Chris Salmon, Executive Director, Markets, Bank of England, gave a speech “Financial Market Volatility and Liquidity – a cautionary note”. He suggests that financial market conditions have changed quite noticeably over the past year or so, with significantly higher volatility. For example, on 15 October and 15 January the immediate intra-day reaction to the news was unprecedented. The intra-day change in 10-year US bond yields was 37 bps, with most of this move happening within just an hour of the data release. The intraday range represented nearly eight standard deviations, exceeding the price moves that happened immediately following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. On 15 January, the Swiss franc appreciated by 14%. The intraday range was several times that number, and market participants continue to debate the highest traded value of the franc on the day.
Could such events could imply that a number of major asset markets may have become more sensitive to news, so that a given shock causes greater volatility? Is this the new normal?
If so, what is the root cause? We know the macroeconomic outlook has changed and perhaps become less certain. Central banks have reacted, and in some cases pushed the innovation envelope further. Unsurprisingly these developments have been associated with more volatile financial markets. Given that policy-makers have previously been concerned that persistently tranquil financial markets could encourage excessive risk-taking, this development is not necessarily an unwelcome development. But recent months have also seen a number of short episodes of sharply-higher volatility which coincided with periods of much impaired market liquidity. There are good reasons to believe that the severity of these events was accentuated by structural change in the markets. There must be a risk that future shocks could have more persistent and more widespread impacts across financial markets than has been the case in the recent past.
Whilst market intelligence suggests that uncertainty surrounding the global outlook has been one factor; itself in no small part a consequence of the unexpected rough halving in the price of oil since last summer. This uncertainty can be seen in the recent increase in the dispersion of economists’ forecasts for inflation in the US, UK and euro area during 2015. Central banks themselves have reacted to the changed global outlook and monetary policy makers have been active in recent months. Indeed, so far this year 24 central banks have cut their policy rates. Moreover, the decisions by the ECB and three other central banks since last summer to set negative policy rates have raised questions about where the lower bound for monetary policy exists.
But he suggests there are two other factors in play, which may indicate a more fundamental change, and lead to continuing higher volatility.
First, market makers have become more reluctant to commit capital to warehousing risk. Some have suggested that this reflects a combination of reduced risk tolerance since the financial crisis, and the impact of regulation designed to improve the resilience of the financial system. This reduction in market making capacity has been associated with increased concentration in many markets, as firms have been more discriminating about the markets which they make, or the clients they serve. And this trend has gone hand-in-hand with a growth in assets under management by the buy-side community. The combination has served to amplify the implications of reduced risk warehousing capacity of the intermediary sector relative to the provision of liquidity from market makers during times of market stress relative to the past.
The second is the evolution of the market micro-structure. Electronic platforms are now increasingly used across the various markets. In some cases regulation has been the cause but in others, such as foreign exchange markets, firms have over a number of years increasingly embraced electronic forms of trading. This includes using ‘request-for-quote’ platforms to automate processes previously carried out by phone. Electronic platforms are effective in pooling liquidity in ‘normal’ times but may have the potential, at least as currently calibrated and given today’s level of competition, to contribute to discontinuous pricing in periods of stress if circuit-breakers result in platforms shutting down. There has been much commentary about the temporary unavailability of a number of electronic trading platforms in the immediate aftermath of the removal of the Swiss franc peg.
