IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/refeco/v4y2012p59-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impacts of Automation and High Frequency Trading on Market Quality

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Litzenberger

    (Finance Department, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
    RGM Advisors, LLC, Austin, Texas 78701)

  • Jeff Castura

    (RGM Advisors, LLC, Austin, Texas 78701)

  • Richard Gorelick

    (RGM Advisors, LLC, Austin, Texas 78701)

Abstract

In recent decades, US equity markets have changed from predominantly manual markets with limited competition to highly automated and competitive markets. These changes occurred earlier for NASDAQ stocks (primarily between 1994 and 2004) and later for NYSE-listed stocks (mostly following Reg NMS and the 2006 introduction of the NYSE hybrid market). This paper surveys the evidence of how these changes impacted market quality and shows that overall market quality has improved significantly, including bid-ask spreads, liquidity, and transitory price impacts (measured by short-term variance ratios). The greater improvement in market quality for NYSE-listed stocks relative to NASDAQ stocks beginning in 2006 suggests causal links between the staggered market structure changes and market quality. Using proprietary data sets, provided by two exchanges, that identify the activity of high frequency trading firms, studies show these firms contributed directly to narrowing bid-ask spreads, increasing liquidity, and reducing intraday transitory pricing errors and intraday volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Litzenberger & Jeff Castura & Richard Gorelick, 2012. "The Impacts of Automation and High Frequency Trading on Market Quality," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 59-98, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:refeco:v:4:y:2012:p:59-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-financial-110311-101744
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2008. "Liquidity and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 249-268, February.
    2. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    3. Andrew W. Lo, A. Craig MacKinlay, 1988. "Stock Market Prices do not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 41-66.
    4. Barclay, Michael J & Litzenberger, Robert H & Warner, Jerold B, 1990. "Private Information, Trading Volume, and Stock-Return Variances," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 233-253.
    5. Christie, William G & Schultz, Paul H, 1994. "Why Do NASDAQ Market Makers Avoid Odd-Eighth Quotes?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1813-1840, December.
    6. Austin Gerig & David Michayluk, 2010. "Automated Liquidity Provision and the Demise of Traditional Market Making," Papers 1007.2352, arXiv.org.
    7. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    8. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    9. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    10. James A. Bennett, 2003. "Greener Pastures and the Impact of Dynamic Institutional Preferences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1203-1238.
    11. Menkveld, Albert J., 2013. "High frequency trading and the new market makers," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 712-740.
    12. French, Kenneth R. & Roll, Richard, 1986. "Stock return variances : The arrival of information and the reaction of traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 5-26, September.
    13. Terrence Hendershott & Charles M. Jones & Albert J. Menkveld, 2011. "Does Algorithmic Trading Improve Liquidity?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 1-33, February.
    14. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1981. "Information aggregation in a noisy rational expectations economy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 221-235, September.
    15. Hendershott, Terrence & Moulton, Pamela C., 2011. "Automation, speed, and stock market quality: The NYSE's Hybrid," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 568-604, November.
    16. Anat R. Admati, Paul Pfleiderer, 1988. "A Theory of Intraday Patterns: Volume and Price Variability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 3-40.
    17. Kraus, Alan & Stoll, Hans R, 1972. "Price Impacts of Block Trading on the New York Stock Exchange," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 569-588, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Brunetti, Celso, 2020. "High frequency traders and the price process," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(1), pages 20-45.
    2. Salman Bahoo & Marco Cucculelli & Xhoana Goga & Jasmine Mondolo, 2024. "Artificial intelligence in Finance: a comprehensive review through bibliometric and content analysis," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 1-46, February.
    3. Gerig, Austin & Michayluk, David, 2017. "Automated liquidity provision," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-13.
    4. Carl David Mildenberger, 2023. "What (If Anything) is Wrong with High-Frequency Trading?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(2), pages 369-383, August.
    5. Austin Gerig & David Michayluk, 2010. "Automated Liquidity Provision and the Demise of Traditional Market Making," Papers 1007.2352, arXiv.org.
    6. Hee Su Roh & Yinyu Ye, 2015. "Market Making with Model Uncertainty," Papers 1509.07155, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2015.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thanh Huong Nguyen, 2019. "Information and Noise in Stock Markets: Evidence on the Determinants and Effects Using New Empirical Measures," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 7-2019, January-A.
    2. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Putniņš, Tālis J., 2015. "Dark trading and price discovery," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 70-92.
    4. Vinay Patel, 2015. "Price Discovery in US and Australian Stock and Options Markets," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 27, July-Dece.
    5. A. Can Inci & Biao Lu & H. Nejat Seyhun, 2010. "Intraday Behavior of Stock Prices and Trades around Insider Trading," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(1), pages 323-363, March.
    6. Yildiz, Serhat & Van Ness, Bonnie & Van Ness, Robert, 2020. "VPIN, liquidity, and return volatility in the U.S. equity markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    7. Vinay Patel, 2015. "Price Discovery in US and Australian Stock and Options Markets," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 6-2015, January-A.
    8. Austin Gerig & David Michayluk, 2010. "Automated Liquidity Provision and the Demise of Traditional Market Making," Papers 1007.2352, arXiv.org.
    9. Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2018. "Trading places: Price leadership and the competition for order flow," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 178-200.
    10. repec:uts:finphd:34 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Hasbrouck, Joel & Saar, Gideon, 2013. "Low-latency trading," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 646-679.
    12. Gerig, Austin & Michayluk, David, 2017. "Automated liquidity provision," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-13.
    13. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    14. Rzayev, Khaladdin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2019. "A state-space modeling of the information content of trading volume," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    15. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2008. "Liquidity and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 249-268, February.
    16. Craig W. Holden & Stacey Jacobsen & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2014. "The Empirical Analysis of Liquidity," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 8(4), pages 263-365, December.
    17. Hatheway, Frank & Kwan, Amy & Zheng, Hui, 2017. "An Empirical Analysis of Market Segmentation on U.S. Equity Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(6), pages 2399-2427, December.
    18. Jagjeev Dosanjh, 2017. "Exchange Initiatives and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Australian Securities Exchange," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2017, January-A.
    19. Zhang, Chris H. & Frijns, Bart, 2019. "Noise trading and informational efficiency," EconStor Preprints 198037, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Goodhart, Charles A. E. & O'Hara, Maureen, 1997. "High frequency data in financial markets: Issues and applications," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(2-3), pages 73-114, June.
    21. Hao, Ying & Chou, Robin K. & Ho, Keng-Yu & Weng, Pei-Shih, 2015. "The impact of foreign institutional traders on price efficiency: Evidence from the Taiwan futures market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 24-42.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    electronic markets; market efficiency; market regulation; automated market making;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:refeco:v:4:y:2012:p:59-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.