Inter-dealer Market Research Articles

Information Friction in OTC Interdealer Markets

In over-the-counter (OTC) securities markets, interdealer markets are an important venue through which dealers can offload positions and share risk amongst themselves. Contrary to the popular conception that search frictions matter the most in OTC markets, we find that in the interdealer market for U.S. corporate bonds, information frictions are most relevant. Large dealers face large and informed customers and pay more than small dealers to transact in the interdealer market, despite on average providing liquidity to other dealers. Large dealers tend to trade through interdealer brokers (IDBs) to mitigate information leakage, but interdealer markets are still far from efficient.

Endogenous Volatility in the Foreign Exchange Market

We study two sources of heteroscedasticity in high-frequency financial data and estimate their contribution to overall volatility by means of a Markov switching (MS) structural VAR model. We achieve identification for all coefficients by assuming that the structural errors follow a GARCH-DCC process. Using transaction data of the EUR/USD interdealer market in 2016, we first detect three regimesof volatility. Then we show that both sources of volatility matter for the transmission of shocks, and that information is channeled to the market mostly through demand shocks. This suggests that, on the EUR/USD market, some liquidity takers (LTs) are better informed than both liquidity providers and those LTs who follow a feedback strategy.

Algorithmic market making in dealer markets with hedging and market impact

AbstractIn dealer markets, dealers provide prices at which they agree to buy and sell the assets and securities they have in their scope. With ever increasing trading volume, this quoting task has to be done algorithmically in most markets such as foreign exchange (FX) markets or corporate bond markets. Over the last 10 years, many mathematical models have been designed that can be the basis of quoting algorithms in dealer markets. Nevertheless, in most (if not all) models, the dealer is a pure internalizer, setting quotes and waiting for clients. However, on many dealer markets, dealers also have access to an interdealer market or even public trading venues where they can hedge part of their inventory. In this paper, we propose a model taking this possibility into account therefore allowing dealers to externalize part of their risk. The model displays an important feature well known to practitioners that within a certain inventory range, the dealer internalizes the flow by appropriately adjusting the quotes and starts externalizing outside of that range. The larger the franchise, the wider is the inventory range suitable for pure internalization. The model is illustrated numerically with realistic parameters for USDCNH spot market.

Price-setting in the foreign exchange swap market: Evidence from order flow

Using transaction level data from the inter-dealer market, we find that the price impact of one standard deviation change in FX swap order flow has increased from less than one basis point prior to 2008 to about five basis points after 2008. However, the increase in price impact is confined to periods of elevated dispersion in funding costs and over quarterends. Central bank swap lines reduce the order flow into USD, subsequently affecting the FX forward rate. In contrast, over quarter-ends and after monetary policy announcements we observe that dealers immediately adjust prices to curb order flow.

The determinants of liquidity commonality in the Euro-area sovereign bond market

We examine time-series variation in liquidity commonality across sovereign benchmark bonds from 10 Euro-area countries, over a 7-year period using tick-by-tick data from the inter-dealer market and study how it is driven by supply determinants (funding constraints of financial intermediaries) and demand determinants (investor sentiment, uncertainty, and cross-market linkages with the equity market) of liquidity. Commonality in liquidity does change over time, tends to intensify in stress periods as well as around ECB policy meetings, and we find stronger evidence in favor of the supply side determinants.

Price Discovery Pada Pasar Obligasi Pemerintah Indonesia

The study investigate price discovery in Indonesia government bond market. Understanding price discovery is a must to identify relevant factor affecting price of the asset. This research will cover two tier market, first tier is interdealer market and second tier is customer market. We study the dealer and customer order flow to identify which side that have greater impact in price formation in government bond market. The results show that from the two layers of order flow, the short-term dealer order flow and short-term customer order flow have role in price discovery process. Customer flow order regression coefficient is larger than the dealer order flow. Customers trade not only trade based on liquidity but also have information in making decisions or making investment portfolios (informed customers). At the group dealer order flow, dealers have a heterogeneous role and have different segments.

The electronic evolution of corporate bond dealers

Technology transformed the trading of financial assets but has been slower to come to corporate bond trading. Combining proprietary data from MarketAxess with regulatory TRACE data, we investigate how electronic request for quote (RFQ) trading affects bond dealers and trading more generally. We demonstrate that electronic trading remains fairly small and segmented, but has wide-ranging effects on transaction costs and execution quality in both electronic and voice trading, and the interdealer market. We identify features particular to bond markets that have and could continue to limit electronic bond trading growth. We provide an intriguing portrait of a market in transition.

Unveiling the relation between herding and liquidity with trader lead-lag networks

We propose a method to infer lead-lag networks of traders from the observation of their trade record as well as to reconstruct their state of supply and demand when they do not trade. The method relies on the Kinetic Ising model to describe how information propagates among traders, assigning a positive or negative ‘opinion’ to all agents about whether the traded asset price will go up or down. This opinion is reflected by their trading behavior, but whenever the trader is not active in a given time window, a missing value will arise. Using a recently developed inference algorithm, we are able to reconstruct a lead-lag network and to estimate the unobserved opinions, giving a clearer picture about the state of supply and demand in the market at all times. We apply our method to a dataset of clients of a major dealer in the Foreign Exchange market at the 5 minute time scale. We identify leading players in the market and define a herding measure based on the observed and inferred opinions. We show the causal link between herding and liquidity in the inter-dealer market used by dealers to rebalance their inventories.

Flash crash in an OTC market: trading behaviour of agents in times of market stress

We examine the 21-minute flash crash in the spot rate for Pound Sterling (GBP/USD) in October 2016. During this period, the sterling price fell 9%. Proprietary data reported to the Financial Conduct Authority show that the round-trip costs of dealers are 60 times higher during the flash crash compared to normal times given liquidity constraints. Further, dealers reduce their trading volume to 1% of the level during normal times. This may be attributable to the collapse of the inter-dealer market during the crash, where dealers could only hedge 31% of their clients’ trades with each other.

Frictional Intermediation in Over-the-Counter Markets

Abstract We extend Duffie et al.’s (2005) search-theoretic model of over-the-counter (OTC) asset markets, allowing for a decentralized inter-dealer market with arbitrary heterogeneity in dealers’ valuations (or, equivalently, inventory costs). We develop a solution technique that makes the model fully tractable and allows us to derive, in closed form, theoretical formulas for key statistics analysed in empirical studies of the intermediation process in OTC markets. A calibration to the market for municipal bonds allows us to quantify important unobservable characteristics of this market, including the severity of search and bargaining frictions and the nature of heterogeneity across dealers. We use our calibrated model to study the effect of these market characteristics on total welfare and the distribution of gains from trade across customers and dealers.

Over-the-counter market liquidity and securities lending

This paper studies how over-the-counter market liquidity is affected by securities lending. We combine micro-data on corporate bond market trades with securities lending transactions and individual corporate bond holdings by U.S. insurance companies. Applying a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, we show that the shutdown of AIG's securities lending program in 2008 caused a statistically and economically significant reduction in the market liquidity of corporate bonds predominantly held by AIG. We also show that an important mechanism behind the decrease in corporate bond liquidity was a shift towards relatively small trades among a greater number of dealers in the interdealer market.

Over-the-Counter Market Liquidity and Securities Lending

This paper studies how over-the-counter market liquidity is affected by securities lending. We combine micro-data on corporate bond market trades with securities lending transactions and individual corporate bond holdings by U.S. insurance companies. Applying a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, we show that the shutdown of AIG's securities lending program in 2008 caused a statistically and economically significant reduction in the market liquidity of corporate bonds predominantly held by AIG. We also show that an important mechanism behind the decrease in corporate bond liquidity was a shift towards relatively small trades among a greater number of dealers in the interdealer market.

Interdealer Information in an Augmented Taylor Rule - A New Hybrid Approach to Analyze Exchange Rates

We construct a new class of hybrid exchange rate models, combining macroeconomic fundamentals from a conventional Taylor rule with information from the foreign exchange interdealer market. We provide evidence that hybrid models have a superior model fit and produce more accurate in-sample predictions than their individual nested components. As part of our analysis, we employ a new market microstructure measure, based on submitted and cancelled limit orders, and document its significant impact on monthly exchange rate returns. We show that its effect is transitory and largely diminishes in a stylized out-of-sample forecasting exercise, while market order flow can improve short-term forecasts. Our comprehensive empirical assessment is based on one of the largest foreign exchange interdealer data sets analysed so far. It comprises nineteen U.S. dollar and euro currency pairs and covers a sample period of more than ten years.

Liquidity and Tail-Risk Interdependencies in the Euro Area Sovereign Bond Market

The likelihood of severe contractions in an asset's liquidity can feed back to the ex ante risks faced by the individual providers of such liquidity. These self-reinforcing effects can spread to other assets through informational externalities and hedging relations. We explore whether such interdependencies play a role in amplifying tensions in European sovereign bond markets and are a source of cross-market spillovers. Using high-frequency data from the inter-dealer market, we find significant own- and cross-market effects that amplify liquidity contractions in the Italian and Spanish bond markets during times of heightened risk. The German Bund's safe-haven status exacerbates these amplification effects. We provide evidence of a post-crisis dampening of cross-market effects following crisis-era changes to euro area policies and institutional architecture. We identify a structural break in Italy's cross-market conditional correlation during rising political tensions in 2018, which significantly reduced liquidity. Overall, our findings demonstrate potential for the provision of liquidity across sovereign markets to be vulnerable to sudden fractures, with possible implications for euro area economic and financial stability.

Liquidity and Tail-Risk Interdependencies in the Euro Area Sovereign Bond Market

The likelihood of severe contractions in an asset’s liquidity can feed back to the ex-ante risks faced by the individual providers of such liquidity. These self-reinforcing effects can spread to other assets through informational externalities and hedging relations. We explore whether such interdependencies play a role in amplifying tensions in European sovereign bond markets and are a source of cross-market spillovers. Using highfrequency data from the inter-dealer market, we find significant own- and cross-market effects that amplify liquidity contractions in the Italian and Spanish bond markets during times of heightened risk. The German Bund’s safe-haven status exacerbates these amplification effects. We provide evidence of a post-crisis dampening of cross-market effects following crisisera changes to euro area policies and institutional architecture. We identify a structural break in Italy’s cross-market conditional correlation during rising political tensions in 2018, which significantly reduced liquidity. Overall, our findings demonstrate potential for the provision of liquidity across sovereign markets to be vulnerable to sudden fractures, with possible implications for euro area economic and financial stability.

Dealer activity and macro fundamentals – New evidence from hybrid exchange rate models

We construct a new class of hybrid exchange rate models, combining macroeconomic fundamentals from a conventional Taylor rule with information from the foreign exchange interdealer market. We provide evidence that hybrid models have a superior model fit and produce more accurate in-sample predictions than their individual nested components. As part of our analysis, we employ a new market microstructure measure, based on submitted and cancelled limit orders, and document its significant impact on monthly exchange rate returns. We show that its effect is transitory and largely diminishes in a stylized out-of-sample forecasting exercise, while market order flow can improve short-term forecasts. Our comprehensive empirical assessment is based on one of the largest foreign exchange interdealer order flow datasets analyzed so far. It comprises 19 U.S. dollar and euro currency pairs and covers a sample period of more than 10 years.

Electronic Trading in OTC Markets vs. Centralized Exchange

We model a two-tiered market structure in which an investor can trade an asset on a trading platform with a set of dealers who in turn have access to an interdealer market. The investor's order is informative about the asset's payoff and dealers who were contacted by the investor use this information in the interdealer market. Increasing the number of contacted dealers lowers markups through competition but increases the dealers' costs of providing the asset through information leakage. We then compare a centralized market in which investors can trade among themselves in a central limit order book to a market in which investors have to use the electronic platform to trade the asset. With imperfect competition among dealers, investor welfare is higher in the centralized market if private values are strongly dispersed or if the mass of investors is large.

Frictional Intermediation in Over-the-Counter Markets

We extend Duffie, Garleanu, and Pedersen’s (2005) search-theoretic model of over-the-counter asset markets, allowing for a decentralized inter-dealer market with arbitrary heterogeneity in dealers’ valuations or inventory costs. We develop a solution technique that makes the model fully tractable and allows us to derive, in closed form, theoretical formulas for key statistics analyzed in empirical studies of the intermediation process in OTC market. A calibration to the market for municipal securities reveals that the model can generate trading patterns and prices that are quantitatively consistent with the data. We use the calibrated model to compare the gains from trade that are realized in this frictional market with those from a hypothetical, frictionless environment, and to distinguish between the quantitative implications of various types of heterogeneity across dealers.

Electronic Trading in OTC Markets vs. Centralized Exchange

We model a two-tiered market structure in which an investor can trade an asset on a trading platform with a set of dealers who in turn have access to an interdealer market. The investor's order is informative about the asset's payoff and dealers who were contacted by the investor use this information in the interdealer market. Increasing the number of contacted dealers lowers markups through competition but increases the dealers' costs of providing the asset through information leakage. We then compare a centralized market in which investors can trade among themselves in a central limit order book to a market in which investors have to use the electronic platform to trade the asset. With imperfect competition among dealers, investor welfare is higher in the centralized market if private values are strongly dispersed or if the mass of investors is large.

How Do Inventory Costs Affect Dealer Behavior in the US Corporate Bond Market?

I show that dealer behavior in the US corporate bond market is consistent with dealers bearing a time-varying cost of holding inventory. Liquidity is worse when inventory costs increase, especially for bonds with lower credit ratings, customers with lower bargaining power, and larger trades. When inventory costs increase, dealers sell more high yield bonds, but sell less investment grade, suggesting a flight to quality. Inventory costs don't affect dealers' trades immediately unwound in the inter-dealer market, but do affect the rate at which these trades occur, as dealers' willingness and ability to risk-share in the inter-dealer market change.