- Nitin Joshi
Studying various liquidity measures, the authors propose a new measure that allows the user to estimate the liquidity of different instruments, regardless of exchange or the currency in which they are traded.
What’s Inside?
The authors show that their new liquidity measure allows for instantaneous calculation ofthe liquidity of an instrument or a historical measurement over the day. The new measurecalculates the intraday value of liquidity through a time-scaling approach.
How Did the Authors Conduct This Research?
To define liquidity, the authors answer the question, What amount of money is needed tocreate a daily single unit price fluctuation of the stock? They estimate the liquiditymeasure as the ratio of volume traded multiplied by the closing price divided by the pricerange from high to low, for the whole trading day, on a logarithmic scale.
The authors use the price at the end of the trading period because it is the most accuratevaluation of the stock at the time. They use the traded volume for the day, assuming volumetraded is a linear function of time. Price range is for the whole trading session. Theauthors also calculate instantaneous liquidity using order book data and average dailyvolume. The formulas thus derived can be used in the calculation of liquidity for portfoliosof both stock instruments and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The new liquidity measure eliminates the currency value from calculations. It is possibleto compare instruments on different international markets directly using the new liquiditymeasure. It is extremely easy to calculate because all of the information required can beobtained from a newspaper or a free website.
How Is This Research Useful to Practitioners?
A financial instrument’s liquidity is fundamental to many financial applications.Knowledge about an instrument’s liquidity is useful for processes from portfolioconstruction to market abuse detection systems. So, the liquidity measure of a financialinstrument is of enormous interest to portfolio managers and regulators alike.
The authors define liquidity as the ratio of the product of yesterday’s volume andclosing price to the high-to-low price range on a logarithmic scale. The liquidity measureis estimated by its instantaneous equivalent, which is calculated using the order book dataand average daily volume. It is calculated for the whole trading session. The authors showthat the instantaneous liquidity measure has components related to market breadth, marketdepth, market resilience, and immediacy. They calculate the liquidity of an ETF on alogarithmic scale using the liquidity of the basket of underlying instruments and theliquidity of the ETF as an instrument.
This liquidity measure allows the user to measure the liquidity of different instrumentswithout regard for the currency or exchange.
Abstractor’s Viewpoint
The authors propose a practical way of measuring liquidity, which can be used to calculatean instantaneous value of liquidity as well as its historical measurement. Because afinancial instrument’s liquidity is fundamental to trading strategies, portfolioconstruction, and fraud detection, further research would yield some interesting insights onthe liquidity measure.
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CFA Institutedoi.org/10.2469/dig.v45.n2.12ISSN/ISBN: 0046-9777