This study considers the relationship between trading volumes, transactions costs, and the profitability of momentum strategies using data from the UK. We demonstrate that round-trip transactions costs for selling loser firms are around double those of buying winners, and in particular, the...

Much research has demonstrated the existence of patterns in high-frequency equity returns, return volatility, bid-ask spreads and trading volume. In this paper, we employ a new test for detecting periodicities based on a signal coherence function. The technique is applied to the returns, bid-ask...

Risk and loss are common words that need to be clearly defined when embarking on the task of assessing operational risks. Financial institutions may rush into implementing the methodologies proposed by Basel in the hope of achieving better risk management – or simply to satisfy a regulatory...

Under the new capital accord stress tests are to be included in market risk regulatory capital calculations. This development necessitates a coherent and objective framework for stress testing portfolios exposed to market risk. Following recent criticism of stress testing methods our tests are...

This paper presents a new approach to aggregating market and credit risks in large complex financial firms, banks in particular. By identifying risk factors that are common to many business activities, dependencies between different risk types across various lines of business can be properly...

Different theoretical and numerical methods for calculating the fair-value of a variance swap give rise to systematic biases that are most pronounced during volatile periods. For instance, differences of 10-20 percentage points would have been observed on fair-value index variance swap rates...

Credit spreads can be derived from the prices of securities traded in different markets. In this paper we investigate the price discovery process in single-name credit spreads obtained from bonds, credit default swaps, equities and equity options. Using a vector error correction model (VECM) of...

We design average portfolio insurance (API) strategies with an investment floor and a buffer that is a power of a geometric average of the underlying asset price. We prove that API strategies are optimal for investors with hyperbolic absolute risk aversion who become progressively more risk...

Annuities are perceived as being illiquid financial instruments, and this has limited their attractiveness to consumers and inclusion in financial models. However, short positions in annuities can be replicated using life insurance and debt, permitting long positions in annuities to be offset,...

This study presents and empirically tests a simple framework that examines the effects of market liquidity (the ease with which stocks are traded) and funding liquidity (the ease with which market participants can obtain funding) on stock market bubbles. Three key findings emerge from this...