Triangular Arbitrage - Profitability

Profitability

Mere existence of triangular arbitrage opportunities does not necessarily imply that a trading strategy seeking to exploit currency mispricings is consistently profitable. Electronic trading systems allow the three constituent trades in a triangular arbitrage transaction to be submitted very rapidly. However, there exists a delay between the identification of such an opportunity, the initiation of trades, and the arrival of trades to the party quoting the mispricing. Even though such delays are only milliseconds in duration, they are deemed significant. For example, if a trader places each trade as a limit order to be filled only at the arbitrage price and a price moves due to market activity or new price is quoted by the third party, then the triangular transaction will not be completed. In such a case, the arbitrageur will face a cost to close out the position that is equal to the change in price that eliminated the arbitrage condition.

In the foreign exchange market there are many market participants competing for each arbitrage opportunity; for arbitrage to be profitable a trader would need to identify and execute each arbitrage opportunity faster than competitors. Competing arbitrageurs are expected to persist in striving to increase their execution speed of trades by engaging in what some researchers describe as an "electronic trading 'arms race'." The costs involved in keeping ahead in such a competition present difficulty in consistently beating other arbitrageurs over the long term. Other factors such as transaction costs, brokerage fees, network access fees, and sophisticated electronic trading platforms further challenge the feasibility of significant arbitrage profits over prolonged periods.