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Journal of Finance Vol. 70 No. 1 2015

Click or Call? Auction versus Search in the Over‐the‐Counter Market

Terrence Hendershott; Ananth Madhavan1

1 Conference Board

Abstract

Over‐the‐counter (OTC) markets dominate trading in many asset classes. Will electronic trading displace traditional OTC “voice” trading? Can electronic and voice systems coexist? What types of securities and trades are best suited for electronic trading? We study these questions by focusing on an innovation in electronic trading technology that enables investors to simultaneously search many bond dealers. We show that periodic one‐sided electronic auctions are a viable and important source of liquidity even in inactively traded instruments. These mechanisms are a natural compromise between bilateral search in OTC markets and continuous double auctions in electronic limit order books.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.12164
Volume
70
Issue
1
Pages
419-447
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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