IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rba/rbardp/rdp2025-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Back to the Futures: Liquidity in Australian Bond Futures amid Market-moving Events since COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Finlay

    (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)

  • Ben Jackman

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

  • Dmitry Titkov

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

The market for futures on Australian Government Securities (AGS) is one of Australia's key markets for trading interest rate risk, and turnover in AGS futures is substantially greater than turnover in AGS themselves. We examine liquidity in the market for futures on AGS using granular 'tick-level' data that captures trades and changes at the top of the order book from October 2019 to June 2025. We find liquidity deteriorated at the onset of COVID-19 and around the end of the RBA's yield target. Nevertheless, the market for AGS futures functioned well in the period, with market participants always able to transact (albeit sometimes at higher transaction costs). For 'news' events in the period – such as monetary policy decisions and economic data releases, which are inherently uncertain – we find liquidity tended to deteriorate briefly following these events but recovered before day's end. By contrast, for 'flow' events – such as pre-announced purchases and sales of AGS, including syndicated issuance – we find liquidity improved in anticipation of these events and smooth trading conditions were maintained. A better understanding of how liquidity in AGS futures changes in response to market-moving events should assist AGS market participants – including the RBA – to extract and interpret information from market data, and to design any AGS market transactions to maximise effectiveness while minimising side effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Finlay & Ben Jackman & Dmitry Titkov, 2025. "Back to the Futures: Liquidity in Australian Bond Futures amid Market-moving Events since COVID-19," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2025-07, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp2025-07
    DOI: 10.47688/rdp2025-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2025/pdf/rdp2025-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.47688/rdp2025-07?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J. Fleming, 2003. "Measuring treasury market liquidity," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Sep, pages 83-108.
    2. Richard Finlay & Dmitry Titkov & Michelle Xiang, 2023. "The Yield and Market Function Effects of the Reserve Bank of Australia's Bond Purchases," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(326), pages 359-384, September.
    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. David Bourghelle & F. Declerck, 2004. "Why Markets Should not Necessarily Reduce the Tick Size," Post-Print hal-00677711, HAL.
    5. Ahn, Hee-Joon & Cao, Charles Q. & Choe, Hyuk, 1996. "Tick Size, Spread, and Volume," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 2-22, January.
    6. repec:bla:ecorec:v:85:y:2009:i:s1:p:s22-s28 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Xinsheng Lu & Ling Qu & Ying Zhou, 2015. "The Impact of Monetary Surprises on Australian Financial Futures Markets: An Insight into Cash Rate Target Announcements," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 151-166, September.
    8. Suk-Joong Kim & Jeffrey Sheen, 2018. "Minute-by-Minute Dynamics of the Australian Bond Futures Market in Response to New Macroeconomic Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Information Spillovers and Market Integration in International Finance Empirical Analyses, chapter 7, pages 203-227, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Ingrid M. Werner & Barbara Rindi & Sabrina Buti & Yuanji Wen, 2023. "Tick Size, Trading Strategies, and Market Quality," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 3818-3837, July.
    10. Michael J. Fleming & Claire Nelson, 2022. "How Liquid Has the Treasury Market Been in 2022?," Liberty Street Economics 20221115a, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. Michael Fleming & Giang Nguyen & Francisco Ruela, 2024. "Tick Size, Competition for Liquidity Provision, and Price Discovery: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 332-354, January.
    12. Bourghelle, David & Declerck, Fany, 2004. "Why markets should not necessarily reduce the tick size," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 373-398, February.
    13. Jon Cheshire, 2016. "Liquidity in Fixed Income Markets," RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued), Reserve Bank of Australia, pages 49-58, June.
    14. Michael J. Fleming, 2024. "Has Treasury Market Liquidity Improved in 2024?," Liberty Street Economics 20240923, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    15. Pantisa Pavabutr & Sukanya Prangwattananon, 2009. "Tick size change on the Stock Exchange of Thailand," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 351-371, May.
    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. Murphy Jun Jie Lee, 2013. "The Microstructure of Trading Processes on the Singapore Exchange," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 2-2013, January-A.
    2. Murphy Jun Jie Lee, 2013. "The Microstructure of Trading Processes on the Singapore Exchange," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 4, July-Dece.
    3. Buti, Sabrina & Rindi, Barbara & Wen, Yuanji & Werner, Ingrid M., 2013. "Tick Size Regulation and Sub-Penny Trading," Working Paper Series 2013-14, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    4. Khalil Dayri & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2012. "Large tick assets: implicit spread and optimal tick size," Papers 1207.6325, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2013.
    5. Thanos Verousis & Pietro Perotti & Georgios Sermpinis, 2018. "One size fits all? High frequency trading, tick size changes and the implications for exchanges: market quality and market structure considerations," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 353-392, February.
    6. Weibing Huang & Charles-Albert Lehalle & Mathieu Rosenbaum, 2015. "How to predict the consequences of a tick value change? Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange pilot program," Papers 1507.07052, arXiv.org.
    7. Sunil S. Poshakwale & Jude W. Taunson & Anandadeep Mandal & Michael Theobald, 2019. "Lower tick sizes and futures pricing efficiency: evidence from the emerging Malaysian market," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 1135-1163, November.
    8. Darrell Duffie & Michael Fleming & Frank Keane & Claire Nelson & Or Shachar & Peter Van Tassel, 2023. "Dealer capacity and US Treasury market functionality," BIS Working Papers 1138, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Ascioglu, Asli & Comerton-Forde, Carole & McInish, Thomas H., 2010. "An examination of minimum tick sizes on the Tokyo Stock Exchange," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 40-48, January.
    10. Ravi Kashyap, 2016. "A Tale of Two Consequences: Intended and Unintended Outcomes of the Japan TOPIX Tick Size Changes," Papers 1602.00839, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2019.
    11. Lin, Hai & Lo, Ingrid & Qiao, Rui, 2021. "Macroeconomic news announcements and market efficiency: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    12. Ghassan Omet, 2011. "Stock Market Liquidity: Comparative Analysis of The Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and Dubai Financial Market," Working Papers 655, Economic Research Forum, revised 12 Jan 2011.
    13. G. Wuyts, 2007. "Stock Market Liquidity.Determinants and Implications," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(2), pages 279-316.
    14. Schneider, Michael & Lillo, Fabrizio & Pelizzon, Loriana, 2016. "How has sovereign bond market liquidity changed? An illiquidity spillover analysis," SAFE Working Paper Series 151, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    15. Kee Chung & Jangkoo Kang & Joon-Seok Kim, 2011. "Tick size, market structure, and market quality," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 57-81, January.
    16. Lepone, Andrew & Wong, Jin Boon, 2017. "Pseudo market-makers, market quality and the minimum tick size," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 88-100.
    17. Mahmoodzadeh, Soheil & Gençay, Ramazan, 2017. "Human vs. high-frequency traders, penny jumping, and tick size," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 69-82.
    18. Pantisa Pavabutr & Sukanya Prangwattananon, 2009. "Tick size change on the Stock Exchange of Thailand," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 351-371, May.
    19. Tsujimoto, Yusuke, 2025. "Coarse pricing in QE auctions," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    20. José Yagüe & J. Gómez-Sala, 2005. "Price and tick size preferences in trading activity changes around stock split executions," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 111-138, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    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:rba:rbardp:rdp2025-07. 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: Paula Drew (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvau.html .

    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.