Staff Reports
The Microstructure of a U.S. Treasury ECN:The BrokerTec Platform
July 2009 Number 381
Revised March 2017
JEL classification: C32, G12, G14

Authors: Michael J. Fleming, Bruce Mizrach, and Giang Nguyen

We assess the microstructure of the U.S. Treasury securities market following its migration to electronic trading. We model price discovery using a vector autoregression model of price and order flow. We show that both trades and limit orders affect price dynamics, suggesting that traders also choose limit orders to exploit their information. Moreover, while limit orders have smaller price impact, their greater variation contributes more to the variance of price updates. Lastly, we find increased price impact of trades and especially limit orders following major announcements (such as FOMC rate decisions and macroeconomic data releases), suggesting that the private information derived from public information is disproportionally exploited through limit orders.

For a published version of this report, see Michael J. Fleming, Bruce Mizrach, and Giang Nguyen, “The Microstructure of a U.S. Treasury ECN: The BrokerTec Platform,” Journal of Financial Markets 40, no. 1 (September 2018): 2-22.

Available only in PDF 52 pages / 455 kb
View Appendix 14 pages / 140 kb
tools
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. You can learn more about how we use cookies by reviewing our Privacy Statement.   Close