No Arabic abstract
Trading frictions are stochastic. They are, moreover, in many instances fast-mean reverting. Here, we study how to optimally trade in a market with stochastic price impact and study approximations to the resulting optimal control problem using singular perturbation methods. We prove, by constructing sub- and super-solutions, that the approximations are accurate to the specified order. Finally, we perform some numerical experiments to illustrate the effect that stochastic trading frictions have on optimal trading.
A risk-averse agent hedges her exposure to a non-tradable risk factor $U$ using a correlated traded asset $S$ and accounts for the impact of her trades on both factors. The effect of the agents trades on $U$ is referred to as cross-impact. By solving the agents stochastic control problem, we obtain a closed-form expression for the optimal strategy when the agent holds a linear position in $U$. When the exposure to the non-tradable risk factor $psi(U_T)$ is non-linear, we provide an approximation to the optimal strategy in closed-form, and prove that the value function is correctly approximated by this strategy when cross-impact and risk-aversion are small. We further prove that when $psi(U_T)$ is non-linear, the approximate optimal strategy can be written in terms of the optimal strategy for a linear exposure with the size of the position changing dynamically according to the exposures Delta under a particular probability measure.
In this paper, the Kyle model of insider trading is extended by characterizing the trading volume with long memory and allowing the noise trading volatility to follow a general stochastic process. Under this newly revised model, the equilibrium conditions are determined, with which the optimal insider trading strategy, price impact and price volatility are obtained explicitly. The volatility of the price volatility appears excessive, which is a result of the fact that a more aggressive trading strategy is chosen by the insider when uninformed volume is higher. The optimal trading strategy turns out to possess the property of long memory, and the price impact is also affected by the fractional noise.
Executing a basket of co-integrated assets is an important task facing investors. Here, we show how to do this accounting for the informational advantage gained from assets within and outside the basket, as well as for the permanent price impact of market orders (MOs) from all market participants, and the temporary impact that the agents MOs have on prices. The execution problem is posed as an optimal stochastic control problem and we demonstrate that, under some mild conditions, the value function admits a closed-form solution, and prove a verification theorem. Furthermore, we use data of five stocks traded in the Nasdaq exchange to estimate the model parameters and use simulations to illustrate the performance of the strategy. As an example, the agent liquidates a portfolio consisting of shares in Intel Corporation (INTC) and Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH). We show that including the information provided by three additional assets, FARO Technologies (FARO), NetApp (NTAP) and Oracle Corporation (ORCL), considerably improves the strategys performance; for the portfolio we execute, it outperforms the multi-asset version of Almgren-Chriss by approximately 4 to 4.5 basis points.
An investor trades a safe and several risky assets with linear price impact to maximize expected utility from terminal wealth. In the limit for small impact costs, we explicitly determine the optimal policy and welfare, in a general Markovian setting allowing for stochastic market, cost, and preference parameters. These results shed light on the general structure of the problem at hand, and also unveil close connections to optimal execution problems and to other market frictions such as proportional and fixed transaction costs.
We use standard physics techniques to model trading and price formation in a market under the assumption that order arrival and cancellations are Poisson random processes. This model makes testable predictions for the most basic properties of a market, such as the diffusion rate of prices, which is the standard measure of financial risk, and the spread and price impact functions, which are the main determinants of transaction cost. Guided by dimensional analysis, simulation, and mean field theory, we find scaling relations in terms of order flow rates. We show that even under completely random order flow the need to store supply and demand to facilitate trading induces anomalous diffusion and temporal structure in prices.