Have Liquidity and Trading Activity in the Canadian Corporate Bond Market Deteriorated? Staff Analytical Note 2018-31 Chen Fan, Sermin Gungor, Guillaume Nolin, Jun Yang Since 2010, the liquidity of corporate bonds has improved on average, while their trading activity has remained stable. We find that the liquidity and trading activity of riskier bonds or bonds issued by firms in different sectors have been stable. However, the liquidity and trading activity of bonds issued by banks have improved. We observe short-lived episodes of deterioration in liquidity and trading activity. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14
Have Liquidity and Trading Activity in the Canadian Provincial Bond Market Deteriorated? Staff Analytical Note 2018-30 Chen Fan, Sermin Gungor, Guillaume Nolin, Jun Yang In recent years, the liquidity in the secondary market for Canadian provincial bonds was a concern for many market participants. We find that a proxy for the bid-ask spread has deteriorated modestly since 2010. However, a proxy for price impact as well as measures of trade size, the number of trades and turnover have been stable or improved since 2010. This holds for bonds issued by different provinces and for bonds of different ages and sizes. Alberta bonds provide an interesting case study: After the fall in oil prices in 2014–15, the province increased its borrowing in the bond market and its credit rating was downgraded. Yet trading activity for Alberta bonds increased significantly. Overall, we interpret the evidence as a sign of resilience in the provincial bond market. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14
The BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database Revisited: What’s New in 2018? Staff Working Paper 2018-30 David Beers, Jamshid Mavalwalla Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada’s Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults posted on the Bank of Canada’s website that now is updated in partnership with the Bank of England. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Debt management, Development economics, Financial stability, International financial markets JEL Code(s): F, F3, F34, G, G1, G10, G14, G15
Customer Liquidity Provision in Canadian Bond Markets Staff Analytical Note 2018-12 Corey Garriott, Jesse Johal This analytical note assesses the prevalence of liquidity provision by institutional investors in Canadian bonds. We find that the practice is not prevalent in Canada. Customer liquidity provision is more prevalent for less liquid bonds, on days when liquidity is already expensive or when there are larger trading volumes. In our interpretation, Canadian dealers draw on customer liquidity as a supplementary source of liquidity and only when necessary, given its cost. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1
Order Flow Segmentation, Liquidity and Price Discovery: The Role of Latency Delays Staff Working Paper 2018-16 Michael Brolley, David Cimon Latency delays—known as “speed bumps”—are an intentional slowing of order flow by exchanges. Supporters contend that delays protect market makers from high-frequency arbitrage, while opponents warn that delays promote “quote fading” by market makers. We construct a model of informed trading in a fragmented market, where one market operates a conventional order book and the other imposes a latency delay on market orders. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G18
High-Frequency Trading and Institutional Trading Costs Staff Working Paper 2018-8 Marie Chen, Corey Garriott Using data on Canadian bond futures, we examine how high-frequency traders (HFTs) interact with institutions building large positions. In contrast to recent findings, we find HFTs in the data act as small-sized liquidity suppliers, and we reject the hypothesis that they engage in back running, a predatory trading strategy. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1, L10
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 Research Topic(s): Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G24
Do Liquidity Proxies Measure Liquidity in Canadian Bond Markets? Staff Analytical Note 2017-23 Jean-Sébastien Fontaine, Jeffrey Gao, Jabir Sandhu, Kobe Wu This analytical note evaluates the reliability of proxies for measuring liquidity in Canadian bond markets. We find that price-impact and bid-ask proxies paint a similar picture of evolving liquidity conditions to that obtained from richer measures of liquidity for benchmark Government of Canada bonds. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Debt management, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14, G2, G23, G3, G32
Do Canadian Broker-Dealers Act as Agents or Principals in Bond Trading? Staff Analytical Note 2017-11 Daniel Hyun, Jesse Johal, Corey Garriott Technology, risk tolerance and regulation may influence dealers to reduce their trading as principals (using their own balance sheets for sales and purchases of securities) in favour of agency trading (matching client trades). Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial system regulation and policies, Market structure and pricing, Recent economic and financial developments JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G2, G20, L, L1
Has Liquidity in Canadian Government Bond Markets Deteriorated? Staff Analytical Note 2017-10 Sermin Gungor, Jun Yang This note presents measures of liquidity used by the Bank of Canada to monitor market conditions and discusses recent trends in Government of Canada (GoC) fixed-income market liquidity. Our results indicate that the Bank’s measures have improved since the financial crisis. Furthermore, GoC market liquidity deteriorated following several stressful events: the euro crisis in 2011, the taper tantrum in 2013 and the oil price shock in 2015. In all three cases, the deterioration remained within historical norms and liquidity returned to normal levels afterwards. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff analytical notes Research Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12, G14