This doctoral thesis focuses on two topics on trading in financial markets: competition between stock exchanges and optimal trading strategies. Chapter one analyzes the effect on the liquidity of a stock when it is traded on multiple trading venues, and distinguishes between competition from...

We examine price discovery and liquidity provision in the secondary market for bitcoin-an asset with a high level of speculative trading. Based on BTC-e's full limit order book over the 2013-2014 period, we find that order informativeness increases with order aggressiveness within the first 10...

Do competition and incentives offered to designated market makers (DMMs) improve market liquidity? Using data from NYSE Euronext Paris, we show that an exogenous increase in competition among DMMs leads to a significant decrease in quoted and effective spreads, mainly through a reduction in...

The complex pattern of the dependence that exists between liquidity, durations and spread in a limit order market is examined. These relationships evolve during the trading day and can change on an hourly basis. Using intraday data for a NASDAQ 100 stock we confirm that limit orders, placed in...