High Frequency Trading and Co-Movement in Financial Markets
50 Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2016 Last revised: 11 Feb 2019
Date Written: March 23, 2018
Abstract
Using the staggered entry of Chi-X in 12 European equity markets as a source of exogenous variation in high frequency trading (HFT), we find that HFT causes significant increases in co-movement in returns and in liquidity. About one-third of the increase in return co-movement is due to faster diffusion of market-wide information. We attribute the remaining two-thirds to correlated trading strategies of HFTs. The increase in liquidity co-movement is consistent with HFT liquidity providers being better able to monitor other stocks and adjust their liquidity provision accordingly. Our findings suggest a channel by which HFT impacts the cost of capital.
Keywords: high frequency trading, HFT, co-movement, commonality, synchronicity, liquidity
JEL Classification: G14, G12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation