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The microstructure of the U.S. treasury market

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This article discusses the microstructure of the U.S. Treasury securities market. Treasury securities are nominally riskless debt instruments issued by the U.S. government. Microstructural analysis is a field of economics/finance that examines the roles played by heterogenous agents, institutional detail, and asymmetric information in the trading process. The article describes types of Treasury issues; stages of the Treasury market; the major players, including the role of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the interdealer brokers; the structure of both the spot and futures markets; the findings of the seasonality/announcement and order book literature; and research on price discovery. We conclude by discussing possible future avenues of research.

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  • Bruce Mizrach & Christopher J. Neely, 2007. "The microstructure of the U.S. treasury market," Working Papers 2007-052, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2007-052
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      • de Roure, Calebe & Mönch, Emanuel & Pelizzon, Loriana & Schneider, Michael, 2021. "OTC discount," SAFE Working Paper Series 298, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2021.
    2. Havran, Dániel & Erb, Tamás, 2015. "Mit veszítünk a piaci súrlódásokkal?. A pénzügyi piacok mikrostruktúrája [Trading mechanisms and market frictions. Microstructure of the financial markets]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 229-262.
    3. Nguyen, Giang & Engle, Robert & Fleming, Michael & Ghysels, Eric, 2020. "Liquidity and volatility in the U.S. Treasury market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 207-229.
    4. George Jiang & Ingrid Lo & Giorgio Valente, 2014. "High-Frequency Trading around Macroeconomic News Announcements: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market," Staff Working Papers 14-56, Bank of Canada.
    5. George Jiang & Ingrid Lo & Adrien Verdelhan, 2008. "Information Shocks, Jumps, and Price Discovery -- Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market," Staff Working Papers 08-22, Bank of Canada.
    6. S. Rubun Dey & Christopher J. Neely, 2010. "A survey of announcement effects on foreign exchange returns," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Sep), pages 417-464.
    7. Seth Kopchak, 2014. "The absorption effect of US Treasury auctions," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 21-44, July.
    8. Ajit Dayanandan & Jai Chander & N. R. V. V. M. K. Rajendra Kumar, 2023. "Size and liquidity of government securities in India," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 71-90, June.
    9. Chatrath, Arjun & Christie-David, Rohan A. & Lee, Kiseop & Moore, William T., 2009. "Competitive inventory management in Treasury markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 800-809, May.
    10. Pasquariello, Paolo & Vega, Clara, 2009. "The on-the-run liquidity phenomenon," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-24, April.

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