IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/matcom/v93y2013icp43-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterising trader manipulation in a limit-order driven market

Author

Listed:
  • Withanawasam, R.M.
  • Whigham, P.A.
  • Crack, T.F.

Abstract

Use of trading strategies to mislead other market participants, commonly termed trade-based market manipulation, has been identified as a major problem faced by present day stock markets. Although some mathematical models of trade-based market manipulation have been previously developed, this work presents a framework for manipulation in the context of a realistic computational model of a limit-order market. The Maslov limit order market model is extended to introduce manipulators and technical traders. We show that “pump and dump” manipulation is not possible with traditional Maslov (liquidity) traders. The presence of technical traders, however, makes profitable manipulation possible. When exploiting the behaviour of technical traders, manipulators can wait some time after their buying phase before selling, in order to profit. Moreover, if technical traders believe that there is an information asymmetry between buy and sell actions, the manipulator effort required to perform a “pump and dump” is comparatively low, and a manipulator can generate profits even by selling immediately after raising the price.

Suggested Citation

  • Withanawasam, R.M. & Whigham, P.A. & Crack, T.F., 2013. "Characterising trader manipulation in a limit-order driven market," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 43-52.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:matcom:v:93:y:2013:i:c:p:43-52
    DOI: 10.1016/j.matcom.2012.09.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378475412002212
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.matcom.2012.09.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chakraborty, Archishman & Yilmaz, Bilge, 2004. "Informed manipulation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 132-152, January.
    2. Hautsch, Nikolaus & Hess, Dieter, 2007. "Bayesian Learning in Financial Markets: Testing for the Relevance of Information Precision in Price Discovery," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 189-208, March.
    3. Sofia Johan, 2008. "Global Market Surveillance," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 10(2), pages 454-506.
    4. Krause, Andreas, 2006. "Fat tails and multi-scaling in a simple model of limit order markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 368(1), pages 183-190.
    5. Harris, Larry, 2002. "Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195144703.
    6. Allen, Franklin & Gorton, Gary, 1992. "Stock price manipulation, market microstructure and asymmetric information," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 624-630, April.
    7. Lubos Pastor & Pietro Veronesi, 2009. "Learning in Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 361-381, November.
    8. Alvarez-Ramirez, Jose & Alvarez, Jesus & Rodriguez, Eduardo & Fernandez-Anaya, Guillermo, 2008. "Time-varying Hurst exponent for US stock markets," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(24), pages 6159-6169.
    9. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 1992. "Stock-Price Manipulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 503-529.
    10. Glosten, Lawrence R. & Milgrom, Paul R., 1985. "Bid, ask and transaction prices in a specialist market with heterogeneously informed traders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 71-100, March.
    11. Ioanid Rosu, 2009. "A Dynamic Model of the Limit Order Book," Post-Print hal-00515873, HAL.
    12. Ioanid Rosu, 2009. "A Dynamic Model of the Limit Order Book," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4601-4641, November.
    13. 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.
    14. Albert S. Kyle & S. Viswanathan, 2008. "How to Define Illegal Price Manipulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 274-279, May.
    15. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Stock Market Manipulations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1915-1954, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shaen Corbet & Yang (Greg) Hou & Yang Hu & Les Oxley, 2022. "We Reddit in a Forum: The Influence of Message Boards on Firm Stability," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 151-190, March.
    2. Dean Fantazzini & Yufeng Xiao, 2023. "Detecting Pump-and-Dumps with Crypto-Assets: Dealing with Imbalanced Datasets and Insiders’ Anticipated Purchases," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-73, August.

    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. Liu, Jie & Wu, Chonglin & Yuan, Lin & Liu, Jia, 2022. "Opening price manipulation and its value influences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Tālis J. Putniņš, 2012. "Market Manipulation: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 952-967, December.
    3. Martin D. Gould & Mason A. Porter & Stacy Williams & Mark McDonald & Daniel J. Fenn & Sam D. Howison, 2010. "Limit Order Books," Papers 1012.0349, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2013.
    4. Takayama, Shino, 2021. "Price manipulation, dynamic informed trading, and the uniqueness of equilibrium in sequential trading," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    5. Allen, Franklin & Haas, Marlene D. & Nowak, Eric & Tengulov, Angel, 2021. "Market efficiency and limits to arbitrage: Evidence from the Volkswagen short squeeze," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 166-194.
    6. Shino Takayama, 2018. "Price Manipulation, Dynamic Informed Trading and Tame Equilibria: Theory and Computation," Discussion Papers Series 603, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    7. Aitken, Michael & Cumming, Douglas & Zhan, Feng, 2015. "Exchange trading rules, surveillance and suspected insider trading," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 311-330.
    8. Aitken, Michael & Cumming, Douglas & Zhan, Feng, 2013. "Exchange trading rules, surveillance and insider trading," CFS Working Paper Series 2013/15, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    9. Chester Spatt, 2014. "Security Market Manipulation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 405-418, December.
    10. Vladimirov, Vladimir & Terovitis, Spyros, 2020. "How Financial Markets Create Superstars," CEPR Discussion Papers 15546, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Shino Takayama, 2013. "Price Manipulation, Dynamic Informed Trading and Tame Equilibria: Theory and Computation," Discussion Papers Series 492, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    12. Withanawasam, R.M. & Whigham, P.A. & Crack, Timothy Falcon, 2013. "Characterizing limit order prices," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(21), pages 5346-5355.
    13. Cumming, Douglas & Johan, Sofia & Li, Dan, 2011. "Exchange trading rules and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 651-671, March.
    14. Martin D. Gould & Mason A. Porter & Stacy Williams & Mark McDonald & Daniel J. Fenn & Sam D. Howison, 2013. "Limit order books," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(11), pages 1709-1742, November.
    15. Cumming, Douglas & Dannhauser, Robert & Johan, Sofia, 2015. "Financial market misconduct and agency conflicts: A synthesis and future directions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 150-168.
    16. Lee, Eun Jung & Eom, Kyong Shik & Park, Kyung Suh, 2013. "Microstructure-based manipulation: Strategic behavior and performance of spoofing traders," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 227-252.
    17. 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.
    18. Aitken, Michael & Cumming, Douglas & Zhan, Feng, 2015. "High frequency trading and end-of-day price dislocation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 330-349.
    19. Rossi, Stefano & Tinn, Katrin, 2021. "Rational quantitative trading in efficient markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    20. Neupane, Suman & Rhee, S. Ghon & Vithanage, Kulunu & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2017. "Trade-based manipulation: Beyond the prosecuted cases," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 115-130.

    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:eee:matcom:v:93:y:2013:i:c:p:43-52. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/mathematics-and-computers-in-simulation/ .

    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.