Mark D. Griffiths

The costs and determinants of order aggressiveness

Abstract This paper examines the costs and determinants of order aggressiveness. Aggressive orders have larger price impacts but smaller opportunity costs than passive orders. Price impacts are amplified by large orders, small firms, and volatile stock prices. To minimize the implementation shortfall, the optimal strategy is to enter buy (sell) orders at the bid (ask). Aggressive buy (sell) orders tend to follow other aggressive buy (sell) orders and occur when bid–ask spreads are narrow and depth on the same (opposite) side of the limit book is large (small). Aggressive buys are more likely than sells to be motivated by information.

The Fractal Structure of Real Estate Investment Trust Returns: The Search for Evidence of Market Segmentation and Nonlinear Dependency

This article presents a further test for market segmentation between the real estate market and the capital markets. We use rescaled range analysis developed in the fractal geometry literature to test for nonlinear trends in the returns series for different asset classes. We make three major conclusions: (1) the stock market displays tendencies consistent with a random walk, (2) portfolios of mortgage and equity REIT returns display tendencies consistent with a random walk and, (3) conditional upon the methods used, segmentation does not exist between different real estate markets and between the real estate and stock markets.

Day-of-the-week effects in federal funds rates: Further empirical findings

Abstract We extend the Spindt and Hoffmeister (1988) model of the daily operation of an institutions federal reserve account to show strong inter-and intra-period incentives to borrow and lend in the federal funds market at predictable points in the 10 trading day settlement period. Using intraday high and low prices, we demonstrate changes in the federal funds rate consistent with our models predictions. We provide evidence of predictable changes in the variance of Fed funds returns on a daily and intraday basis. Our analysis confirms that Federal Reserve requirements result in daily and intraday variances which are not constant.

On a Preferred Habitat for Liquidity at the Turn-of-the-Year: Evidence from the Term-Repo Market

In this article, we document a preference for liquidity at the year-end in the brokered market for general-collateral term-repurchase agreements. Our tests indicate significant increases in the repo rates for one-week through one-month term instruments when the maturities span the turn-of-the-year. We show that the results cannot be consistent with window dressing or with the argument that investors in this market tilt their portfolios away from riskier assets at the year-end. Our results suggest a generalized liquidity premium at year-end that could also explain the survival of the turn-of-the-year effect in equities. This desire for liquidity could be due to perceived risk, but since it appears in short-term general-collateral government repos, it seems more likely attributable to year-end payment patterns.

Information flows and open outcry: evidence of imitation trading

Abstract We provide empirical evidence on how market making is affected by the existence of a crowd in a floor trading system based on data from the Toronto Stock Exchange which closed its trading floor in April 1997. While effective bid–ask spreads, trading volume and average trade size are unchanged with the introduction of system-only trading; for floor-traded securities, there is strong evidence that given type of event (trade or quote change) occurs with greater probability following an event of the same type than it does unconditionally. We examine the three hypotheses put forward by Biais et al. (1995) and find sufficient evidence to reject the hypotheses of strategic order splitting and, similar but successive reaction to the same events. We are unable to reject the hypothesis of traders engaging in imitating behavior which is likely to arise when traders can better identify each other in the trading environment.

The Effect of Federal Reserve Accounting Rules on the Equilibrium Level of Overnight Repo Rates

This paper addresses whether Federal Reserve Board accounting requirements are sufficiently pervasive to create regularities in government overnight repurchase agreement (repo) rates. US bank settlement regulations allow overnight government repos as substitutes for Federal (Fed) funds. We find that overnight government repos exhibit rate changes and variance regularities consistent with regularities identified in the Fed funds market, which have been shown to result directly from the Federal Reserve regulations and accounting policies governing the US bank settlement process. Thus, we conclude that the overnight government repo rates are influenced in a similar manner by regulatory rules. However, since the rate changes are not large economically, the influence of regulatory accounting practices does not violate the premise of an efficient market. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997.

An empirical examination of the intraday volatility in euro-dollar rates

Abstract We examine hourly observations of one-month euro–dollar rates using the GARCH model from Baillie and Bollerslev (1990) and find an intraday volatility pattern with two important components. First, intraday volatility is largest during regular business hours in the Asian markets and smallest during regular business hours in the U.S. This result is in contrast to the previously identified intraday volatility patterns in the currency exchange rates. Second, we find volatility spikes at the beginning of the business day in Tokyo, London, and New York. Currency exchanges rates also show volatility spikes at the beginning of the business day in Tokyo, London, and New York. We interpret these results as support for the model by Hong and Wang (2000) which suggests that volatility clusters at the beginning and end of the regular business day, even in the absence of market closures, if most traders are not active during regular non-business hours.

Re-examining the small-cap myth: problems in portfolio formation and liquidation

Abstract This study investigates the realizable returns on portfolios at the turn-of-the-year. Using an intraday simulation that accounts for the volumes offered or wanted at market bid-ask prices, large-capitalization securities significantly outperform small-capitalization securities by 2.4% and 6.5%, depending on whether the portfolios were formed on the last day of the taxation year or were formed over the last month of the trading year. In no one year could the small-capitalization portfolio be completely divested by the end of the holding period, suggesting that investors are not remunerated for the illiquidity in this portfolio. Results based on returns calculated by using the mean of the bid-ask spread show that the results are not derived solely from transaction costs.

A profitable trading rule for net borrowers on settlement Wednesday

Abstract Griffiths and Winters (1995) suggest that the rules and regulations of the bank settlement process create incentives such that banks optimizing their reserve account management will borrow on settlement Wednesday to obtain the funds necessary to meet Federal Reserve Board mandated reserves. We develop a trading rule for settlement Wednesday that reduces the cost of borrowing by exploiting the predicted daily trading behavior of the Federal Reserve Open Market Desk. The strategy reduces the cost of borrowing by approximately

Tax-Induced Trading and the Turn-of-the-Year Anomaly: An Intraday Study

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