Bio

Adrian Walton is an Assistant Director in the Financial Markets Department at the Bank of Canada. His research focuses on how the rules and conventions that govern trading in financial assets affect market functioning, specifically in Canadian equity and fixed-income markets. 

Research Field(s): Applied Microeconomics Empirical Finance Market Microstructure

Staff analytical notes

Liquidity risks at Canadian life insurance companies

Staff Analytical Note 2024-7 Patrick Aldridge, Stephane Gignac, Rishi Vala, Adrian Walton
We examine how life insurers manage liquidity risks created by their business model. We find that Canadian life insurers did not face significant liquidity draws and continued their usual investment behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis and as interest rates increased in 2022.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, D47, D5, D53, G, G1, G12, G14, G2, G23

Fixed-income dealing and central bank interventions

Staff Analytical Note 2022-9 David Cimon, Adrian Walton
We summarize the theoretical model of central bank asset purchases developed in Cimon and Walton (2022). The model helps us understand how asset purchases ease pressures on investment dealers to restore market conditions in a crisis.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Economic models, Financial institutions, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G2, G20, L, L1, L10

Potential netting benefits from expanded central clearing in Canada’s fixed-income market

Staff Analytical Note 2022-8 Jessie Ziqing Chen, Johannes Chen, Shamarthi Ghosh, Manu Pandey, Adrian Walton
We assess whether more central clearing would enhance the resilience of Canadian fixed-income markets. Our analysis estimates the potential benefits of balance sheet netting under scenarios where central clearing is expanded to new participants.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Credit risk management, Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G1, G12, G2, G21, G29

COVID-19 crisis: Liquidity management at Canada’s largest public pension funds

Staff Analytical Note 2021-11 Guillaume Bédard-Pagé, Daniel Bolduc-Zuluaga, Annick Demers, Jean-Philippe Dion, Manu Pandey, Léanne Berger-Soucy, Adrian Walton
We examine how the eight largest Canadian public pension funds managed liquidity during the market turmoil in March 2020. The funds were generally resilient to large demands for liquidity and relied heavily on Canada's core funding markets.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial institutions, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E5, E58, G, G0, G01, G2, G23

COVID-19 and bond market liquidity: alert, isolation and recovery

Staff Analytical Note 2020-14 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Hayden Ford, Adrian Walton
The disruption due to COVID-19 reverberated through the bond markets in three phases. In the first phase, dealers met the rising demand for liquidity. In the second, dealers reduced the supply of liquidity, and trading conditions worsened significantly. Finally, the market returned to relative stability following several interventions by the Bank of Canada.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Financial markets, Monetary policy JEL Code(s): E, E4

Borrowing Costs for Government of Canada Treasury Bills

Staff Analytical Note 2019-28 Jabir Sandhu, Adrian Walton, Jessica Lee
The cost of borrowing Government of Canada treasury bills (t-bills) in the repurchase (repo) market is mainly explained by the relationship between the parties involved. Some pairs of parties conduct most of their repos for t-bills rather than bonds, and at relatively high borrowing costs. We speculate that these pairs have formed a mutually beneficial service relationship in which one party consistently receives t-bills, while the other receives cash at a relatively cheap rate.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G11, G12, G2, G20, G21, G23, G3, G32

Relative Value of Government of Canada Bonds

Staff Analytical Note 2019-23 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jabir Sandhu, Adrian Walton
Government of Canada bonds in circulation that promise very similar payoffs can have different prices. We study the reason for these differences. Bonds that trade more often and earn high rental income in the repurchase agreement (repo) market tend to have higher prices. Bonds with longer tenors and times to maturity tend to have lower prices. This contrast between cheap and expensive bonds is important because trading volume and rental income can change rapidly, unlike tenor and time to maturity, which are stable.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G11, G12, G2, G23, G3, G32

Price Caps in Canadian Bond Borrowing Markets

Staff Analytical Note 2019-2 Léanne Berger-Soucy, Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Adrian Walton
Price controls, or caps, can lead to shortages, as 1970’s gasoline price controls illustrate. One million trades show that the market for borrowing bonds in Canada has an implicit price cap: traders are willing to pay no more than the overnight interest rate to borrow a bond. This suggests the probability of a shortage increases when interest rates are very low.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G12

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Staff discussion papers

Alternative Futures for Government of Canada Debt Management

Staff Discussion Paper 2018-15 Corey Garriott, Sophie Lefebvre, Guillaume Nolin, Francisco Rivadeneyra, Adrian Walton
This paper presents four blue-sky ideas for lowering the cost of the Government of Canada’s debt without increasing the debt’s risk profile. We argue that each idea would improve the secondary-market liquidity of government debt, thereby increasing the demand for government bonds and thus lowering their cost at issuance.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G2, G24, H, H6, H63

Repo Market Functioning when the Interest Rate Is Low or Negative

Staff Discussion Paper 2017-3 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Hately, Adrian Walton
This paper investigates how a low or negative overnight interest rate might affect the Canadian repo markets. The main conclusion is that the repo market for general collateral will continue to function effectively.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Interest rates, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): D, D4, G, G1, G10, G12

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Staff working papers

Contagion in Dealer Networks

Staff Working Paper 2020-1 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Adrian Walton
Dealers connect investors who want to buy or sell securities in financial markets. Over time, dealers and investors form trading networks to save time and resources. An emerging field of research investigates how networks form.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, G, G1, G2, G21, L, L1, L14

Speed Segmentation on Exchanges: Competition for Slow Flow

Staff Working Paper 2018-3 Lisa Anderson, Emad Andrews, Baiju Devani, Michael Mueller, Adrian Walton
In 2015, TSX Alpha, a Canadian stock exchange, implemented a speed bump for marketable orders and an inverted fee structure as part of a redesign. We find no evidence that this redesign impacted market-wide measures of trading costs or contributed appreciably to segmenting retail order flow away from other Canadian venues with a maker-taker fee structure.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G24

What Drives Episodes of Settlement Fails in the Government of Canada Bond Market?

Staff Working Paper 2017-54 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, James Pinnington, Adrian Walton
We study settlement fails for trades in the Government of Canada bond market. We find that settlement fails do not occur independently. Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we examine three drivers of fails.
Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): E, E4, G, G1, G2, G21, L, L1

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Technical reports

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Journal publications

Refereed journals

  • “Central bank liquidity facilities and market making” (with David Cimon), 2024, Journal of Banking & Finance
  • “Speed segmentation on exchanges: Competition for slow flow" (with Lisa Anderson, Emad Andrews, Baiju Devani, and Michael Mueller), 2022, Journal of Financial Markets
  • “Alternative futures for Government of Canada debt management" (with Corey Garriott, Sophie Lefebvre, Guillaume Nolin, and Francisco Rivadeneyra), 2020, Journal of Financial Economic Policy
  • “Retail Order Flow Segmentation” (with Corey Garriott), 2018, The Journal of Trading