Market Impact in Trader-Agents: Adding Multi-Level Order-Flow Imbalance-Sensitivity to Automated Trading Systems

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Market Impact in Trader-Agents: Adding Multi-Level Order-Flow Imbalance-Sensitivity to Automated Trading Systems

Zhen Zhang
Dave Cliff
Published on 12/23/2020
Equities
Futures
Options
Derivatives
Cross-asset
AI
Multi-Agent
High frequency trading
Machine learning
Reinforcement learning

This paper addresses the challenge of equipping automated trading agents with market impact sensitivity, a phenomenon where prices move against large orders before execution. The authors critique a prior approach by Church & Cliff (ISHV) that relies on top-of-book imbalance, demonstrating its fragility due to ignoring deeper limit order book (LOB) levels. They propose using Multi-Level Order Flow Imbalance (MLOFI), a metric that captures supply-demand imbalances across multiple LOB levels, providing a more robust signal. The authors extend three trading algorithms—ISHV, AA, and ZIP—with MLOFI, creating ZZISHV, ZZIAA, and ZZIZIP. Through simulations on the BSE platform, they show that these new agents reliably exhibit market impact effects, unlike the original algorithms. The work contributes improved impact-sensitive agents for both practical trading and realistic market simulation, with open-source code available.

Highlights

  • 1Critiques Church & Cliff's ISHV trader for relying on top-of-book imbalance, which is fragile and ignores deeper LOB data.
  • 2Proposes using Multi-Level Order Flow Imbalance (MLOFI) for robust impact sensitivity in automated trading agents.
  • 3Extends well-known AA and ZIP trading algorithms with MLOFI-based impact sensitivity, creating ZZIAA and ZZIZIP.
  • 4Demonstrates that MLOFI-based agents exhibit market impact effects without the weaknesses of prior methods.
  • 5Provides open-source code for all new trader agents on GitHub.

Methods

  • M
    Multi-Level Order Flow Imbalance (MLOFI) to measure supply-demand imbalance across multiple LOB levels.
  • M
    Extension of ISHV, AA, and ZIP trading algorithms to incorporate MLOFI for impact-sensitive quoting.
  • M
    Simulation experiments using the BSE (Bristol Stock Exchange) platform to test agent performance.
  • M
    Comparison of MLOFI-based agents against Church & Cliff's top-of-book imbalance method.

Results

  • R
    MLOFI-based agents (ZZISHV, ZZIAA, ZZIZIP) successfully exhibit market impact effects in simulations.
  • R
    The MLOFI metric is more robust than Church & Cliff's top-of-book imbalance, avoiding wild swings from minor LOB changes.
  • R
    ZZIAA and ZZIZIP outperform their non-impact-sensitive counterparts in block order scenarios.
  • R
    The new agents can be used for more accurate agent-based models of real-world financial markets.
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