Abstract
We find that small buy trades of US agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are priced 3–8% lower than large sell trades. No such “crossing” exists in corporate bonds and agency debentures. We attribute the MBS price patterns to impediments to position aggregation in combination with investor suitability rules that disproportionately affect retail-sized trading and show in a model that classic market frictions cannot produce crossing. Our findings imply that valuations placed on securities affected by aggregation and suitability frictions should adjust for position size. Such securities include not only agency MBS, but also asset-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized mortgage obligations, collateralized loan obligations, and private-label residential mortgage-backed securities.
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