The accuracy of measuring credit risk directly decides on the interest on credit, which has to be paid when raising a credit, and the amount of capital to keep in reserve by a firm. The structural credit risk model proposed by Merton (1974) lays the groundwork for the assessment of a firm's...

This paper offers new insights into the Italian mutual fund industry. Surveying Italian professionals, we do not only reveal typical gender differences but also detect divergence to their German counterparts. While disclosing Italian professionals’ overly positive self-assessment in general,...

This paper shows that order flow determines future bond excess returns. This effect cannot be captured by macroeconomic or forward rate information. To understand how these variables influence future bond excess returns, we decompose excess returns into expected and unexpected excess returns....

This paper examines the relative information shares of the Bund, i.e. the ten-year Euro bond future contract on German sovereign debt, versus two futures with shorter maturity. We find that the Bund is most important but does not dominate price discovery. The other contracts also have relevant -...

The use of technical analysis by financial market professionals is not well understood. This paper thus analyzes survey evidence from 692 fund managers in five countries, the vast majority of whom rely on technical analysis. At a forecasting horizon of weeks, technical analysis is the most...

This paper extends earlier studies on exchange rate expectations' formation by using new data and adding information about forecasters' reliance on fundamental analysis for the first time. We replicate the conventional result of non rational expectations. Moreover, biases in expectations are...

We study the relationship between foreign exchange trading activity and volatility on the USD/EUR foreign exchange market on the basis of a unique data set around the events of 09/11/2001. We find that volatility and bid-ask spreads are by far larger at that time, but the shock is not...

This article examines the question whether a point and figure (P and F)-based investment strategy yields statistical significant excess returns compared to a buy-and-hold (B and H)-strategy. The simulations show that P and F slightly outperforms B and H with respect to returns as well as with...

Our questionnaire survey finds that most fund managers rely on the strategies of buy-and-hold, momentum and contrarian trading. These strategies are typically applied mutually. Their use is rooted in the attributes and beliefs of the respective fund managers: buy-and-hold traders behave...

This paper makes three contributions to our understanding of the price discovery process in currency markets. First, it provides evidence that this process cannot be the familiar one based on adverse selection and customer spreads, since such spreads are inversely related to a trade's likely...