IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/262.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price discovery in the foreign currency futures and spot market

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua V. Rosenberg
  • Leah G. Traub

Abstract

In this paper, we compare price discovery in the foreign exchange futures and spot markets during a period in which the spot market was less transparent but had higher volume than the futures market. We develop a foreign exchange futures order flow measure that is a proxy for the order flow observed by Chicago Mercantile Exchange pit traders. We find that both foreign currency futures and spot order flow contain unique information relevant to exchange rate determination. When we measure contributions to price discovery using the methods of Hasbrouck and of Gonzalo and Granger, we obtain results consistent with our order flow findings. Taken together, our evidence suggests that the amount of information contained in currency futures prices is much greater than one would expect based on relative market size.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua V. Rosenberg & Leah G. Traub, 2006. "Price discovery in the foreign currency futures and spot market," Staff Reports 262, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:262
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr262.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr262.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. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Meese-Rogoff Redux: Micro-Based Exchange-Rate Forecasting," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 11, pages 457-475, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Martin D. D. Evans, 2002. "FX Trading and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2405-2447, December.
    5. Martin D. D. Evans, 2017. "FX Trading and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 5, pages 189-245, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Polakoff, Michael A. & Grier, Paul C., 1991. "A comparison of foreign exchange forward and futures prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1057-1080, December.
    7. Danielsson, J. & Payne, R., 2002. "Real trading patterns and prices in spot foreign exchange markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 203-222, April.
    8. Taylor, Mark P, 1989. "Covered Interest Arbitrage and Market Turbulence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(396), pages 376-391, June.
    9. Martin D. D. Evans (Georgetown University), 2005. "Foreign Exchange Market Microstructure," Working Papers gueconwpa~05-05-20, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    10. Savickas, Robert & Wilson, Arthur J., 2003. "On Inferring the Direction of Option Trades," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 881-902, December.
    11. Rhee, S Ghon & Chang, Rosita P, 1992. "Intra-day Arbitrage Opportunities in Foreign Exchange and Eurocurrency Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 363-379, March.
    12. Thomas Klitgaard & Laura Weir, 2004. "Exchange rate changes and net positions of speculators in the futures market," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue May, pages 17-28.
    13. repec:bla:econom:v:54:y:1987:i:216:p:429-38 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Martens, Martin & Kofman, Paul, 1998. "The inefficiency of Reuters foreign exchange quotes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 347-366, March.
    15. Garbade, Kenneth D & Silber, William L, 1979. "Dominant and Satellite Markets: A Study of Dually-Traded Securities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(3), pages 455-460, August.
    16. Goodhart, Charles & Chang, Yuanchen & Payne, Richard, 1997. "Calibrating an algorithm for estimating transactions from FXFX exchange rate quotes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 921-930, December.
    17. Richard K. Lyons, 2006. "The Microstructure Approach to Exchange Rates," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026262205x, April.
    18. 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.
    19. F. Drudi, 2005. "Price Manipulation in Parallel Markets with Different Transparency," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(5), pages 1625-1658, September.
    20. 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.
    21. Garbade, Kenneth D & Silber, William L, 1983. "Price Movements and Price Discovery in Futures and Cash Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(2), pages 289-297, May.
    22. Christopher F. Baum & John Barkoulas, 1996. "Time‐varying risk premia in the foreign currency futures basis," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(7), pages 735-755, October.
    23. Lee, Charles M C & Ready, Mark J, 1991. "Inferring Trade Direction from Intraday Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 733-746, June.
    24. Kurov, Alexander & Lasser, Dennis J., 2004. "Price Dynamics in the Regular and E-Mini Futures Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 365-384, June.
    25. Robert A. JARROW & George S. OLDFIELD, 2008. "Forward Contracts And Futures Contracts," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Derivatives Pricing Selected Works of Robert Jarrow, chapter 11, pages 237-246, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    26. Madhavan, Ananth, 2000. "Market microstructure: A survey," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 205-258, August.
    27. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Time-Varying Liquidity in Foreign Exchange," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 8, pages 325-361, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    28. Gonzalo, Jesus & Granger, Clive W J, 1995. "Estimation of Common Long-Memory Components in Cointegrated Systems," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(1), pages 27-35, January.
    29. Mizrach, Bruce & Neely, Christopher J., 2008. "Information shares in the US Treasury market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1221-1233, July.
    30. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1991. "The Summary Informativeness of Stock Trades: An Econometric Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(3), pages 571-595.
    31. Roger D. Huang, 2002. "The Quality of ECN and Nasdaq Market Maker Quotes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1285-1319, June.
    32. Terrence Hendershott & Charles M. Jones, 2005. "Island Goes Dark: Transparency, Fragmentation, and Regulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 743-793.
    33. Locke, P R & Sayers, C L, 1993. "Intra-day Futures Price Volatility: Information Effects and Variance Persistence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 15-30, Jan.-Marc.
    34. Cornell, Bradford & Reinganum, Marc R, 1981. "Forward and Futures Prices: Evidence from the Foreign Exchange Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(5), pages 1035-1045, December.
    35. Michael J. Barclay & Terrence Hendershott & D. Timothy McCormick, 2003. "Competition among Trading Venues: Information and Trading on Electronic Communications Networks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2637-2665, December.
    36. S. Baranzoni & P. Bianchi & L. Lambertini, 2000. "Multiproduct Firms, Product Differentiation, and Market Structure," Working Papers 368, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    37. Rime, Dagfinn, 2001. "U.S. Exchange Rates and Currency Flows," SIFR Research Report Series 4, Institute for Financial Research.
    38. Odders-White, Elizabeth R., 2000. "On the occurrence and consequences of inaccurate trade classification," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 259-286, August.
    39. Hasbrouck, Joel, 2004. "Liquidity in the Futures Pits: Inferring Market Dynamics from Incomplete Data," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 305-326, June.
    40. Kenneth A. Froot & Tarun Ramadorai, 2005. "Currency Returns, Intrinsic Value, and Institutional‐Investor Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1535-1566, June.
    41. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:6:p:2637-2666 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Rendleman, Richard J, Jr & Carabini, Christopher E, 1979. "The Efficiency of the Treasury Bill Futures Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(4), pages 895-914, September.
    43. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Informational Integration and FX Trading," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 7, pages 291-324, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    44. Lyons, Richard K., 1996. "Optimal Transparency in a Dealer Market with an Application to Foreign Exchange," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 225-254, July.
    45. Richard, Scott F. & Sundaresan, M., 1981. "A continuous time equilibrium model of forward prices and futures prices in a multigood economy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 347-371, December.
    46. Mintao Fan & Richard K. Lyons, 2003. "Customer trades and extreme events in foreign exchange," Chapters, in: Paul Mizen (ed.), Monetary History, Exchange Rates and Financial Markets, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    47. Joel Hasbrouck, 2003. "Intraday Price Formation in U.S. Equity Index Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2375-2400, December.
    48. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1995. "One Security, Many Markets: Determining the Contributions to Price Discovery," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1175-1199, September.
    49. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1988. "Trades, quotes, inventories, and information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 229-252, December.
    50. Bloomfield, Robert & O'Hara, Maureen, 1999. "Market Transparency: Who Wins and Who Loses?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(1), pages 5-35.
    51. Ellis, Katrina & Michaely, Roni & O'Hara, Maureen, 2000. "The Accuracy of Trade Classification Rules: Evidence from Nasdaq," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 529-551, December.
    52. Baillie, Richard T. & Geoffrey Booth, G. & Tse, Yiuman & Zabotina, Tatyana, 2002. "Price discovery and common factor models," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 309-321, July.
    53. Dezhbakhsh, Hashem, 1994. "Foreign Exchange Forward and Futures Prices: Are They Equal?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 75-87, March.
    54. Cox, John C. & Ingersoll, Jonathan Jr. & Ross, Stephen A., 1981. "The relation between forward prices and futures prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 321-346, December.
    55. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:2:p:431-465 is not listed on IDEAS
    56. Manaster, Steven & Mann, Steven C, 1996. "Life in the Pits: Competitive Market Making and Inventory Control," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(3), pages 953-975.
    57. Paul Mizen (ed.), 2003. "Monetary History, Exchange Rates and Financial Markets," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2818.
    58. Chang, Carolyn W & Chang, Jack S K, 1990. "Forward and Futures Prices: Evidence from the Foreign Exchange Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1333-1336, September.
    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. Yan, Meng & Chen, Jian & Song, Victor & Xu, Ke, 2022. "Trade friction and price discovery in the USD–CAD spot and forward markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Dungey, Mardi & Hvozdyk, Lyudmyla, 2012. "Cojumping: Evidence from the US Treasury bond and futures markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1563-1575.
    3. Xiaojie Xu, 2019. "Price dynamics in corn cash and futures markets: cointegration, causality, and forecasting through a rolling window approach," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 33(2), pages 155-181, June.
    4. P. Sakthivel & Krishna Reddy Chittedi & Daniel Sakyi, 2017. "Price Discovery and Volatility Transmission in Currency Spot and Futures Markets in India: An Empirical Analysis," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 20(4), pages 931-945, August.
    5. Ankita Srivastava, 2017. "A review on pricing of currency futures in Indian foreign exchange market," International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 13(2), pages 182-189.
    6. Dungey, Mardi & Hvozdyk, Lyudmyla, 2010. "Cojumping: Evidence from the US Treasury Bond and Future Markets (Discussion Paper 2010-06)," Working Papers 10450, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, revised 14 Jul 2010.
    7. Pedro Linhares Rossi & Guilherme Santos Mello, 2014. "The Fourth Dimension: Derivatives As A Form Of Capital," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 025, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    8. Hau, Harald, 2014. "The exchange rate effect of multi-currency risk arbitrage," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 304-331.
    9. Michel van der Wel & Albert Menkveld & Asani Sarkar, 2009. "Are Market Makers Uninformed and Passive? Signing Trades in The Absence of Quotes," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-046/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Kalok Chan & Yiuman Tse & Michael Williams, 2011. "The Relationship between Commodity Prices and Currency Exchange Rates: Evidence from the Futures Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Commodity Prices and Markets, pages 47-71, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Jatin Malhotra & Angelo Corelli, 2021. "The Relative Informativeness of Regular and E-Mini Euro/Dollar Futures Contracts and the Role of Trader Types," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, June.
    5. Akram, Q. Farooq & Rime, Dagfinn & Sarno, Lucio, 2008. "Arbitrage in the foreign exchange market: Turning on the microscope," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 237-253, December.
    6. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik, 2010. "Whose trades convey information? Evidence from a cross-section of traders," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 101-128, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Bongjin Kim & Mark M. Suazo & John E. Prescott, 2008. "Exploring the Cognitive Nature of Boards of Directors and Its Implication for Board Effectiveness," Working Papers 0032, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    9. Ran Xiao, 2019. "Essays on Price Discovery and Volatility Dynamics in Emerging Market Currencies," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 5-2019, January-A.
    10. Ben Omrane, Walid & Welch, Robert, 2016. "Tick test accuracy in foreign exchange ECN markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 135-152.
    11. Martin Evans and Dagfinn Rime, 2010. "Micro Approaches to foreign Exchange Determination," Working Papers gueconwpa~10-10-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik, 2008. "Local information in foreign exchange markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1383-1406, December.
    13. Chen, Yu-Lun & Gau, Yin-Feng, 2014. "Asymmetric responses of ask and bid quotes to information in the foreign exchange market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 194-204.
    14. Fei Su, 2018. "Essays on Price Discovery and Volatility Dynamics in the Foreign Exchange Market," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 2-2018, January-A.
    15. Kate Phylaktis & Long Chen, 2010. "Asymmetric information, price discovery and macroeconomic announcements in FX market: do top trading banks know more?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 228-246.
    16. 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.
    17. Pascual, Roberto & Pascual-Fuster, Bartolome & Climent, Francisco, 2006. "Cross-listing, price discovery and the informativeness of the trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 144-161, May.
    18. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Do Currency Markets Absorb News Quickly?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 12, pages 477-505, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Martin D. D. Evans & Dagfinn Rime, 2017. "Order Flow Information and Spot Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 17, pages 725-776, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Ranaldo, Angelo & Somogyi, Fabricius, 2021. "Asymmetric information risk in FX markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 391-411.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign exchange futures; futures markets; Foreign exchange rates; Foreign exchange;
    All these keywords.

    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:fip:fednsr:262. 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: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.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.