IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/brd/wpaper/101r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dealer Trading at the Fix

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Osler

    (Brandeis University)

  • Alasdair Turnbull

    (Clarkson University)

Abstract

This paper develops a model of dealer conduct – and misconduct – at the London 4 pm fix, a major currency market benchmark. The analysis clarifies the dealers’ incentives and strategies, helps explain why fix volatility remains high despite reforms, and provides insights relevant to benchmark design. Fix prices will be unusually volatile without collusion. Collusion is profitable because it shuts down a form of free-riding in which dealers front-run each other. The price trend accelerates more as the fix approaches under collusion than under independent trading. Statistical tests detect this shift around 2008, when major banks admit their dealers began colluding.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Osler & Alasdair Turnbull, 2016. "Dealer Trading at the Fix," Working Papers 101R, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School, revised Jun 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:brd:wpaper:101r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.brandeis.edu/economics/RePEc/brd/doc/Brandeis_WP101R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Order Flow and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 6, pages 247-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Bjonnes, Geir Hoidal & Rime, Dagfinn, 2005. "Dealer behavior and trading systems in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 571-605, March.
    3. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Obizhaeva, Anna A. & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Optimal trading strategy and supply/demand dynamics," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 1-32.
    5. Darrell Duffie & Piotr Dworczak & Haoxiang Zhu, 2017. "Benchmarks in Search Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1983-2044, October.
    6. Lukas Menkhoff & Lucio Sarno & Maik Schmeling & Andreas Schrimpf, 2016. "Information Flows in Foreign Exchange Markets: Dissecting Customer Currency Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 601-634, April.
    7. Simon, David P., 1991. "Segmentation in the Treasury Bill Market: Evidence from Cash Management Bills," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 97-108, March.
    8. Green, Edward J & Porter, Robert H, 1984. "Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 87-100, January.
    9. Esen Onur & David Reiffen, 2018. "The effect of settlement rules on the incentive to Bang the Close," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(8), pages 841-864, August.
    10. Robert A. Jarrow, 2008. "Market Manipulation, Bubbles, Corners, and Short Squeezes," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 6, pages 105-130, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Hillion, Pierre & Suominen, Matti, 2004. "The manipulation of closing prices," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 351-375, October.
    12. Richard N. Clarke, 1983. "Collusion and the Incentives for Information Sharing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 383-394, Autumn.
    13. Kumar, Praveen & Seppi, Duane J, 1992. "Futures Manipulation with "Cash Settlement."," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1485-1502, September.
    14. Vitale, Paolo, 2000. "Speculative noise trading and manipulation in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 689-712, October.
    15. Rime, Dagfinn & Sarno, Lucio & Sojli, Elvira, 2010. "Exchange rate forecasting, order flow and macroeconomic information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 72-88, January.
    16. Gal-Or, Esther, 1985. "Information Sharing in Oligopoly," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(2), pages 329-343, March.
    17. Mark M. Carhart & Ron Kaniel & David K. Musto & Adam V. Reed, 2002. "Leaning for the Tape: Evidence of Gaming Behavior in Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 661-693, April.
    18. Abreu, Dilip & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1986. "Optimal cartel equilibria with imperfect monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 251-269, June.
    19. Bulow, Jeremy I & Geanakoplos, John D & Klemperer, Paul D, 1985. "Multimarket Oligopoly: Strategic Substitutes and Complements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 488-511, June.
    20. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 1992. "Stock-Price Manipulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 503-529.
    21. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2011. "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 455-492.
    22. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Putnins, Talis J., 2011. "Measuring closing price manipulation," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 135-158, April.
    23. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2016. "Price Fixing Hits Home: An Empirical Study of US Price-Fixing Conspiracies," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(4), pages 361-379, June.
    24. 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.
    25. Melvin, Michael & Prins, John, 2015. "Equity hedging and exchange rates at the London 4p.m. fix," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 50-72.
    26. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    27. Bertsimas, Dimitris & Lo, Andrew W., 1998. "Optimal control of execution costs," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-50, April.
    28. Xavier Vives, 1990. "Trade Association Disclosure Rules, Incentives to Share Information, and Welfare," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(3), pages 409-430, Autumn.
    29. Shleifer, Andrei, 1986. "Do Demand Curves for Stocks Slope Down?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 579-590, July.
    30. Cushing, David & Madhavan, Ananth, 2000. "Stock returns and trading at the close," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 45-67, February.
    31. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Stock Market Manipulations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1915-1954, July.
    32. Harris, Lawrence, 1986. "A transaction data study of weekly and intradaily patterns in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 99-117, May.
    33. Oliver D. Hart, 1977. "On The Profitability of Speculation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(4), pages 579-597.
    34. Geir H. Bjønnes & Carol L. Osler & Dagfinn Rime, 2009. "Asymmetric information in the interbank foreign exchange market," Working Paper 2008/25, Norges Bank.
    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. Martin D. D. Evans, 2019. "Front-Running and Collusion in Forex Trading," Working Papers gueconwpa~19-19-02, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Ito, Takatoshi & Yamada, Masahiro, 2018. "Did the reform fix the London fix problem?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 75-95.
    3. Ito, Takatoshi & Yamada, Masahiro, 2017. "Puzzles in the Tokyo fixing in the forex market: Order imbalances and Bank pricing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 214-234.
    4. Alain Chaboud & Dagfinn Rime & Vladyslav Sushko, 2023. "The foreign exchange market," Chapters, in: Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright (ed.), Research Handbook of Financial Markets, chapter 12, pages 253-275, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    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. Evans, Martin D.D., 2018. "Forex trading and the WMR Fix," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 233-247.
    2. Martin Evans, 2014. "Forex Trading and the WMR Fix," Working Papers gueconwpa~14-14-03, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    3. Tālis J. Putniņš, 2012. "Market Manipulation: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 952-967, December.
    4. Carol Osler, 2016. "Dealer Trading at the Fix," Working Papers 101, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    5. 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.
    6. Martin D. D. Evans, 2019. "Front-Running and Collusion in Forex Trading," Working Papers gueconwpa~19-19-02, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    7. King, Michael R. & Osler, Carol L. & Rime, Dagfinn, 2013. "The market microstructure approach to foreign exchange: Looking back and looking forward," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 95-119.
    8. Atanasov, Vladimir & Davies, Ryan J. & Merrick, John J., 2015. "Financial intermediaries in the midst of market manipulation: Did they protect the fool or help the knave?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 210-234.
    9. Matthew Pritsker, 2005. "Large investors: implications for equilibrium asset, returns, shock absorption, and liquidity," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-36, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Carol Osler & Geir Bjonnes & Neophytos Kathitziotis, 2016. "Bid-Ask Spreads in OTC Markets," Working Papers 102, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    11. Ranaldo, Angelo & Somogyi, Fabricius, 2021. "Asymmetric information risk in FX markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 391-411.
    12. Osler, Carol L. & Mende, Alexander & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2011. "Price discovery in currency markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1696-1718.
    13. Christos Alexakis & Vasileios Pappas & Emmanouil Skarmeas, 2021. "Market abuse under different close price determination mechanisms: A European case," Post-Print hal-03182927, HAL.
    14. Ranaldo, Angelo & de Magistris, Paolo Santucci, 2022. "Liquidity in the global currency market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 859-883.
    15. Earl A. Thompson & Jonathan Treussard & Charles R. Hickson, 2004. "Predicting Bubbles and Bubbles-Substitutes," UCLA Economics Working Papers 836, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Shino Takayama, 2013. "Price Manipulation, Dynamic Informed Trading and Tame Equilibria: Theory and Computation," Discussion Papers Series 492, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    17. Michael Aitken & Frederick Harris & Shan Ji, 2015. "A Worldwide Examination of Exchange Market Quality: Greater Integrity Increases Market Efficiency," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 147-170, November.
    18. Cumming, Douglas & Johan, Sofia & Li, Dan, 2011. "Exchange trading rules and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 651-671, March.
    19. Cumming, Douglas & Dannhauser, Robert & Johan, Sofia, 2015. "Financial market misconduct and agency conflicts: A synthesis and future directions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 150-168.
    20. Tsung-Yu Hsieh, 2015. "Information disclosure and price manipulation during the pre-closing session: evidence from an order-driven market," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(43), pages 4670-4684, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:brd:wpaper:101r. 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: Andrea Luna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsbraus.html .

    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.