Menkveld, AlbertJ. and Zoican, MariusA. (2017). Need for speed? Exchange latency and liquidity Review of Financial Studies, 30(4):1188--1228.
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Affiliated authorsAlbert J. Menkveld, Marius Zoican
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Publication year2017
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JournalReview of Financial Studies
A faster exchange does not necessarily improve liquidity. On the one hand, speed enables a high-frequency market maker (HFM) to update quotes faster on incoming news. This reduces payoff risk and thus lowers the competitive bid-ask spread. On the other hand, HFM price quotes are more likely to meet speculative high-frequency bandits, and thus are less likely to meet liquidity traders. This raises the spread. The net effect of exchange speed depends on a security's news-to-liquidity-trader ratio.