Three Essays on the U.S. Treasury Market

<p>My thesis consists of three essays on market microstructure. Focusing on the U.S. Treasury market, I investigate several interesting research questions by using twelve years of BrokerTec order books of 2-, 5-, and 10-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury notes from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2015, and five years of BrokerTec order books of 3-, 7- and 30-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. In the U.S. Treasury market, BrokerTec is one of the two dominant electronic communication networks (ECNs). According to my calculations by using BrokerTec order books from 2011 to 2015, the average daily trading volume of BrokerTec on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities is about 134.9 billion U.S. dollars, which accounts for about 26% of that of the total U.S. Treasury primary dealer activity. To help a wider audience better understand the importance of the research questions in the following three chapters, Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the U.S. Treasury market. In Chapter 2, I investigate the impact of scheduled macroeconomic news announcements on the U.S. Treasury market efficiency. To control the microstructure noise, I employ a robust method to construct market inefficiency measures. I find that the U.S. Treasury market becomes less efficient starting from five minutes before news arrivals. The finding is robust for different sample periods, macroeconomic news announcements, and market inefficiency measures. Investor heterogeneity could explain the decreased market efficiency before scheduled news announcements. In Chapter 3, I investigate the impact of workup trading protocols on the U.S. Treasury market quality. Each transaction on the lit pool opens a workup window, during which the BrokerTec trading platform continues to receive order submissions and modifications, but only matches workup orders that have the same prices. Each workup transaction starts a new counting down of the workup clock. A workup window naturally closes either after the workup times out or when a limit order is submitted at a better price. I find that the workup trading activities decrease the market quality, in aspects of market efficiency and market liquidity. In Chapter 4, I empirically examine the role of heterogeneity in traders’ beliefs and public information shocks on traders’ order submission decisions around news announcements in the U.S. Treasury market. I find that during both the pre-announcement period and the post-announcement period, the traders tend to submit more market orders and aggressive limit orders when the market uncertainty is high. I also find that the belief heterogeneity influences investors’ trading behavior and order submission strategies around news announcements. The role of the belief heterogeneity on order aggressiveness depends on the type of news, and the magnitude of the information shocks. The impact of market uncertainty and belief heterogeneity influences traders’ submission of both of the market orders and aggressive limit orders. In Chapter 5, I provide a summary on the research findings in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. I also discuss the contributions of this thesis to the literature.</p>

Three Essays on the U.S. Treasury Market

<p>My thesis consists of three essays on market microstructure. Focusing on the U.S. Treasury market, I investigate several interesting research questions by using twelve years of BrokerTec order books of 2-, 5-, and 10-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury notes from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2015, and five years of BrokerTec order books of 3-, 7- and 30-year on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. In the U.S. Treasury market, BrokerTec is one of the two dominant electronic communication networks (ECNs). According to my calculations by using BrokerTec order books from 2011 to 2015, the average daily trading volume of BrokerTec on-the-run U.S. Treasury securities is about 134.9 billion U.S. dollars, which accounts for about 26% of that of the total U.S. Treasury primary dealer activity. To help a wider audience better understand the importance of the research questions in the following three chapters, Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the U.S. Treasury market. In Chapter 2, I investigate the impact of scheduled macroeconomic news announcements on the U.S. Treasury market efficiency. To control the microstructure noise, I employ a robust method to construct market inefficiency measures. I find that the U.S. Treasury market becomes less efficient starting from five minutes before news arrivals. The finding is robust for different sample periods, macroeconomic news announcements, and market inefficiency measures. Investor heterogeneity could explain the decreased market efficiency before scheduled news announcements. In Chapter 3, I investigate the impact of workup trading protocols on the U.S. Treasury market quality. Each transaction on the lit pool opens a workup window, during which the BrokerTec trading platform continues to receive order submissions and modifications, but only matches workup orders that have the same prices. Each workup transaction starts a new counting down of the workup clock. A workup window naturally closes either after the workup times out or when a limit order is submitted at a better price. I find that the workup trading activities decrease the market quality, in aspects of market efficiency and market liquidity. In Chapter 4, I empirically examine the role of heterogeneity in traders’ beliefs and public information shocks on traders’ order submission decisions around news announcements in the U.S. Treasury market. I find that during both the pre-announcement period and the post-announcement period, the traders tend to submit more market orders and aggressive limit orders when the market uncertainty is high. I also find that the belief heterogeneity influences investors’ trading behavior and order submission strategies around news announcements. The role of the belief heterogeneity on order aggressiveness depends on the type of news, and the magnitude of the information shocks. The impact of market uncertainty and belief heterogeneity influences traders’ submission of both of the market orders and aggressive limit orders. In Chapter 5, I provide a summary on the research findings in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. I also discuss the contributions of this thesis to the literature.</p>

Sizing hedge funds' Treasury market activities and holdings

Hedge funds play an increasingly important role in U.S. Treasury (UST) cash and futures markets, a role that has been widely discussed following the March 2020 U.S. Treasury sell-off. In this note, we analyze hedge funds' holdings of UST securities and their UST market activities in normal times and in times of financial market stress using regulatory data from the SEC Form PF. We also develop an approach to decompose the reported aggregate UST exposures into UST holdings and derivatives exposures.

The US Treasury market is vulnerable to stress

Significance The US Treasuries securities market is the world's largest and most liquid financial market, and is relied on by market participants as a basis to price other risks. However, on several occasions in recent years, it has exhibited unusual behaviour under stress and required corrective intervention by the US Federal Reserve (Fed). Impacts The rebound remains vulnerable to COVID-19 spread, and the ongoing need for supportive measures will stoke policy conflicts for some time. The firmer link between policy and price expectations means that miscommunication may be more disruptive than in the 2013 ‘taper tantrum’. The Fed tapering of bond purchases over the near term could trigger interest rate rises, testing the resilience of the Treasury market.

The Treasury Market Flash Event of February 25, 2021

The Treasury market flash event of February 25, 2021 underscores the pivotal role of high-speed liquidity provision in the most liquid electronic parts of the Treasury market. We find evidence that the sharp drop in prices that day was accompanied by a sudden drop in market depth and a brief deterioration in high-speed liquidity provision amid elevated transaction volumes, albeit to a much lesser extent than during the episode of severe illiquidity in March 2020. Similar to some previous episodes accompanied by moderately elevated economic and financial market uncertainty, market depth has recovered steadily since February 25 at a pace comparable to that observed following other such episodes, while high-speed liquidity provision appears to have rebounded fairly quickly. That said, market depth has taken over a month to partially recover, which suggests that Treasury market liquidity has been more heavily reliant on high-speed replenishment to meet trading demand and may remain fragile.

How Do Principal Trading Firms and Dealers Trade around FOMC Statement Releases?

This FEDS Note examines how different types of market participants transact in the Treasury market in the periods immediately following statement releases at the conclusion of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. We compare intermediation patterns following scheduled statement releases with those following an unscheduled statement release.