IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2603.24137.html

Bridging the Reality Gap in Limit Order Book Simulation

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Noble
  • Mathieu Rosenbaum
  • Saad Souilmi

Abstract

We introduce a practical, interactive simulator of the limit order book for large-tick assets, designed to produce realistic execution, costs, and P&L. The book state is projected onto a tractable representation based on spread and volume imbalance, enabling robust estimation from market data. Event timing is calibrated to reproduce the fine-scale temporal structure of real markets, revealing a pronounced mode at exchange round-trip latency consistent with simultaneous reactions and latency races among participants. We further incorporate a feedback mechanism that accumulates signed trade flow through a power-law decay kernel, reproducing both concave market impact during execution and partial post-trade reversion. Across several stocks and strategy case studies, the simulator yields realistic behavior where profitability becomes highly sensitive to execution parameters. We present the approach as a practical recipe: project, estimate, validate, adapt, for building realistic limit order book simulations.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Noble & Mathieu Rosenbaum & Saad Souilmi, 2026. "Bridging the Reality Gap in Limit Order Book Simulation," Papers 2603.24137, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2603.24137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.24137
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Matteo Aquilina & Eric Budish & Peter O’Neill, 2022. "Quantifying the High-Frequency Trading “Arms Race”," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 493-564.
    3. Hamza Bodor & Laurent Carlier, 2024. "A Novel Approach to Queue-Reactive Models: The Importance of Order Sizes," Papers 2405.18594, arXiv.org.
    4. Sasha Stoikov, 2018. "The micro-price: a high-frequency estimator of future prices," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(12), pages 1959-1966, December.
    5. Paul Jusselin & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2020. "No‐arbitrage implies power‐law market impact and rough volatility," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1309-1336, October.
    6. Weibing Huang & Charles-Albert Lehalle & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2015. "Simulating and Analyzing Order Book Data: The Queue-Reactive Model," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(509), pages 107-122, March.
    7. Bence Toth & Yves Lemperiere & Cyril Deremble & Joachim de Lataillade & Julien Kockelkoren & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2011. "Anomalous price impact and the critical nature of liquidity in financial markets," Papers 1105.1694, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Rama Cont & Adrien de Larrard, 2013. "Price Dynamics in a Markovian Limit Order Market," Post-Print hal-00552252, HAL.
    9. Johannes Muhle-Karbe & Youssef Ouazzani Chahdi & Mathieu Rosenbaum & Gr'egoire Szymanski, 2026. "A unified theory of order flow, market impact, and volatility," Papers 2601.23172, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    10. Sergio Pulido & Mathieu Rosenbaum & Emmanouil Sfendourakis, 2026. "Understanding the worst-kept secret of high-frequency trading," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 329-396, April.
    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. Paul Jusselin & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2020. "No‐arbitrage implies power‐law market impact and rough volatility," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1309-1336, October.
    2. Julius Bonart & Martin Gould, 2015. "Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book," Papers 1511.04116, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2016.
    3. Weibing Huang & Charles-Albert Lehalle & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2015. "Simulating and Analyzing Order Book Data: The Queue-Reactive Model," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(509), pages 107-122, March.
    4. Weibing Huang & Sergio Pulido & Mathieu Rosenbaum & Pamela Saliba & Emmanouil Sfendourakis, 2019. "From Glosten-Milgrom to the whole limit order book and applications to financial regulation," Papers 1902.10743, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    5. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2020. "Endogenous Liquidity Crises," Post-Print hal-02567495, HAL.
    6. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2020. "Non-parametric Estimation of Quadratic Hawkes Processes for Order Book Events," Papers 2005.05730, arXiv.org.
    7. Julius Bonart & Martin D. Gould, 2017. "Latency and liquidity provision in a limit order book," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(10), pages 1601-1616, October.
    8. Clinet, Simon & Yoshida, Nakahiro, 2017. "Statistical inference for ergodic point processes and application to Limit Order Book," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 127(6), pages 1800-1839.
    9. Antoine Jacquier & Hao Liu, 2017. "Optimal liquidation in a Level-I limit order book for large tick stocks," Papers 1701.01327, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2017.
    10. Weibing Huang & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2015. "Ergodicity and diffusivity of Markovian order book models: a general framework," Papers 1505.04936, arXiv.org.
    11. Nicolas Baradel & Bruno Bouchard & David Evangelista & Othmane Mounjid, 2019. "Optimal inventory management and order book modeling," Post-Print hal-01710301, HAL.
    12. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2020. "Endogenous Liquidity Crises," Working Papers hal-02567495, HAL.
    13. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2020. "Non-parametric Estimation of Quadratic Hawkes Processes for Order Book Events," Working Papers hal-02998555, HAL.
    14. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2021. "Non-parametric Estimation of Quadratic Hawkes Processes for Order Book Events," Post-Print hal-02998555, HAL.
    15. Adele Ravagnani & Fabrizio Lillo, 2025. "Modeling metaorder impact with a Non-Markovian Zero Intelligence model," Papers 2503.05254, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    16. Hamza Bodor & Laurent Carlier, 2025. "Deep Learning Meets Queue-Reactive: A Framework for Realistic Limit Order Book Simulation," Papers 2501.08822, arXiv.org.
    17. Nicolas Baradel & Bruno Bouchard & David Evangelista & Othmane Mounjid, 2018. "Optimal inventory management and order book modeling," Working Papers hal-01710301, HAL.
    18. Ravagnani, Adele & Lillo, Fabrizio, 2026. "Modeling metaorder impact with a Non-Markovian Zero Intelligence model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 681(C).
    19. Nicolas Baradel & Bruno Bouchard & David Evangelista & Othmane Mounjid, 2018. "Optimal inventory management and order book modeling," Papers 1802.08135, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2018.
    20. Antoine Fosset & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Michael Benzaquen, 2019. "Endogenous Liquidity Crises," Papers 1912.00359, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2603.24137. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.