Three Essays on the U.S. Treasury Market

<p>My thesis consists of three essays on market microstructure. Focusing on the U.S. Treasury market, I investigate several interesting research questions by using twelve years of BrokerTec order books of 2-, 5-, and 10-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury notes from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2015, and five years of BrokerTec order books of 3-, 7- and 30-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. In the U.S. Treasury market, BrokerTec is one of the two dominant electronic communication networks (ECNs). According to my calculations by using BrokerTec order books from 2011 to 2015, the average daily trading volume of BrokerTec on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities is about 134.9 billion U.S. dollars, which accounts for about 26% of that of the total U.S. Treasury primary dealer activity. To help a wider audience better understand the importance of the research questions in the following three chapters, Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the U.S. Treasury market. In Chapter 2, I investigate the impact of scheduled macroeconomic news announcements on the U.S. Treasury market efficiency. To control the microstructure noise, I employ a robust method to construct market inefficiency measures. I find that the U.S. Treasury market becomes less efficient starting from five minutes before news arrivals. The finding is robust for different sample periods, macroeconomic news announcements, and market inefficiency measures. Investor heterogeneity could explain the decreased market efficiency before scheduled news announcements. In Chapter 3, I investigate the impact of workup trading protocols on the U.S. Treasury market quality. Each transaction on the lit pool opens a workup window, during which the BrokerTec trading platform continues to receive order submissions and modifications, but only matches workup orders that have the same prices. Each workup transaction starts a new counting down of the workup clock. A workup window naturally closes either after the workup times out or when a limit order is submitted at a better price. I find that the workup trading activities decrease the market quality, in aspects of market efficiency and market liquidity. In Chapter 4, I empirically examine the role of heterogeneity in traders’ beliefs and public information shocks on traders’ order submission decisions around news announcements in the U.S. Treasury market. I find that during both the pre-announcement period and the post-announcement period, the traders tend to submit more market orders and aggressive limit orders when the market uncertainty is high. I also find that the belief heterogeneity influences investors’ trading behavior and order submission strategies around news announcements. The role of the belief heterogeneity on order aggressiveness depends on the type of news, and the magnitude of the information shocks. The impact of market uncertainty and belief heterogeneity influences traders’ submission of both of the market orders and aggressive limit orders. In Chapter 5, I provide a summary on the research findings in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. I also discuss the contributions of this thesis to the literature.</p>

Three Essays on the U.S. Treasury Market

<p>My thesis consists of three essays on market microstructure. Focusing on the U.S. Treasury market, I investigate several interesting research questions by using twelve years of BrokerTec order books of 2-, 5-, and 10-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury notes from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2015, and five years of BrokerTec order books of 3-, 7- and 30-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. In the U.S. Treasury market, BrokerTec is one of the two dominant electronic communication networks (ECNs). According to my calculations by using BrokerTec order books from 2011 to 2015, the average daily trading volume of BrokerTec on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities is about 134.9 billion U.S. dollars, which accounts for about 26% of that of the total U.S. Treasury primary dealer activity. To help a wider audience better understand the importance of the research questions in the following three chapters, Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the U.S. Treasury market. In Chapter 2, I investigate the impact of scheduled macroeconomic news announcements on the U.S. Treasury market efficiency. To control the microstructure noise, I employ a robust method to construct market inefficiency measures. I find that the U.S. Treasury market becomes less efficient starting from five minutes before news arrivals. The finding is robust for different sample periods, macroeconomic news announcements, and market inefficiency measures. Investor heterogeneity could explain the decreased market efficiency before scheduled news announcements. In Chapter 3, I investigate the impact of workup trading protocols on the U.S. Treasury market quality. Each transaction on the lit pool opens a workup window, during which the BrokerTec trading platform continues to receive order submissions and modifications, but only matches workup orders that have the same prices. Each workup transaction starts a new counting down of the workup clock. A workup window naturally closes either after the workup times out or when a limit order is submitted at a better price. I find that the workup trading activities decrease the market quality, in aspects of market efficiency and market liquidity. In Chapter 4, I empirically examine the role of heterogeneity in traders’ beliefs and public information shocks on traders’ order submission decisions around news announcements in the U.S. Treasury market. I find that during both the pre-announcement period and the post-announcement period, the traders tend to submit more market orders and aggressive limit orders when the market uncertainty is high. I also find that the belief heterogeneity influences investors’ trading behavior and order submission strategies around news announcements. The role of the belief heterogeneity on order aggressiveness depends on the type of news, and the magnitude of the information shocks. The impact of market uncertainty and belief heterogeneity influences traders’ submission of both of the market orders and aggressive limit orders. In Chapter 5, I provide a summary on the research findings in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. I also discuss the contributions of this thesis to the literature.</p>

THE JUDICIAL WORK OF THE CAERNARFONSHIRE QUARTER SESSIONS DURING THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY

The article portrays elements of life in Caernarfonshire for the period 1855 to 1865 as reflected in the files and Order Books of the county's Quarter Sessions. The study is confined to one decade and this made possible a systematic analysis of all the cases and administrative duties of the Caernarfonshire Quarter Sessions during these years. The years chosen form part of an era described by Ieuan Gwynedd Jones as 'distinctive':2 years of progress, population movement and growing 'respectability'. He speaks of a society 'fractured and uneasy with itself'.3 Trends in convictions, causes and types of crime, perpetrators and the attitude of magistrates and the public all play their part in building a picture of a community.

Annotated Listing of New Books

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book.

Tick Size and Informed Trading: Evidence from the Taiwanese Stock Market

We adopt the Sand&aring;s model for order-book equilibrium to examine informed trading on the Taiwanese stock market, a purely order-driven call-auction market. We find that adverse-selection cost is low for well-known stocks with high liquidity and low volatility, but cost is high for monitoring the order books of those stocks. Our empirical results show that the impact of adverse selection is greatest at the beginning of each trading day and that informed traders engage in stealth trading, supporting the stealth trading hypothesis. Finally, with the special tick size rules on the market, both adverse-selection cost and monitoring cost decline as tick size decreases.

Annotated Listing of New Books

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book.

Optimal Auction Duration: A Price Formation Viewpoint

Optimal Auction Duration in Financial Markets In the considered auction market, market makers fill the order book during a given time period while some other investors send market orders. The clearing price is set to maximize the exchanged volume at the clearing time according to the supply and demand of each market participant. The error made between this clearing price and the efficient price is derived as a function of the auction duration. We study the impact of the behavior of market takers on this error to minimize their transaction costs. We compute the optimal duration of the auctions for 77 stocks traded on Euronext and compare the quality of the price formation process under this optimal value to the case of a continuous limit order book. Continuous limit order books are usually found to be suboptimal. Order of magnitude of optimal auction durations is from 2–10 minutes.

Annotated Listing of New Books

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book.

Digital Business Model Innovation: Empirical insights into the drivers and value of Artificial Intelligence

The business activities of traditional industrial companies have commonly focused on products and product-related services. Digital pioneers have evolved their offerings into product-service systems that are networked, intelligent, personalized, and adaptable. The speed at which business models must change continues to be underestimated by many market participants, especially when order books are well filled and the pressure to change appears to be low. Industrial and service companies need to adapt to the changes induced by new market players better today than tomorrow to secure future business success and remain competitive in the digital age. The aim of this article is to intensify the debate on digital business model innovation in industry and the service sector and to enrich it with practical examples of the successful implementation of artificial intelligence in products and services.

Annotated Listing of New Books

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book.