Trades, Quotes and Prices: Financial Markets Under the Microscope

Description

The widespread availability of high-quality, high-frequency data has revolutionised the study of financial markets. By describing not only asset prices, but also market participants' actions and interactions, this wealth of information offers a new window into the inner workings of the financial ecosystem. In this original text, the authors discuss empirical facts of financial markets and introduce a wide range of models, from the micro-scale mechanics of individual order arrivals to the emergent, macro-scale issues of market stability. Throughout this journey, data is king. All discussions are firmly rooted in the empirical behaviour of real stocks, and all models are calibrated and evaluated using recent data from Nasdaq. By confronting theory with empirical facts, this book for practitioners, researchers and advanced students provides a fresh, new, and often surprising perspective on topics as diverse as optimal trading, price impact, the fragile nature of liquidity, and even the reasons why people trade at all.

Jean-Philippe Bouchaud is a pioneer in Econophysics. He co-founded the company Science and Finance in 1994, which later merged with Capital Fund Management (CFM) in 2000. In 2007 he was appointed as an adjunct Professor at Ecole Polytechnique, where he teaches a course on complex systems. His work focuses on the physics of disordered and glassy systems, granular materials, the statistics of price formation, stock market fluctuations and the modelling of financial risks. He was awarded the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) Silver Medal in 1995, the Risk Quant of the Year Award in 2017 and is the co-author along with Marc Potters of Theory of Financial Risk and Derivative Pricing (Cambridge,2009). Julius Bonart is a lecturer at University College London where his research focuses on market microstructure and market design. Before, he was a research fellow at CFM and Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London where he investigated price impact, high-frequency dynamics, and the market microstructure in electronic financial markets. Julius Bonart obtained his Ph.D. in Statistical Physics from Pierre-et-Marie Curie University (Paris). Jonathan Donier completed a Ph.D. at University Paris 6 with the support of the Capital Fund Management Research Foundation. He studied price formation in financial markets using tools from physics, economics and financial mathematics. After his Ph.D., he carried on his research in a music industry start-up that joined Spotify in 2017, where he now serves as a Senior Research Scientist. Martin Gould currently works in the technology sector and was previously a James S. McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow in the CFM-Imperial Institute of Quantitative Finance, which is part of the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Londo. Martin holds a D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in mathematics from the University of Oxford, Part III of the Mathematical Tripos from the University of Cambridge, and a B.Sc. (Hons) in mathematics from the University of Warwick.

'Leading physicist and hedge fund manager Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and his co-authors have written an impressive book that no serious student of market microstructure can afford to be without. Simultaneously quantitative and highly readable, Trades, Quotes and Prices presents a complete picture of the topic, from classical microstructure models to the latest research, informed by years of practical trading experience.' Jim Gatheral, Baruch College, City University of New York 'This book describes the dynamics of supply and demand in modern financial markets. It is a beautiful story, full of striking empirical regularities and elegant mathematics, illustrating how the tools of statistical physics can be used to explain financial exchange. This is a tour de force with the square root law of market impact as its climax. It shows how institutions shape human behaviour, leading to a universal law for the relationship between fluctuations in supply and demand and their impact on prices. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to see how physics has benefited economics, or for that matter, to anyone who wants to see a stellar example of a theory grounded in data.' Doyne Farmer, University of Oxford 'This is a masterful overview of the modern and rapidly developing field of market microstructure, from several of its creators. The emphasis is on simple models to explain real and important features of markets, rather than on sophisticated mathematics for its own sake. The style is narrative and illustrative, with extensive references to more detailed work. A unique feature of the book is its focus on high-frequency data to support the models presented. This book will be an essential resource for practitioners, academics, and regulators alike.' Robert Almgren, New York University and Quantitative Brokers