In June 1997, the Nasdaq stock market and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) each lowered its minimum price increment on most stocks from eighths to sixteenths. Like other researchers investigating similar events, we find that quoted spreads and effective spreads decline on both markets with the...

This paper examines the performance of managed commodity funds during the period 1982 through 1996. By year-end 1996 almost $30 billion of speculative capital was invested in these funds, a nearly 60-fold increase since 1980. Three types of managed commodity funds are available. First, investors...