Optimal Execution in Presence of Short-Term Trading

Starting from basic hypotheses on how footprints from hidden orders are interpreted by short-term traders, we derive a fair price model that predicts market impact for non-uniform participation rate schedules. We use this model to derive an optimal execution schedule for a risk-averse trader. The optimal schedule delays front-loading to avoid the information shock of an abrupt start. We also consider optimal strategies with respect to the Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP) benchmark. We show that the VWAP-optimized schedule for a large order is similar to the risk-averse one. In an example, we compute the cost of front-loading, and the additional cost of the information shock that results from an aggressive trade start