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Private information and its origins in an electronic foreign exchange market

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  • Gençay, Ramazan
  • Gradojevic, Nikola

Abstract

We study the risk of informed trading in an electronic foreign exchange market and test whether informed trading is driven by marketwide private information. Our framework is based on a structural microstructure trade model that measures the market makers' beliefs directly. Evidence of high concentration of informed trades is found to be inversely related to the overall 24-hour trading activity, i.e., early morning and late afternoon GMT rounds of trading involve the highest risk of informed trading. We structurally identify that the trades due to region-specific private information are dominant and explain between 5 and 25% of the variation in currency returns. In contrast, marketwide private information explains only about 1–5% of the variation in returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Gençay, Ramazan & Gradojevic, Nikola, 2013. "Private information and its origins in an electronic foreign exchange market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 86-93.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:33:y:2013:i:c:p:86-93
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2013.03.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Meifen Qian & Bin Yu & Qianyu Zhu, 2018. "Noise traders, firm-specific uncertainty and technical trading effectiveness," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(13), pages 918-923, July.
    2. Kitamura, Yoshihiro, 2016. "The probability of informed trading measured with price impact, price reversal, and volatility," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 77-90.
    3. Gradojevic, Nikola & Erdemlioglu, Deniz & Gençay, Ramazan, 2020. "A new wavelet-based ultra-high-frequency analysis of triangular currency arbitrage," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 57-73.
    4. Gradojevic, Nikola & Erdemlioglu, Deniz & Gençay, Ramazan, 2017. "Informativeness of trade size in foreign exchange markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 27-33.
    5. Sheng-Ping Yang & Thanh Nguyen, 2019. "Skewness Preference and Asset Pricing: Evidence from the Japanese Stock Market," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-10, September.
    6. Eun, Cheol S. & Kim, Soo-Hyun & Lee, Kyuseok, 2015. "Currency competition between the dollar and euro: Evidence from exchange rate behaviors," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 100-108.
    7. Ramazan Gençay & Nikola Gradojevic & Richard Olsen & Faruk Selçuk, 2015. "Informed traders’ arrival in foreign exchange markets: Does geography matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1431-1462, December.
    8. Nikola Gradojevic, 2014. "Informativeness of the Trade Size in an Electronic Foreign Exchange Market," Working Papers 2014-ACF-02, IESEG School of Management.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign exchange markets; Private information; Informed trading; Noise trading;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance

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