IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/brd/wpaper/48.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market Microstructure and the Profitability of Currency Trading

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Osler

    (International Business School, Brandeis University)

Abstract

Currency trading is a vast and highly profitable business. This paper examines the profitability of two popular currency trading strategies in light of currency-market microstructure research. The carry-trade strategy involves borrowing a low-interest currency and investing the proceeds in a high-interest currency. Technical trading strategies are determined exclusively on the basis of past asset prices and trading volumes. Under the efficient markets hypothesis, neither of these approaches to speculative trading should produce excess returns. The review shows that the profitability of carry-trade investing and technical trading strategies can represent rational long-run equilibria given the structure of currency markets and the incentives and constraints faced by traders.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Osler, 2012. "Market Microstructure and the Profitability of Currency Trading," Working Papers 48, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:brd:wpaper:48
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.brandeis.edu/economics/RePEc/brd/doc/Brandeis_WP48.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J. Sager & Mark P. Taylor, 2006. "Under the microscope: the structure of the foreign exchange market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(1), pages 81-95.
    2. Biais, Bruno & Glosten, Larry & Spatt, Chester, 2005. "Market microstructure: A survey of microfoundations, empirical results, and policy implications," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 217-264, May.
    3. Melvin, Michael & Taylor, Mark P., 2009. "The crisis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1317-1330, December.
    4. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    5. Madhavan, Ananth, 2000. "Market microstructure: A survey," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 205-258, August.
    6. Sanford J. Grossman & Merton H. Miller, 1988. "Liquidity and Market Structure," NBER Working Papers 2641, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Clarida, Richard & Davis, Josh & Pedersen, Niels, 2009. "Currency carry trade regimes: Beyond the Fama regression," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1375-1389, December.
    8. Breedon, Francis & Vitale, Paolo, 2010. "An empirical study of portfolio-balance and information effects of order flow on exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 504-524, April.
    9. Della Corte, Pasquale & Sarno, Lucio & Tsiakas, Ilias, 2011. "Spot and forward volatility in foreign exchange," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 496-513, June.
    10. Gennotte, Gerard & Leland, Hayne, 1990. "Market Liquidity, Hedging, and Crashes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 999-1021, December.
    11. Yin-Wong Cheung & Menzie D. Chinn & Ian W. Marsh, 2004. "How do UK-based foreign exchange dealers think their market operates?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 289-306.
    12. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2004. "Liquidity Black Holes," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 8(1), pages 1-18.
    13. 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.
    14. Bjonnes, Geir Hoidal & Rime, Dagfinn & Solheim, Haakon O.Aa., 2005. "Liquidity provision in the overnight foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 175-196, March.
    15. Glosten, Lawrence R, 1989. "Insider Trading, Liquidity, and the Role of the Monopolist Specialist," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 211-235, April.
    16. Madhavan, Ananth & Smidt, Seymour, 1993. "An Analysis of Changes in Specialist Inventories and Quotations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1595-1628, December.
    17. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:617-37 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Dueker, Michael & Neely, Christopher J., 2007. "Can Markov switching models predict excess foreign exchange returns?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 279-296, February.
    19. Richard C. Green & Burton Hollifield & Norman Schürhoff, 2007. "Financial Intermediation and the Costs of Trading in an Opaque Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(2), pages 275-314.
    20. Lukas Menkhoff & Lucio Sarno & Maik Schmeling & Andreas Schrimpf, 2012. "Carry Trades and Global Foreign Exchange Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 681-718, April.
    21. 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.
    22. Stoll, Hans R, 1978. "The Supply of Dealer Services in Securities Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1133-1151, September.
    23. Harald Hau & William Killeen & Michael Moore, 2002. "How has the euro changed the foreign exchange market? [‘The distribution of realized exchange rate volatility’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(34), pages 149-192.
    24. Dan Bernhardt & Vladimir Dvoracek & Eric Hughson & Ingrid M. Werner, 2005. "Why Do Larger Orders Receive Discounts on the London Stock Exchange?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1343-1368.
    25. Francis Breedon & Dagfinn Rime & Paolo Vitale, 2016. "Carry Trades, Order Flow, and the Forward Bias Puzzle," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(6), pages 1113-1134, September.
    26. Lasse Heje Pedersen & Mark Mitchell & Todd Pulvino, 2007. "Slow Moving Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 215-220, May.
    27. Simon, David P., 1994. "Further evidence on segmentation in the treasury bill market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 139-151, January.
    28. Thomas Gehrig & Lukas Menkhoff, 2006. "Extended evidence on the use of technical analysis in foreign exchange," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 327-338.
    29. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie David, 2001. "Currency traders and exchange rate dynamics: a survey of the US market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 439-471, August.
    30. Lui, Yu-Hon & Mole, David, 1998. "The use of fundamental and technical analyses by foreign exchange dealers: Hong Kong evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 535-545, June.
    31. 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.
    32. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    33. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    34. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    35. Menkhoff, Lukas & Sarno, Lucio & Schmeling, Maik & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2009. "Carry Trades and Global FX Volatility," MPRA Paper 14728, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    36. Moore, Michael J. & Payne, Richard, 2011. "On the sources of private information in FX markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 1250-1262, May.
    37. Lyons, Richard K., 1997. "A simultaneous trade model of the foreign exchange hot potato," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-4), pages 275-298, May.
    38. 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. Chandrinos, Spyros K. & Lagaros, Nikos D., 2018. "Construction of currency portfolios by means of an optimized investment strategy," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 32-44.
    2. Florian El Mouaaouy, 2018. "Financial crime ‘hot spots’ – empirical evidence from the foreign exchange market," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7-8), pages 565-583, May.
    3. Chang, Ya-Ting & Gau, Yin-Feng & Hsu, Chih-Chiang, 2017. "Liquidity Commonality in Foreign Exchange Markets During the Global Financial Crisis and the Sovereign Debt Crisis: Effects of Macroeconomic and Quantitative Easing Announcements," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 172-192.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Ranaldo, Angelo & Somogyi, Fabricius, 2021. "Asymmetric information risk in FX markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 391-411.
    5. 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.
    6. Dimitri Vayanos & Jiang Wang, 2012. "Market Liquidity -- Theory and Empirical Evidence," NBER Working Papers 18251, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    8. Banti, Chiara & Phylaktis, Kate & Sarno, Lucio, 2012. "Global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 267-291.
    9. Biais, Bruno & Glosten, Larry & Spatt, Chester, 2005. "Market microstructure: A survey of microfoundations, empirical results, and policy implications," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 217-264, May.
    10. Norman C. Miller, 2014. "Exchange Rate Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14981.
    11. Carol Osler & Xuhang Wang, 2012. "The Microstructure of Currency Markets," Working Papers 49, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    12. 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.
    13. Bauer, Christian & De Grauwe, Paul & Reitz, Stefan, 2009. "Exchange rate dynamics in a target zone--A heterogeneous expectations approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 329-344, February.
    14. Schulmeister, Stephan, 2006. "The interaction between technical currency trading and exchange rate fluctuations," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 212-233, September.
    15. Nikola Gradojevic & Christopher J. Neely, 2008. "The dynamic interaction of order flows and the CAD/USD exchange rate," Working Papers 2008-006, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    16. Michael R. King & Carol Osler & Dagfinn Rime, 2011. "Foreign exchange market structure, players and evolution," Working Paper 2011/10, Norges Bank.
    17. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2004. "Bubbles and Crashes in a Behavioural Finance Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 1194, CESifo.
    18. Jacob Gyntelberg & Mico Loretan & Tientip Subhanij & Eric Chan, 2010. "Private information, stock markets, and exchange rates," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), The international financial crisis and policy challenges in Asia and the Pacific, volume 52, pages 186-210, Bank for International Settlements.
    19. Ahmed, Shamim & Liu, Xiaoquan & Valente, Giorgio, 2016. "Can currency-based risk factors help forecast exchange rates?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 75-97.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Carry trade; Technical analysis; Skewness; Liquidity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

    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:48. 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.