Classification of position management strategies at the order-book level and their influences on future market-price formation

Abstract

Financial prices fluctuate as a results of the market impact of the flow of transactions between traders. Reciprocally, several studies of market microstructure have shown how decisions of individual traders or banks, implemented in their trading strategies, are affected by historical market information. However, little is known about the detailed processes of how such trading strategies at the micro level recursively affect future market information at the macro level. Using a special fined-grained dataset that allows us to track the complete trading behavior of specific banks in a U.S. dollar (USD) versus Japanese yen (JPY) market, we find that position management methods, defined as the number of units of USD bought or sold by banks against JPY, can be classified into two strategies: (1) banks increase their positions by trading in the same direction repeatedly, or (2) banks attempt to reduce their inventories by rapidly shifting their positions toward zero. We then demonstrate that their systematic position management strategies strongly influence future market prices, as demonstrated by our ability using this information to predict market prices about fifteen minutes in advance. Further, by detecting outlier trades, we reveal that traders seem to switch their strategies when they become aware of outlier trades. The evidence obtained here suggests that positions, which are a consequence of historical trading decisions based on the position management strategies of each bank, strongly influence future market prices, and we unravel how market prices at the macro level evolve through an interactive process involving the interaction between well-defined trading strategies at the micro level.