Price Discovery in the Dual-Platform US Treasury Market

Sun, Zhuowei and Dunne, Peter G. and Li, Youwei (2015): Price Discovery in the Dual-Platform US Treasury Market.

Abstract

Inter-dealer trading in US Treasury securities is almost equally divided between two electronic trading platforms that have only slight differences in terms of their relative liquidity and transparency. BrokerTec is more active in the trading of 2-, 5-, and 10-year T-notes while eSpeed has more active trading in the 30-year bond. Over the period studied, eSpeed provides a more pre-trade transparent platform than BrokerTec. We examine the contribution to ‘price discovery’ of activity in the two platforms using high frequency data. We find that price discovery does not derive equally from the two platforms and that the shares vary across term to maturity. This can be traced to differential trading activities and transparency of the two platforms.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Microstructure; Treasury market; Bid-ask spread; Price discovery
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models ; Multiple Variables > C32 - Time-Series Models ; Dynamic Quantile Regressions ; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models ; Diffusion Processes ; State Space Models; D - Microeconomics > D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G10 - General; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G12 - Asset Pricing ; Trading Volume ; Bond Interest Rates; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies ; Insider Trading

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