash Boys Lawsuit: The End of the Beginning? - discusses the path of the City of Providence v. BATS class action lawsuit, which has been referred to as the "Flash Boys Lawsuit," and analyzes the prospects of private lawsuits in the market structure space Appendix A - Summary of Key Enforcement Actions and Lawsuits Appendix B - Selected Market Structure-Related References
