This study investigates the relationship between Central Bank interventions and technical trading rule profitability in the spot foreign exchange market. Because interventions are not necessarily exogenous events, we analyze the relationships between interventions by the G-3 Central Banks, financial market conditions, changes in monetary policy and technical trading profitability. By considering announced, unannounced, unilateral and coordinated interventions separately, we provide more insight into the interrelationships between these factors than previous studies. We find that the level of technical trading profits and market uncertainty increase preceding and remain high during interventions, especially announced and coordinated, but decrease afterward. A preliminary investigation of the possible role of a time-varying risk premium around interventions cannot be rejected.

This study empirically investigates how new information is incorporated into intra-daily DM-$US quotes, and finds evidence that certain dealers consistently incorporate new information into their quotes before others and that their behavior is influenced by market conditions. In general, Chemical Bank's quotes are the first to contain new information. However, in the periods of uncertainty around central bank interventions, evidence suggests Deutsche Bank is the price leader and its quotes are influenced by information and inventory considerations.

We study the relation between foreign exchange market quality and both trading activity and dealer concentration by considering two currency pairs with significant differences along both dimensions – the Euro–US dollar and Canadian dollar–US dollar. A variance ratio test reveals over-reaction in currency prices, but that this is smallest when trading activity is high and dealer concentration at its peak. A GARCH model shows that over-reaction declines as trading activity and dealer concentration increase, with the results being stronger for the Euro. Our results confirm that trading activity is an important determinant of market quality, but also point to a significant role for dealer concentration.