IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01512863.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rock around the Clock : An agent-based model of low- and high-frequency trading

Author

Listed:
  • Sandrine Jacob Leal

    (ICN Business School, CEREFIGE - Centre Européen de Recherche en Economie Financière et Gestion des Entreprises - UL - Université de Lorraine)

  • Mauro Napoletano

    (SKEMA Business School - SKEMA Business School)

  • Andrea Roventini

    (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po)

  • Giorgio Fagiolo

    (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po)

Abstract

We build an agent-based model to study how the interplay between low- and high-frequency trading affects asset price dynamics. Our main goal is to investigate whether high-frequency trading exacerbates market volatility and generates flash crashes. In the model, low-frequency agents adopt trading rules based on chronological time and can switch between fundamentalist and chartist strategies. By contrast, high-frequency traders activation is event-driven and depends on price fluctuations. High-frequency traders use directional strategies to exploit market information produced by low-frequency traders. Monte-Carlo simulations reveal that the model replicates the main stylized facts of financial markets. Furthermore, we find that the presence of high-frequency traders increases market volatility and plays a fundamental role in the generation of flash crashes. The emergence of flash crashes is explained by two salient characteristics of high-frequency traders, i.e., their ability to i. generate high bid-ask spreads and ii. synchronize on the sell side of the limit order book. Finally, we find that higher rates of order cancellation by high-frequency traders increase the incidence of flash crashes but reduce their duration.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandrine Jacob Leal & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2016. "Rock around the Clock : An agent-based model of low- and high-frequency trading," Post-Print hal-01512863, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01512863
    DOI: 10.1007/s00191-015-0418-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandrine Jacob Leal & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2016. "Rock around the clock: An agent-based model of low- and high-frequency trading," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 49-76, March.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p4oq9ig8k is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Anton Golub & John Keane & Ser-Huang Poon, 2012. "High Frequency Trading and Mini Flash Crashes," Papers 1211.6667, arXiv.org.
    4. Nabila Arfaoui, 2014. "Eco-innovation and Regulatory Push/Pull Effect in the Case of REACH Regulation: Empirical Evidence from Survey Data," GREDEG Working Papers 2014-19, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France, revised Dec 2015.
    5. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong & Hommes, Cars, 2006. "A dynamic analysis of moving average rules," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(9-10), pages 1729-1753.
    6. Benoit Mandelbrot & Howard M. Taylor, 1967. "On the Distribution of Stock Price Differences," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 15(6), pages 1057-1062, December.
    7. Eric Smith & J Doyne Farmer & Laszlo Gillemot & Supriya Krishnamurthy, 2003. "Statistical theory of the continuous double auction," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(6), pages 481-514.
    8. Aloud, Monira & Tsang, Edward & Olsen, Richard & Dupuis, Alexandre, 2011. "A directional-change events approach for studying financial time series," Economics Discussion Papers 2011-28, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Anirban Chakraborti & Ioane Muni Toke & Marco Patriarca & Frederic Abergel, 2011. "Econophysics review: I. Empirical facts," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(7), pages 991-1012.
    10. Hommes, Cars & Huang, Hai & Wang, Duo, 2005. "A robust rational route to randomness in a simple asset pricing model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1043-1072, June.
    11. James J. Angel & Lawrence E. Harris & Chester S. Spatt, 2011. "Equity Trading in the 21stCentury," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(01), pages 1-53.
    12. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    13. Marco Avellaneda & Sasha Stoikov, 2008. "High-frequency trading in a limit order book," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 217-224.
    14. Baron, Matthew & Brogaard, Jonathan & Hagströmer, Björn & Kirilenko, Andrei, 2019. "Risk and Return in High-Frequency Trading," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 993-1024, June.
    15. Didier SORNETTE & Susanne VON DER BECKE, 2011. "Crashes and High Frequency Trading," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 11-64, Swiss Finance Institute.
    16. J. Doyne Farmer, 2002. "Market force, ecology and evolution," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(5), pages 895-953, November.
    17. Westerhoff Frank H., 2008. "The Use of Agent-Based Financial Market Models to Test the Effectiveness of Regulatory Policies," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(2-3), pages 195-227, April.
    18. Kirman Alan & Teyssière Gilles, 2002. "Microeconomic Models for Long Memory in the Volatility of Financial Time Series," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(4), pages 1-23, January.
    19. Hasbrouck, Joel & Saar, Gideon, 2009. "Technology and liquidity provision: The blurring of traditional definitions," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 143-172, May.
    20. Andrei A. Kirilenko & Andrew W. Lo, 2013. "Moore's Law versus Murphy's Law: Algorithmic Trading and Its Discontents," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 51-72, Spring.
    21. Carrion, Allen, 2013. "Very fast money: High-frequency trading on the NASDAQ," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 680-711.
    22. Jeffrey MacIntosh, 2013. "High Frequency Traders: Angels or Devils?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 391, October.
    23. Pagan, Adrian, 1996. "The econometrics of financial markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 15-102, May.
    24. Yacine Aït-Sahalia & Mehmet Saglam, 2013. "High Frequency Traders: Taking Advantage of Speed," NBER Working Papers 19531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Mezard & Marc Potters, 2002. "Statistical properties of stock order books: empirical results and models," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(4), pages 251-256.
    26. Pellizzari, Paolo & Westerhoff, Frank, 2009. "Some effects of transaction taxes under different microstructures," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 850-863, December.
    27. Rama Cont & Marc Potters & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 1997. "Scaling in stock market data: stable laws and beyond," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 9705087, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    28. Robert A. Jarrow & Philip Protter, 2012. "A Dysfunctional Role Of High Frequency Trading In Electronic Markets," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(03), pages 1-15.
    29. Ilija Zovko & J Doyne Farmer, 2002. "The power of patience: a behavioural regularity in limit-order placement," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(5), pages 387-392.
    30. Clark, Peter K, 1973. "A Subordinated Stochastic Process Model with Finite Variance for Speculative Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(1), pages 135-155, January.
    31. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    32. Thierry Ané & Hélyette Geman, 2000. "Order Flow, Transaction Clock, and Normality of Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2259-2284, October.
    33. Brock, William A. & Hommes, Cars H., 1998. "Heterogeneous beliefs and routes to chaos in a simple asset pricing model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1235-1274, August.
    34. Didier SORNETTE & Susanne VON DER BECKE, 2011. "Crashes and High Frequency Trading," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 11-63, Swiss Finance Institute.
    35. Paul Windrum & Giorgio Fagiolo & Alessio Moneta, 2007. "Empirical Validation of Agent-Based Models: Alternatives and Prospects," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 10(2), pages 1-8.
    36. J. Doyne Farmer & Laszlo Gillemot & Fabrizio Lillo & Szabolcs Mike & Anindya Sen, 2004. "What really causes large price changes?," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 383-397.
    37. Thomas Lux & Michele Marchesi, 2000. "Volatility Clustering In Financial Markets: A Microsimulation Of Interacting Agents," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 675-702.
    38. Hugh Luckock, 2003. "A steady-state model of the continuous double auction," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(5), pages 385-404.
    39. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Mezard & Marc Potters, 2002. "Statistical properties of stock order books: empirical results and models," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 0203511, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    40. Menkveld, Albert J., 2013. "High frequency trading and the new market makers," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 712-740.
    41. Marco Bartolozzi, 2010. "A Multi Agent Model for the Limit Order Book Dynamics," Papers 1005.0182, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2010.
    42. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong, 2003. "Heterogeneous Beliefs, Risk, And Learning In A Simple Asset-Pricing Model With A Market Maker," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 503-536, September.
    43. Jonathan Brogaard & Terrence Hendershott & Ryan Riordan, 2014. "High-Frequency Trading and Price Discovery," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(8), pages 2267-2306.
    44. Neil Johnson & Guannan Zhao & Eric Hunsader & Jing Meng & Amith Ravindar & Spencer Carran & Brian Tivnan, 2012. "Financial black swans driven by ultrafast machine ecology," Papers 1202.1448, arXiv.org.
    45. Breckenfelder, Johannes, 2013. "Competition between high-frequency traders, and market quality," MPRA Paper 66715, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2013.
    46. Lux, Thomas, 2006. "Financial power laws: Empirical evidence, models, and mechanism," Economics Working Papers 2006-12, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    47. M. Bartolozzi, 2010. "A multi agent model for the limit order book dynamics," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 78(2), pages 265-273, November.
    48. Frantisek Slanina, 2008. "Critical comparison of several order-book models for stock-market fluctuations," Papers 0801.0631, arXiv.org.
    49. R. Cont, 2001. "Empirical properties of asset returns: stylized facts and statistical issues," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 223-236.
    50. Anirban Chakraborti & Ioane Muni Toke & Marco Patriarca & Frédéric Abergel, 2011. "Econophysics review: I. Empirical facts," Post-Print hal-00621058, HAL.
    51. Franke, Reiner & Westerhoff, Frank, 2012. "Structural stochastic volatility in asset pricing dynamics: Estimation and model contest," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1193-1211.
    52. Álvaro Cartea & José Penalva, 2012. "Where is the Value in High Frequency Trading?," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(03), pages 1-46.
    53. Maslov, Sergei, 2000. "Simple model of a limit order-driven market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 278(3), pages 571-578.
    54. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    55. Hoffmann, Peter, 2014. "A dynamic limit order market with fast and slow traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 156-169.
    56. Lux, Thomas, 1995. "Herd Behaviour, Bubbles and Crashes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 881-896, July.
    57. Carl Chiarella, 1992. "The Dynamics of Speculative Behaviour," Working Paper Series 13, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    58. F. Slanina, 2008. "Critical comparison of several order-book models for stock-market fluctuations," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 61(2), pages 225-240, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f6h8764enu2lskk9p4oq9ig8k is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leal, Sandrine Jacob & Napoletano, Mauro, 2019. "Market stability vs. market resilience: Regulatory policies experiments in an agent-based model with low- and high-frequency trading," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 15-41.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6ummnc8nko827b2luohnctekk7 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3utlh0ehcn860pus6p2p683ade is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Sandrine Jacob Leal & Mauro Napoletano, 2017. "Market Stability vs. Market Resilience: Regulatory Policies Experiments in an Agent-Based Model with Low- and High-Frequency Trading," Post-Print hal-01768876, HAL.
    6. Alessio Emanuele Biondo, 2018. "Order book microstructure and policies for financial stability," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(1), pages 196-218, March.
    7. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2017. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-104, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Alessio Emanuele Biondo, 2019. "Order book modeling and financial stability," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 14(3), pages 469-489, September.
    9. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & J. Doyne Farmer & Fabrizio Lillo, 2008. "How markets slowly digest changes in supply and demand," Papers 0809.0822, arXiv.org.
    10. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    11. Troy Tassier, 2013. "Handbook of Research on Complexity, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. and Edward Elgar," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 132-133.
    12. Todd Feldman & Gabriele Lepori, 2016. "Asset price formation and behavioral biases," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 8(2), pages 137-155, November.
    13. Antonio Doria, Francisco, 2011. "J.B. Rosser Jr. , Handbook of Research on Complexity, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK--Northampton, MA, USA (2009) 436 + viii pp., index, ISBN 978 1 84542 089 5 (cased)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 196-204, April.
    14. Hommes, Cars H., 2006. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1109-1186, Elsevier.
    15. Chiarella, Carl & Iori, Giulia, 2009. "The impact of heterogeneous trading rules on the limit order book and order flows," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 525-537.
    16. J. Doyne Farmer & John Geanakoplos, 2008. "The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics," Papers 0803.2996, arXiv.org.
    17. Biondo, Alessio Emanuele, 2018. "Learning to forecast, risk aversion, and microstructural aspects of financial stability," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-21.
    18. Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), 2008. "Handbook on Information Technology in Finance," International Handbooks on Information Systems, Springer, number 978-3-540-49487-4, November.
    19. Radu T. Pruna & Maria Polukarov & Nicholas R. Jennings, 2016. "A new structural stochastic volatility model of asset pricing and its stylized facts," Papers 1604.08824, arXiv.org.
    20. Changtai Li & Weihong Huang & Wei-Siang Wang & Wai-Mun Chia, 2023. "Price Change and Trading Volume: Behavioral Heterogeneity in Stock Market," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 677-713, February.
    21. Xue-Zhong He & Youwei Li, 2017. "The adaptiveness in stock markets: testing the stylized facts in the DAX 30," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 1071-1094, November.
    22. Qi Nan Zhai, 2015. "Asset Pricing Under Ambiguity and Heterogeneity," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2015.
    23. Sandrine Jacob Leal, 2015. "Fundamentalists, chartists and asset pricing anomalies," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(11), pages 1837-1850, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agent-based models · Limit order book · High-frequency trading · Low-frequency trading · Flash crashes · Market volatility;

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01512863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.