Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book

—

Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book

Julius Bonart
Martin Gould
Published on 11/12/2015
Equities
Stocks
United States (US)
High frequency trading
Liquidity risk premium

This paper empirically analyzes order flow dynamics in a limit order book (LOB) using high-quality Nasdaq data for five large-tick stocks. The authors study the mean cumulative net order flow at the best quotes before and after market order arrivals. After a market order, they identify four distinct phases: a platform-latency phase with zero net flow, a response-latency phase with slight positive flow, a high-speed reaction phase with strong negative flow at the same-side quote and positive flow at the opposite-side quote, and a lower-speed reaction phase with positive flow at the same-side quote and negative flow at the opposite-side quote. The high-speed reaction phase is attributed to high-frequency traders canceling limit orders, while the subsequent refill phase is consistent with stimulated refill. Before a market order, net flow is negative at the same-side quote, indicating adverse selection avoidance, with a slight reversal just before the order. The findings suggest that liquidity providers balance adverse selection and waiting costs, highlighting the need for multi-mechanism models of strategic liquidity provision.

Highlights

  • 1Identifies distinct phases of net order flow after market order arrivals: platform-latency, response-latency, high-speed reaction, and lower-speed reaction phases.
  • 2Provides empirical evidence of stimulated refill at the same-side best quote and net outflow at the opposite-side best quote after market order arrivals.
  • 3Shows that net order flow before market order arrivals is negative at the same-side best quote, consistent with adverse selection avoidance.
  • 4Demonstrates that strategic liquidity providers consider both adverse selection and expected waiting costs.
  • 5Uses high-quality Nasdaq data with nanosecond precision to capture fine-grained order flow dynamics.

Methods

  • M
    Empirical analysis of limit order book data from Nasdaq for 5 large-tick stocks (MSFT, INTC, YHOO, MU, CSCO) over six months.
  • M
    Calculation of mean cumulative net order flow at best quotes after conditioning on price-maintaining market orders.
  • M
    Bootstrap resampling to estimate standard errors of mean cumulative net order flow.
  • M
    Normalization of order flow by mean queue length to facilitate cross-stock comparisons.

Results

  • R
    After a market order, net order flow at the same-side best quote shows four phases: zero (platform latency), slightly positive (response latency), strongly negative (high-speed reaction), and positive (lower-speed refill).
  • R
    At the opposite-side best quote, net order flow is strongly positive during high-speed reaction, followed by negative net outflow.
  • R
    Before a market order, net order flow at the same-side best quote is negative from at least 10 seconds prior, reversing to slightly positive just before arrival.
  • R
    The progression through phases is approximately contemporaneous across all five stocks despite differences in trading activity.
  • R
    Platform latency is about 10^-6 seconds, and response latency extends to about 10^-4.5 seconds.
0/5

Analyze Paper

Generate insights from "Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book".

Suggested Actions