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The Review of Asset Pricing Studies Vol. 11 No. 4 2021

Strategic Trading When Central Bank Intervention Is Predictable

Liyan Yang1; Haoxiang Zhu2

1 Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto · 2 MIT Sloan School of Management and NBER

open access

Abstract

Market prices are noisy signals of economic fundamentals. In a two-period model, we show that if the central bank uses market prices as guidance for intervention, large strategic investors who benefit from high prices would depress market prices to induce a market-supportive intervention. Stronger anticipated interventions lead to deeper price depressions preintervention and sharper price reversals post-intervention. The central bank intervention harms strategic investors even though it is the investors who tried to mislead the central bank. The model predicts a V-shaped price pattern around central bank interventions, consistent with recent evidence.

DOI
10.1093/rapstu/raab011
Volume
11
Issue
4
Pages
735-761
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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