Do Canadian Broker-Dealers Act as Agents or Principals in Bond Trading?

Daniel Hyun, Jesse Johal and Corey Garriott

Staff Analytical Notes from Bank of Canada

Abstract: Technology, risk tolerance and regulation may influence dealers to reduce their trading as principals (using their own balance sheets for sales and purchases of securities) in favour of agency trading (matching client trades). A move toward agency trading would represent a change in the structure of Canadian bond markets and, in theory, could worsen some aspects of market liquidity. To assess the prevalence of agency trading in Canada, we use data from the Market Trade Reporting System to construct the first estimate of agency-based trading in Canadian bond markets. We find that agency trading is relatively uncommon across major segments of Canadian fixed-income market and that large bank broker-dealers are less likely than their smaller counterparts to trade as an agent.

Keywords: Financial Institutions; Financial markets; Financial system regulation and policies; Market structure and pricing; Recent economic and financial developments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G20 L1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7 pages
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/san2017-11.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bca:bocsan:17-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff Analytical Notes from Bank of Canada 234 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0G9, Canada. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().