Permanent Trading Impacts and Bond Yields

45 Pages Posted: 29 Jun 2009 Last revised: 2 Aug 2011

See all articles by Alfonso Dufour

Alfonso Dufour

ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading

Minh Nguyen

Newcastle University Business School

Date Written: April 7, 2011

Abstract

We analyze four years of transaction data for euro-area sovereign bonds traded on the MTS electronic platform. In order to measure the informational content of trading activity, we estimate the permanent price response to trades. We find not only strong evidence of information asymmetry in sovereign bond markets, but we also show the relevance of information asymmetry in explaining the cross-sectional variations of bond yields across a wide range of bond maturities and countries. Our results confirm that trades of more recently issued bonds and longer maturity bonds have a greater permanent effect on prices. We compare the price impact of trades for bonds across different maturity categories and find that trades of French and German bonds have the highest long-term price impact in the short maturity class whereas trades of German bonds have the highest permanent price impacts in the long maturity class. More importantly, we study the cross-section of bond yields and, after controlling for conventional factors, we find that investors demand higher yields for bonds with larger permanent trading impacts. Interestingly, when investors face increased market uncertainty they require even higher compensation for information asymmetry

Keywords: Bond markets, Liquidity, Information asymmetry

JEL Classification: G12, G14, G15, H81

Suggested Citation

Dufour, Alfonso and Nguyen, Minh, Permanent Trading Impacts and Bond Yields (April 7, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1427087 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1427087

Alfonso Dufour

ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading ( email )

Whiteknights Park
P.O. Box 242
Reading RG6 6BA
United Kingdom

Minh Nguyen (Contact Author)

Newcastle University Business School ( email )

Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
United Kingdom

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