Sharks in the dark: Quantifying HFT dark pool latency arbitrage
利用监管级数据,研究了暗池中因参考价格过时而发生的延迟套利,发现高频交易者几乎不提供流动性而是频繁利用过时价格获利,并证明随机化执行时间能有效保护被动流动性提供者。
We investigate stale reference pricing and liquidity provision in dark pools using proprietary, participant-level regulatory data. We show a substantial amount of stale trading occurs, imposing large costs on passive dark pool participants. Consistent with these costs, HFTs almost never provide liquidity in the dark, instead frequently consuming liquidity, in particular in order to take advantage of stale reference prices. Finally, we show that market design interventions randomizing dark execution times are successful at countering dark pool latency arbitrage, protecting passive providers of dark liquidity. Our results have substantial implications for practitioners and policymakers aiming to improve liquidity provision in dark pools.