Titel:  Flash-krascher – ett allvarligt problem på Stockholmsbörsen? Författare:  Madelene Söderström & Sebastian Roth Handledare: Bo Sjö Ämne:  Nationalekonomi – Kandidatuppsats inom finans Syfte:  Syftet med arbetet är att fördjupa förståelsen kring flash-krascher och vilken påverkan dessa har på handeln av värdepapper som sker på Stockholmsbörsen. Vi hoppas också att studien ger en klarare bild av hur flash-krascher påverkar olika aktörer med koppling till aktiehandeln i Sverige. Metod:  Uppsatsen är baserad på en kvalitativ studie utförd med intervjurespondenter med varierande koppling till Stockholmsbörsen och den svenska finansmarknaden. Teori:  Uppsatsen utgår främst från tidigare forskning inom ämnet bestående av studier baserade på händelser och data från USA. Annan ekonomisk teori som presenteras i studien är adverse selection. Empiri:  Uppsatsen är bestående av sju semistrukturerade intervjuer med aktörer på finansmarknaden. Intervjuerna jämförs med tidigare inträffade händelser i USA för att diskutera möjliga slutsatser om flash-krascher på Stockholmsbörsen. Slutsats:  Studien kommer fram till att det är osannolikt att flash-krascher av den magnituden som inträffat i USA 6 maj 2010 inträffar på Stockholmsbörsen idag. Vidare så verkar flash-krascher inte ha särskilt stor påverkan på aktörer på Stockholmsbörsen, däremot kan det finnas en viss oros- och förtroendeproblematik kopplad till flash-krascher som bör tas på allvar. I studien av tidigare forskning finner vi intressanta teorier för hur flash-krascher kan förutses. Vi kan däremot inte dra några slutsatser kring dessa teorier kopplat till Stockholmsbörsen. / Title:  Flash crashes – a severe problem at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm? Authors:  Madelene Söderström & Sebastian Roth Advisor:  Bo Sjö Subject:  Bachelor thesis in finance Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to understand and critically examine the impact flash crashes might have on the market for securities at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Our goal is to provide a clearer view on how flash crashes affect the trade and the market participants. Method:  This thesis is a qualitative study based on interviews with respondents with different approach to both Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and the financial market in Sweden. Theory:  The thesis is based on earlier studies within the subject made from data and events from United States of America. Other economic theories that the thesis involve is adverse selection. Empirics:  The study is predicated around seven semi structured interviews with participants on the financial market in Sweden. The interviews are compared with the earlier events from USA to make for conclusions about flash crashes on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Conclusion:  We find that it is unlikely that a flash crash of the same magnitude as the May 6, 2010 flash crash will occur on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm exchange today. Furthermore, flash crashes appear to have little impact on the market participants at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, though there may be concerns about trust issues following flash crashes that should be considered. While studying some of the earlier research we find interesting theories about ways to predict flash crashes before they have occurred, we can’t make any conclusions about these theories connected to Nasdaq OMX Stockholm though.

The purpose of this thesis is: (i) to produce an in-depth data analysis and computer-based simulations of the market environment to investigate whether financial stability is affected by the presence of High-Frequency investors; (ii) to verify how High-Frequency Trading and financial stability interact with each other under non-linear conditions; (iii) whether non-illicit behaviours can still lead to potentially destabilising effects; (iv) to provide quantitative support to the theses, either from the audit trail data or resulting from simulations. Simulations are provided to test whether High-Frequency Trading: (a) has an impact on market volatility, (b) leads to market splitting into two tiers; (c) takes the lion's share of arbitrage opportunities. Audit trail data is analysed to verify some hypotheses on the dynamics of the Flash Crash. The simulation on the impact of High-Frequency Trading on market volatility confirms that when markets are under stress, High-Frequency Trading may cause volatility to significantly increase. However, as the number of ultra-fast participants increases, this phenomenon tends to disappear and volatility realigns to its standard values. The market tiering simulation suggests that High-Frequency traders have some tendency to deal with each other, and that causes Low-Frequency traders also to deal with other slow traders, albeit at a lesser extent. This is also a kind of market instability. High-Frequency Trading potentially allows a few fast traders to grab all the arbitrage-led profits, so falsifying the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This phenomenon may disappear as more High-Frequency traders enter the competition, leading to declining profits. Yet, the whole matter seems a dispute for abnormal gains only between few sub-second traders. All simulations have been carefully designed to provide robust results: the behaviours simulated have been drawn from existing literature and the simplifying assumptions have been kept to a minimum. This maximises the reliability of the results and minimizes the potential of bias. Finally, from the data analysis, the impact of High-Frequency Trading on the Flash Crash seems significant; other sudden crashes occurred since, and more can be expected over the next future. Overall, it can be concluded that High-Frequency Trading shows some controversial aspects impacting on financial stability. The results are at a certain extent confirmed by the audit trail data analysis, although only indirectly, since the details allowing the match between High-Frequency traders and their behaviour are confidential and not publicly available Nevertheless, the findings about HFT-induced volatility, market segmentation and sub-optimal market efficiency, albeit not definitive, suggest that careful monitoring by regulators and policy-makers might be required.

Cette thèse est composée de trois chapitres distincts.Dans le premier chapitre, je montre que les mesures de liquidités traditionnelles, telles que la profondeur du marché, ne sont pas toujours pertinentes pour mesurer le bien-être des investisseurs. Je construis un modèle de marché conduit par les ordres et montre qu'une offre de liquidité élevée peut correspondre à de mauvaises conditions d'éxécution pour les fournisseurs de liquidité et à un bien-être relativement faible.Dans le deuxième chapitre, je modélise la vitesse des ajustements de prix à l'arrivée de nouvelles dans les marchés conduits pas les ordres, lorsque les investisseurs ont une capacité d'attention limitée.En raison de leur attention limitée, les investisseurs suivent imparfaitement l'arrivée de nouvelles. Ainsi, les prix s'ajustent aux nouvelles après un certain délai. Ce délai diminue lorsque le niveau d'attention des investisseurs augmente.Le délai d'ajustement des prix diminue également lorsque la fréquence à laquelle les nouvelles arrivent, augmente. Le troisième chapitre présente un travail écrit en collaboration avec Thierry Foucault. Nous construisons un modèle pour expliquer en quoi le trading à haute fréquence peut générer des "mini flash crashes" (un brusque changement de prix suivi d'un retour très rapide au niveau antérieur). Notre théorie est basée sur l'idée qu'il existe une tension entre la vitesse à laquelle l'information peut être acquise et la précision de cette information. Lorsque les traders à haute fréquence mettent en oeuvre des stratégies impliquant des réactions rapides à des événements de marché, ils augmentent leur risque à réagir à du bruit et génèrent ainsi des "mini flash crashes". Néanmoins, ils augmentent l'efficience informationnelle du marché. / This dissertation is made of three distinct chapters. In the first chapter, I show that traditional liquidity measures, such as market depth, are not always relevant to measure investors' welfare. I build a limit order market model and show that a high level of liquidity supply can correspond to poor execution conditions for liquidity providers and to a relatively low welfare.In the second chapter, I model the speed of price adjustments to news arrival in limit order markets when investors have limited attention.Because of limited attention, investors imperfectly monitor news arrival. Consequently prices reflect news with delay. This delay shrinks when investors' attention capacity increases. The price adjustment delay also decreases when the frequency of new arrival increases. The third chapter presents a joint work with Thierry Foucault. We build a model to explain why high frequency trading can generate mini-flash crashes (a sudden sharp change in the price of a stock followed by a very quick rversal). Our theory is based on the idea that there is a trade-off between speed and precision in the acquisition of information. When high frequency traders implement strategies involving fast reaction to market events, they increase their risk to trade on noise and thus generate mini flash crashes. Nonetheless they increase market efficiency.