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The information content of a limit order book: The case of an FX market

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  • Kozhan, Roman
  • Salmon, Mark

Abstract

In this paper we examine the question of whether knowledge of the information contained in a limit order book helps to provide economic value in a simple trading scheme. Given the greater information content of the order book, over simple price information, it might naturally be expected that the order book would dominate. Using Dollar Sterling tick data, we find that despite the in-sample statistical significance of variables describing the structure of the limit order book in explaining tick-by-tick returns, they do not consistently add significant economic value out-of-sample. We show this using a simple linear model to determine trading activity, as well as a model-free genetic algorithm based on price, order flow, and order book information. We also find that the profitability of all trading rules based on genetic algorithms dropped substantially in 2008 compared to 2003 data.

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  • Kozhan, Roman & Salmon, Mark, 2012. "The information content of a limit order book: The case of an FX market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:15:y:2012:i:1:p:1-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2011.07.002
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    2. Petr Zeman, 2014. "Technical Trading and Testing of Intra-day Market Efficiency in the Foreign Exchange Market," Acta Universitatis Bohemiae Meridionales, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, vol. 17(1), pages 3-13.
    3. Tolga Cenesizoglu & Georges Dionne & Xiaozhou Zhou, 2014. "Effects of the Limit Order Book on Price Dynamics," Cahiers de recherche 1426, CIRPEE.
    4. 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.
    5. Kitamura, Yoshihiro, 2016. "Does the simple microstructure model tell the time of the FX intervention? A one day analysis of the Japanese FX intervention," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 436-446.
    6. Tian, Xiao & Duong, Huu Nhan & Kalev, Petko S., 2019. "Information content of the limit order book for crude oil futures price volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 584-597.
    7. Syrstad, Olav & Viswanath-Natraj, Ganesh, 2022. "Price-setting in the foreign exchange swap market: Evidence from order flow," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 119-142.
    8. Cenesizoglu, Tolga & Dionne, Georges & Zhou, Xiaozhou, 2022. "Asymmetric effects of the limit order book on price dynamics," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 77-98.
    9. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Mehdi Lallouache & Frédéric Abergel, 2014. "Tick size reduction and price clustering in a FX order book," Post-Print hal-01006414, HAL.
    11. Olav Syrstad & Ganesh Viswanath-Natraj, 2020. "Price-setting in the foreign exchange swap market: Evidence from order flow," Working Paper 2020/16, Norges Bank.
    12. Yoshida, Yushi & Susai, Masayuki, 2016. "Stepping out of the limit order book: Empirical evidence from the EBS FX market," MPRA Paper 70291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Matthew F Dixon, 2017. "A High Frequency Trade Execution Model for Supervised Learning," Papers 1710.03870, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2017.
    14. Ito, Katsuki & Iima, Hitoshi & Kitamura, Yoshihiro, 2022. "LSTM forecasting foreign exchange rates using limit order book," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Profitability; Limit order book; High-frequency data; Algorithmic trading;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

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