An empirical analysis of institutional liquidity trading

Abstract

I investigate the trading decisions of a large institutional liquidity trader by using a detailed data set from a transition management firm. The data set contains records for all trades of transitions completed between January 2008 and September 2008. Effective execution involves a trade off between trading patiently over time to minimize price impact costs and trading quickly to avoid opportunity costs due to price volatility. I estimate a model of transition duration that accounts for volatility, an order's percentage of average daily volume, and the bid--ask spread to uncover the firm's strategy of how quicklyto trade. To understand the firm's intermediate trading decisions, I estimate a vector autoregression that summarizes the dynamic relationship of volatility, trading volume, the bid--ask spread, and order type and order duration. My analysis suggests that the firm behaves strategically to minimize the total costs of trading.