Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Authors
Paul Besson
Head of Quantitative Research
pbesson@keplercheuvreux.com
+33 1 70 81 57 34
Stphane Galzin
Quant Research Analyst
sgalzin@keplercheuvreux.com
+33 1 70 81 57 33
Stphanie Pelin
Quant Research Analyst
spelin@keplercheuvreux.com
+33 1 70 81 57 32
Matthieu Lasnier
Quant Research Analyst
mlasnier@keplercheuvreux.com
+33 1 70 81 57 31
keplercheuvreux.com
Quant Research
Contents
Introduction
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12
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Introduction
Before 2008, liquidity issues were often considered to be secondary in asset management.
Since then, liquidity risk has become a key element for risk managers. Today new standards
are emerging and regulators are specifying new obligations.
Liquidity risk has always been a key question for execution and market microstructure
academics. Liquidity risk measures are rooted in market impact models that estimate the
cost of liquidity. These models are extensively used for optimal execution and trading
algorithms.
In this note we show how key quantitative tools, initially developed for execution, can be
applied to liquidity risk analysis for portfolio managers. We first present the main
characteristics of liquidity: volumes and bid-ask spreads. We highlight the general
properties of market impact models. We then present three key measures of liquidity risk.
We conclude by discussing ESMAs new regulatory requirements.
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125
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101
100
96
91
74
73
59
60
40
80
79
80
2007*
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013*
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from mid-2007* to August 2013* on Stoxx 600 Europe constituents, equal l weighted measure
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Turnover is greatly
influenced by price.
For this reason volume
is used to measure
trading activity
independently of price
effects
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Volume dynamics across large, mid and small caps vary accordingly
From 2007 to 2013, the components of the Stoxx Small Cap Index have had a daily median
turnover of EUR5m, compared with EUR16m and EUR78m for mid and large caps, as
shown in Chart 2. Volumes evolve in similar ways across market capitalisations, as we can
see below. We note large traded volumes on large caps in 2009 (orange line) and strong
traded volumes on small caps since 2012 (dark blue line).
240
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220
70
200
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50
40
30
16
20
10
0
78
Small
Mid
Large
180
160
140
120
100
80
60 Ja Ju D Ju D
n -2 n- 2 ec- n- 2 ec- Jun- 2Dec- Jun- 2Dec- Jun- 2Dec- Jun- 2Dec- Jun- 2Dec00 00 200 00 200 00 200 01 201 01 201 01 201 01 201
7
7
7 8
8 9
9 0
0 1
1 2
2 3
3
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from mid-2007 to August 2013* on Stoxx 600 Europe constituents
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Despite predictable
seasonality, volumes
remain highly volatile
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To reflect this
volatility, it is essential
to take confidence
intervals into account
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140
120
100
80
60
40
20
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug Sep
Oct
Nov Dec
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from mid-2007 to August 2013 on Stoxx 600 Europe constituents.
In addition to median patterns, the light blue lines in Chart 3 above show the 10% and 90%
percentiles of weekly volumes. We can clearly see the large variations that occur for a
given week across different years. This shows that the variations in volumes are only partly
explained by yearly seasonality.
Number of observations
150
100
50
100
150
200
Volume / yearly volume (%)
250
300
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from mid-2007 to August 2013 on Stoxx 600 Europe constituents
Another way to measure the variability of volumes is to observe the past volume
distribution. We can see in the histogram (Chart 4 above) that in the 10% worst cases, daily
volumes were 24% below their yearly median.
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The high variability of volumes should be taken into account in order to compute liquidity
risk measures. Long-term average volumes give only a snapshot of market reality. We
recommend considering the 10% lowest volume situations that can be experienced in
practice to account for adverse liquidity situations. That is why we promote the use of VaR
estimates for liquidity risk measures.
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Mid
30
Large
25
20
15
10
5
0
y = 0,014x + 4,4
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10
8
6
4
2
Jan
O
Ju
A
Ja
A
M
D
N
F
-2 0 ct- 20 l- 20 pr- 20 n -2 0 ov-2 ug-2 ay- 2 eb- 2 ec-2
01
01
01
01
07
10
01
09
07 08
1
3
2
3
0
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux monthly data from mid-2007 to August 2013 on Stoxx 600
Europe constituents
Small
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0
0
200
400
600
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30
25
20
15
10
5
0
10
20
30
40
Average intraday volatility (%)
50
60
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux monthly data from mid-2007 to August 2013 on Stoxx 600 Europe index
To examine this issue further, see the article from Chordia, Sarkar, and Subrahmanyam The
joint dynamics of liquidity, returns, and volatility across small and large firms, Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, Staff Report, 2005.
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the participation rate (transaction size in shares / total number of traded shares
during the same period;
the bid-ask spread (stocks average bid-ask spread applicable during the
transaction, expressed in bps);
the volatility (some models use volatility although it is possible to work with bidask spreads only, since these two variables are highly correlated, as we saw
earlier).
)
)
Its parameters are estimated on our internal historical executed orders database from
2010.
Main properties
As expected, the estimated market impact increases with the trading duration, the
participation rate and the bid-ask spread. One interesting property of this model is that
trading two different stocks with the same duration and participation rate should lead to
the same market impact expressed in units of bid-ask spreads, as we will see in the
following example.
To get a good overview of the large academic research on this topic, we recommend
Almgren et al., Equity market impact, Risk Magazine, July 2005.
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)= 4.3 bps
)= 10.0 bps
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Trading duration
measures, based on
real historical volumes
distributions, provide
robust estimates
To take into account the varying volume contexts that can be encountered, it is useful to
represent not only the average duration curves, but also curves that correspond to adverse
liquidity contexts. For this reason, we used shades of blue to show confidence intervals
around the median trading duration curve in Charts 9 and 10 below.
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps Europe index constituents
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Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps Europe index constituents
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The curve on the left enables a risk manager to assess the liquidity risk of a portfolio. If we
zoom into the curve, as shown in Chart 10 on the right, we can see that, for example, 90% of
the portfolio would take on average 0.6 days of trading to be liquidated. However, in
adverse situations it might take up to 0.8 days (with a 90% confidence interval
corresponding to the lower part of the shaded blue).
Market impact
measures are
estimated with a VaR
approach to account
for different liquidity
contexts
liquidity conditions. This explains why, given the same portfolio, the market impact analysis
may lead to very different results in different contexts. To get a fair estimate of the adverse
liquidity situations one may face, we plotted the histogram of liquidation costs. We can see
in Chart 11 below the historical liquidation costs of a small cap portfolio during the past
two years, with a 20% participation rate. In Chart 12, the corresponding distribution is
plotted with a VaR (10%).
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps Europe index constituents
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps Europe index constituents
When portfolios are not liquid enough for market impact models to be relevant, eg because
trading durations are too large, then the theoretical results of the expected market impact
should be treated with caution. In such cases, considering the liquidation market risk is a
helpful alternative as it reflects more accurately the risk incurred by the portfolio while it is
being liquidated.
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The longer the trading duration, the higher the market risk.
The more volatile the market, the higher the market risk, since price variations are
stronger.
To compute precisely the liquidation market risk, one has to estimate each portfolio
components trading duration as well as its volatility, and then to compute the result for the
portfolio as a whole.
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps index constituents
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small
Caps index constituents
The results are displayed in Charts 13 and 14. The left side displays the historical
liquidation market risk estimation. The right side shows the histogram of its historical
distribution. As earlier, the VaR (10%) is represented by a vertical line delimiting the righthand side of the distribution tail in Chart 14, the corresponding level is plotted with a
horizontal line in Chart 13. This shows that in 10% of cases, liquidation market risk was
above 1.73%.
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Chart 15: Liquidation trading duration of Stoxx small caps according to AUM
Source: Kepler Cheuvreux data from September 2011 to August 2013 on Stoxx Small Caps index constituents
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Practical recommendations
First, liquidity analysis should be conducted using a VaR approach to take into account the
variety of liquidity situations faced in reality. Only such an approach can give a fair idea of
what would happen in adverse situations. VaR computations are widespread for market
risk analysis; they should be equally popular for liquidity risk analysis. Therefore we
recommend the use of a liquidation market impact VaR, as well as a liquidation trading
duration VaR.
Second, in order to put in place the future reporting obligations issued by the ESMA for
alternative funds, we propose rigorous liquidity measures: trading duration, market impact,
and market risk that can help risk managers build the new reports required by future
regulations.
We would be delighted to explain our approach to clients who want us to help them
monitor and estimate their liquidity risk based on our execution experience.
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Notes
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