"Intra-day Seasonality in Activities of the Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence from the Electronic Broking System"

This paper examines intra-day patterns of the exchange rate behavior, using the "firm" bid-ask quotes and transactions of USD-JPY (Alec: The EBS notations define the base currency as the first currency in the name of the currency pair. Note that trading in EBS is done in millions of the base currency) and Euro-USD pairs recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange markets. The U-shape of intra-day activities is confirmed for Tokyo and London participants, but not for New York participants. Activities (deals and price changes) do not increase toward the end of business hours in the New York market, even on Fridays (ahead of weekend hours of non-trading). It is generally observed a negative correlation between the number of deals and the width of bid-ask spread during business hours, but in the first business minutes of Tokyo, bid-ask spread and activities have high correlation. It is also found that the concentration of transaction during overlapping business hours between Tokyo and London markets (London and New York markets) may arise from heterogeneous expectations among participants from different regions, that is waking up of participants of the next region in time line of the day.

High Frequency Contagion of Currency Crises in Asia

Using daily data during the period of Asian Currency Crises, this paper examines high-frequency contagion effects among Asian six countries. By identifying the origin' (of exchange rate depreciation, or decline in stock prices) and the affected' (currencies, or stock prices) in spillover relationship, Indonesia and Korea are found to be the two main origin countries, affecting exchange rates and stock prices of other countries. Evidence of high-frequency crisis spillover from Thailand to other countries was weak at best. A positive relationship between trade link indices and the contagion coefficients is found, implying that the bilateral trade linkage is an important factor for currency market participants to expect which currency should be affected within days of an original a shock in the exchange rate of a particular country.

Price Impacts of Deals and Predictability of the Exchange Rate Movements

This paper examines the price impact and the predictability of the exchange rate movement using the transaction data recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange market. The number of actual deals at the ask (or bid side) for a specified time interval may be regarded as "order flows" to buy (or sell) in Richard Lyons' work. First, the contemporaneous impact of order flows on the quote and deal prices are analyzed. Second, the price predictability is examined. Our forecasting equations of the exchange rate for the next X minutes (X=1, 5, 15, 30) show that coefficients are significantly different from zero in both 5-min and 1-min forecast horizons, but the significance disappears in the 30-minute interval. The t-statistics become larger as the prediction window becomes shorter. Price impacts of deals at one side of the market are significant but short-lived. Market participants, if they can observe and analyze all the transactions information in real time, may be able to extract information to predict the price movements in the following next few minutes.

Intra-day Seasonality in Activities of the Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence from the Electronic Broking System (Subsequently published in "Journal of the Japanese and International Economies", Volume 20, Issue 4, December 2006, pp. 637-664. )

This paper examines intra-day patterns of the exchange rate behavior, using the "firm" bid-ask quotes and transactions of USD-JPY (Alec: The EBS notations define the base currency as the first currency in the name of the currency pair. Note that trading in EBS is done in millions of the base currency) and Euro-USD pairs recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange markets. The U-shape of intra-day activities is confirmed for Tokyo and London participants, but not for New York participants. Activities (deals and price changes) do not increase toward the end of business hours in the New York market, even on Fridays (ahead of weekend hours of non-trading). It is generally observed a negative correlation between the number of deals and the width of bid-ask spread during business hours, but in the first business minutes of Tokyo, bid-ask spread and activities have high correlation. It is also found that the concentration of transaction during overlapping business hours between Tokyo and London markets (London and New York markets) may arise from heterogeneous expectations among participants from different regions, that is waking up of participants of the next region in time line of the day.

Intra-Day Seasonality in Activities of the Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence From the Electronic Broking System

This paper examines intra-day patterns of the exchange rate behavior, using the %u201Cfirm%u201D bid-ask quotes and transactions of USD-JPY and Euro-USD recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange markets. The U-shape of intra-day activities (deals and price changes) and return volatility is confirmed for Tokyo and London participants, but not for New York participants. Activities and volatility do not increase toward the end of business hours in the New York market, even on Fridays (ahead of weekend hours of non-trading). It is found that there exists a high positive correlation between volatility and activities and a negative correlation between volatility and the bid-ask spread. A negative correlation is observed between the number of deals and the width of bid-ask spread during business hours.

International Reserves and the Global Financial Crisis

This study examines whether pre-crisis international reserve accumulations, as well as exchange rate and reserve policy decisions made during the global financial crisis, can help to explain cross-country differences in post-crisis economic performance. Our approach focuses not only on the total stock of official reserves held by countries, but also on the decisions by governments to purchase or sell reserve assets during the crisis period. We introduce new data made available through the IMF Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Reserve Template, which allow us to distinguish interest income and valuation changes in the stock of official reserves from the actively managed component of reserves. We use this novel data to gauge how (and whether) reserve accumulation policies influenced the economic and financial performance of countries during and after the global crisis. Our findings support the view that higher reserve accumulations prior to the crisis are associated with higher post-crisis GDP growth.

Trimacrocyclic arylamine and its polycationic states.

Includes Supplementary Information.A novel trimacrocyclic arylamine was found to be accessible to the different spin-states by consecutive electrochemical or chemical oxidation

Enzymatically modified isoquercitrin supplementation intensifies plantaris muscle fiber hypertrophy in functionally overloaded mice

BackgroundEnzymatically modified isoquercitrin (EMIQ) is produced from rutin using enzymatic hydrolysis followed by treatment with glycosyltransferase in the presence of dextrin to add glucose residues. EMIQ is absorbed in the same way as quercetin, a powerful antioxidant reported to prevent disused muscle atrophy by targeting mitochondria and to have ergogenic effects. The present study investigated the effect of EMIQ on skeletal muscle hypertrophy induced by functional overload.MethodsIn Study 1, 6-week-old ICR male mice were divided into 4 groups: sham-operated control, sham-operated EMIQ, overload-operated control, and overload-operated EMIQ groups. In Study 2, mice were divided into 3 groups: overload-operated whey control, overload-operated whey/EMIQ (low dose), and overload-operated whey/EMIQ (high dose) groups. The functional overload of the plantaris muscle was induced by ablation of the synergist (gastrocnemius and soleus) muscles. EMIQ and whey protein were administered with food. Three weeks after the operation, the cross-sectional area and minimal fiber diameter of the plantaris muscle fibers were measured.ResultsIn Study 1, functional overload increased the cross-sectional area and minimal fiber diameter of the plantaris muscle. EMIQ supplementation significantly increased the cross-sectional area and minimal fiber diameter of the plantaris muscle in both the sham-operated and overload-operated groups. In Study 2, EMIQ supplementation combined with whey protein administration significantly increased the cross-sectional area and minimal fiber diameter of the plantaris muscle.ConclusionEMIQ, even when administered as an addition to whey protein supplementation, significantly intensified the fiber hypertrophy of the plantaris muscle in functionally overloaded mice. EMIQ supplementation also induced fiber hypertrophy of the plantaris in sham-operated mice