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Shrouding and the FX Trades of Global Custody Banks
Abstract
This paper identifies a new approach to shrouding, the practice of hiding supra-competitive product prices, and sheds light on an extraordinarily opaque and hitherto unexplored segment of the world's largest OTC market. The product is liquidity for FX transactions between global custody banks and their client funds, transactions in which the clients are not actively involved and cannot identify execution costs ex post. We develop a stylized model of shrouding that predicts FX dealers will shift among three pricing strategies over time within individual client relationships. We conduct an extensive econometric analysis of the complete FX trading record of a mid-sized global custody bank over one calendar year. The data provide support for all ten of the shrouding model's testable hypotheses.
... The Constitutional Court has stated that when a debtor is being in default (presumption) and is willing to give up the assets included in the trust deed, the creditor is entitled to the full rights over them and can execute the trust agreement independently (Butarbutar, 2022;Horga, Rezine, Chattopadhyay, Eles, & Peng, 2022;Osler & Savaser, 2022). However, if the debtor does not accept the default and objects to the intentional termination of the trust agreement, the creditor cannot exercise their power of attorney independently and must ask the court to carry out the collateral letter. ...
Judicial decisions must have legal implications for relevant parties. PMK No. 2/PUU-XIX/2021 remains debatable between creditors and debtors because it seemingly weakens the protection of creditors' rights. Creditors cannot immediately carry out enforcement procedures that cut off the creditor's business flow because the position of the subject of fiduciary obligations is in the debtor's control, making it possible for disputes between debtors and creditors. This normative legal research was conducted using a philosophical, juridical approach covering statutory policies, conceptual and case approaches. PMK No. 2/PUU-XIX/2021 does not regulate creditor legal provisions in enforcing fiduciary securities, making it difficult for creditors to execute them. The Constitutional Court should decide to guarantee justice for all parties and provide a decision with clear content and sentence structure, so multiple interpretations will not occur. The execution of fiduciary securities during the Covid-19 pandemic should not be immediately carried out because the creditor had to follow the predetermined procedures.
This paper examines the price discovery process in a two‐tier market, specifically the foreign‐exchange market. The goal is to identify the sources of private information and to gain insights into the process through which that information influences the market price. Using a transactions database that includes trading‐party identities, we show that sustained post‐trade returns rise with bank size, implying that larger banks have an information advantage. The larger banks exploit this information advantage in placing limit orders as well as market orders. We also show that the bank's private information does not come from their corporate or government customers or from some asset managers. Instead, the bank's private information appears to come from other asset managers, including hedge funds, and from the bank's own analysis.
Following Becker (1957) we ask whether competition will eliminate the effects of behavioral biases. We study the case of shrouded product attributes, such as main- tenance costs, expensive add-ons, and hidden fees. In standard competitive models with costless advertising all firms choose to reveal all product information. We show that information revelation breaks down when some naive consumers do not anticipate shrouded attributes. Firms will not compete by publicly undercutting their competi- tors' add-on prices if (i) add-ons have close substitutes that are only exploited by sophisticated consumers, or (ii) many consumers drop out of the market altogether when the add-on market is made salient. We show that informational shrouding flour- ishes even in highly competitive markets, even in markets with costless advertising and
In statistical estimation problems measures between probability distributions play significant roles. Hellinger coefficient, Jeffreys distance, Chernoff coefficient, directed divergence, and its symmetrization J-divergence are examples of such measures. Here these and like measures are characterized through a composition law and the sum form they possess. The functional equations f(pr, qs) + f(ps, qr) = (r + s)f(p, q) + (p + q)f(r, s) and f(pr, qs) + f(ps, qr) = f(p, q)f(r, s) are instrumental in their deduction.
Municipal bonds trade in opaque, decentralized broker-dealer markets in which price information is costly to gather. We analyze
a database of trades between broker-dealers and customers in municipal bonds. These data were only released to the public
with a lag; the market was opaque. Dealers earn lower average markups on larger trades, even though dealers bear a higher
risk of losses with larger trades. We estimate a bargaining model and compute measures of dealer’s bargaining power. Dealers
exercise substantial market power. Our measures of market power decrease in trade size and increase in the complexity of the
trade for the dealer. (JEL G0, G24)
We study dealer behavior in the foreign exchange spot market using detailed observations on all the transactions of four interbank dealers. There is strong support for an information effect in incoming trades. The direction of trade is most important, but we also find that the information effect increases with trade size in direct bilateral trades. All four dealers control their inventory intensively. Inventory control is not, however, manifested through a dealer's own prices in contrast to findings by Lyons (J. Financial Econ. 39(1995) 321). Furthermore, we document differences in trading styles, especially how they actually control their inventories.
In dealership markets disclosure of size and price of details of public trades is typically incomplete. We examine whether
full and prompt disclosure of public-trade details improves the welfare of a risk-averse investor. We analyze a model of dealership
market where a market maker first executes a public trade and then offsets her position by trading with other market makers.
We distinguish between quantity risk and price revision risk. We show that if the market maker learns some information about
the motive behind public trade, neither regime is unambiguously welfare superior. This is because greater transparency improves
quantity risk sharing but worsens price revision risk sharing.
We study how intermediation and asset prices in over-the-counter markets are affected by illiquidity associated with search and bargaining. We compute explicitly the prices at which investors trade with each other, as well as marketmakers' bid and ask prices, in a dynamic model with strategic agents. Bid–ask spreads are lower if investors can more easily find other investors or have easier access to multiple marketmakers. With a monopolistic marketmaker, bid–ask spreads are higher if investors have easier access to the marketmaker. We characterize endogenous search and welfare, and discuss empirical implications.
The offering prices of 64 issues of a popular retail structured equity product were, on average, almost 8% greater than estimates of the products' fair market values obtained using option pricing methods. Under reasonable assumptions about the underlying stocks' expected returns, the mean expected return estimate on the structured products is slightly below zero. The products do not provide tax, liquidity, or other benefits, and it is difficult to rationalize their purchase by informed rational investors. Our findings are, however, consistent with the recent hypothesis that issuing firms might shroud some aspects of innovative securities or introduce complexity to exploit uninformed investors.
The presence of traders with superior information leads to a positive bid-ask spread even when the specialist is risk-neutral and makes zero expected profits. The resulting transaction prices convey information, and the expectation of the average spread squared times volume is bounded by a number that is independent of insider activity. The serial correlation of transaction price differences is a function of the proportion of the spread due to adverse selection. A bid-ask spread implies a divergence between observed returns and realizable returns. Observed returns are approximately realizable returns plus what the uninformed anticipate losing to the insiders.
Recent experiments with the Dictator Game (and the ensuing discussions) have been affected by considerable confusion regarding the purpose of this design. A common complaint is that the design gives rise to fragile regularities and therefore is of little use for theory-testing. We take issue with this view, and instead argue that the Dictator Game is potentially a very useful tool for experimental game theory, if properly used. It is particularly useful for investigating social norms, but economists have failed to take advantage of the Dictator Game because they still lack an adequate theory of norms.
The Securities Exchange Commissions (SEC) has an ongoing initiative to examine mutual fund fees, and their disclosure to fund shareholders. Mutual fund custodial fees are usually paid directly to the custodian from fund assets, and can therefore affect fund performance and investor returns. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of mutual fund custodial fees using both equity and bond funds. Regression analyses on bond and equity fund samples reveal that custodial fees result from a variety of factors, and that these factors differ between equity and bond funds. The results of this study can be a useful benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of custodial fee management.
Using detailed data on the currency transactions of institutional fund managers, this paper shows that funds that experience high returns on their currency holdings also incur lower transaction costs on their currency trades. This finding holds both in the cross section, i.e. funds that perform better on average incur lower average transaction costs, as well as in time series, i.e. funds that do better over the past two months incur lower transaction costs on subsequent transactions. The results are consistent with foreign exchange dealers bidding for information from successful traders. They are also consistent with foreign exchange dealers exploiting price inelastic demand for foreign currency trades, or funds acting as secondary liquidity providers in foreign exchange markets. The paper also investigates the role of fund size, transaction frequency and return volatility on transactions costs. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The paper examines the optimal behavior of a single dealer who is faced with a stochastic demand to trade (modeled by a continuous time Poisson jump process) and facing return risk on his stock and on the rest of his portfolio (modeled by diffusion processes). Using stochastic dynamic programming, we derive the optimal bid and ask prices that maximize the dealer's expected utility of terminal wealth as a function of the state in which he finds himself. The relationship of the bid and ask prices to inventory of the dealer, instantaneous variance of return, stochastic arrival of transactions and other variables is examined.
The study of household finance is challenging because household behavior is difficult to measure, and households face constraints not captured by textbook models. Evidence on participation, diversification, and mortgage refinancing suggests that many households invest effectively, but a minority make significant mistakes. This minority appears to be poorer and less well educated than the majority of more successful investors. There is some evidence that households understand their own limitations and avoid financial strategies for which they feel unqualified. Some financial products involve a cross-subsidy from naive to sophisticated households, and this can inhibit welfare-improving financial innovation. Copyright 2006 by The American Finance Association.
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