Ratios that indicate the statistical significance of a fund’s alpha typically appraise its performance. A growing literature suggests that even in the absence of any ability to predict returns, holding options positions on the benchmark assets or trading frequently can significantly enhance...

Over the last two decades, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the rate-setting body of the United States Federal Reserve System, has become increasingly communicative and transparent. According to policymakers, one of the goals of this shift has been to improve monetary policy...

We show that nearly 100 percent of the U.S. equity premium is earned over a window around the opening hours of European markets when U.S. cash markets are closed. We explore two potential complementary explanations. First, consistent with predictions from dealer inventory risk models, we find...

The "Masters Hypothesis" is the claim that unprecedented buying pressure from new financial index investors created a massive bubble in agricultural futures prices at various times in recent years. This paper analyzes the market impact of financial index investment in agricultural futures...

Stocks with large increases in call implied volatilities over the previous month tend to have high future returns while stocks with large increases in put implied volatilities over the previous month tend to have low future returns. Sorting stocks ranked into decile portfolios by past call...

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is the key policy instrument of the European Commission's Climate Change Program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. The key asset traded under the scheme is the European Union allowance (EUA). This article...

Financial markets have become increasingly global in recent decades, yet the pricing of internationally traded assets continues to depend strongly upon local risk factors, leading to several observations that are difficult to explain with standard frameworks. Equity returns depend upon both...

The favorite-longshot bias describes the longstanding empirical regularity that betting odds provide biased estimates of the probability of a horse winning--longshots are overbet, while favorites are underbet. Neoclassical explanations of this phenomenon focus on rational gamblers who overbet...

Many observers have argued that credit default swaps contributed significantly to the credit crisis. Of particular concern to these observers are that credit default swaps trade in the largely unregulated over-the-counter market as bilateral contracts involving counterparty risk and that they...

We use the daily data of 16 commodity futures contracts traded in China and corresponding foreign markets (the US, the UK, Japan, and Malaysia) to analyze the linkages between markets. Several findings are noteworthy. First, trading returns of foreign markets, such as the US, have significant...