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Exchange Market
(Part I)
1
Overview of the Lecture
3. Currency arbitrage
Major markets
• United Kingdom, United States, Japan,
Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Honk
Kong, France...
• Compare:
– NYSE - $30,000,000,000
– NASDAQ - $23,000,000,000
– TSE - $1,400,000,000
– Canada’s GDP - $605,000,000,000
Major participants
• Large commercial banks
– continuously making the market,
– receive compensation by making the “bid-
ask” spread.
Other participants
• Central banks
– conduct intervention.
• Commercial entities
– regular but not continuous participants of the
market.
Interbank market
• A highly liquid interbank market is formed
by an informal arrangement of large
commercial banks and foreign exchange
brokers.
Efficiency
Price quotes
• The prices are quoted in pairs:
– Bid - price at which the bank buys the currency
– Ask - price at which the bank sells the currency
– The spread, i.e. | bid – ask |, is the profit of the bank
(dealer)
Example
• The pound sterling is quoted at $1.6618-35.
• (This notation is a shorthand for 1.6618-1.6635
USD/GBP)
1.6635 - 1.6618
100% 0.01%
1.6635
© 2002 by Stefano Mazzotta
14
Example
• The pound sterling is quoted in New York at
$1.6618-35. This is a direct quote.
• What is the indirect quote?
1/1.6635 0.6011
1/1.6618 0.6018
• Therefore, the indirect quote is: 0.6011-18.
• Then: 1
e(A/B) ASK
e(B/A) BID
• And: 1
e(A/B) BID
e(B/A) ASK
Example
• The bank quote for is 1.6050-72 SF/$
• What is the SF/$ exchange rate for a customer
who wants to exchange $ for SF?
e(SF/$) BID 1.6050
Example
EXCHANGE RATES
Tuesday, February 6, 1990
The New York foreign exchange selling rates below apply to
trading among banks in amounts of $1 million and more, as quoted
at 3 p.m. Eastern time by Bankers Trust Co. Retail transactions
provide fewer units of foreign currency per dollar.
Currency
U.S. $ equiv. per U.S. $
Country Tues. Mon. Tues. Mon.
Britain (Pound) ...... 1.7015 1.7000 .5877 .5882
Canada (Dollar) ..... .8405 .8421 1.1897 1.1875
France (Franc) ...... .17709 .17718 5.6470 5.6440
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Cross rates
• Definition:
– Exchange rate between two foreign
currencies.
• Reason:
– Most currencies are quoted against the U.S. $
and not against each other.
• Result:
– The U.S. $ rate can be used to compute a
cross rate.
• See http://money.cnn/markets/currencies
USD GBP
2002
CHF JPY CAD AUD EUR NZD DKK SEK
SEK 8.8943 14.18 6.2715 7.3879 5.7331 4.9990 9.1318 4.5917 1.2295
DKK 7.2342 11.53 5.1010 6.0090 4.6630 4.0660 7.4274 3.7347 0.8134
NZD 1.9371 3.0879 1.3659 1.6090 1.2486 1.0887 1.9888 0.2678 0.2178
EUR 0.9740 1.5526 0.6868 0.8090 0.6278 0.5474 0.5028 0.1346 0.1095
AUD 1.7792 2.8362 1.2546 1.4779 1.1468 1.8267 0.9185 0.2459 0.2000
CAD 1.5514 2.4731 1.0939 1.2887 0.8720 1.5928 0.8009 0.2145 0.1744
JPY 120.39 191.91 84.89 77.60 67.67 123.60 62.15 16.64 13.54
CHF 1.4182 2.2608 1.1780 0.9141 0.7971 1.4561 0.7322 0.1960 0.1595
GBP 0.6273 0.4423 0.5211 0.4044 0.3526 0.6441 0.3239 0.0867 0.0705
USD 1.5941 0.7051 0.8306 0.6446 0.5621 1.0267 0.5163 0.1382 0.1124
Example
• Let e(USD/EUR) = 0.97
• Let e(USD/CAD) = 0.63
• What is the EUR/CAD cross-rate?
1
e(EUR/CAD) e(USD/CAD)
e(USD/EUR)
e(EUR/USD) e(USD/CAD)
0.65
Example: Question
• The spot quote for CHF/USD is 1.5150-72
• The spot quote for CAD/USD is 1.5810-56
Currency arbitrage
• Definition:
– Realization of a riskless profit by
simultaneous buying a currency in one
market and selling it in another market.
• Cause:
– Exchange rate quote inconsistencies
across different money centers.
Example
• Bank of America’s quote of $1C is $0.7056-
76.
• Royal Bank’s quote of $1C is $0.7038-52.
• How to make easy money?
Bid2 Ask2
Triangular arbitrage
• The essence:
– 1 unit of currency A buys currency B
– Currency B buys currency C
– Currency C buys more than 1 unit of currency A
AA
B C
• Or, equivalently:
1
e(C/B) BID
e(B/A) BID e(A/C) BID
Exercise
• To familiarize yourself with the currency spot
market sign up to:
– http://fxgame.oanda.com/
– Take a position of your choice in ONE currency.
Individually.
– Take note of anything that you find interesting,
related or unrelated to what we discussed
– In one week we will have a class discussion of
your findings