We test if issuers of asset- and mortgage-backed securities receive rating favors from agencies with which they maintain strong business relationships. Controlling for issuer fixed effects and a large set of credit risk determinants, we show that agencies publish better ratings for those issuers...

Across numerous asset classes, momentum strategies have historically generated high Sharpe ratios and strong positive alphas relative to standard asset pricing models. However, the returns to momentum strategies are negatively skewed: they experience infrequent but strong and persistent strings...

This paper analyzes brief episodes of high-intensity quotes turnover and revision-"bursts" in quotes-in the U.S. equity market. Such events occur very frequently, several hundred times a day for actively traded stocks. We find significant price impact associated with these market makers...

We study the link between the profitability of momentum strategies and firm size, drawing on an extensive dataset covering 14 stock markets across the globe. International momentum profitability is markedly higher in medium-size than in big stocks. Momentum premia are considerably diminished by...

We find evidence that hedge funds significantly manipulate stock prices on critical reporting dates. We document that stocks held by hedge funds experience higher returns on the last day of the quarter, followed by a reversal the next day. For example, the stocks in the top quartile of hedge...

We study optimal investment with multiple assets in the presence of small proportional transaction costs. Rather than computing an asymptotically optimal no-trade region, we optimize over suitable trading frequencies. We derive explicit formulas for these and the associated welfare losses due to...

Modern open economy macro models assume the continuous adjustment of international portfolio allocation. We introduce gradual portfolio adjustment into a global equity market model. Our approach differs from related literature in two key dimensions. First, the time interval between portfolio...

Recent crises have seen very large spikes in asset price risk without dramatic shifts in fundamentals. We propose an explanation for these risk panics based on self-fulfilling shifts in risk made possible by a negative link between the current asset price and risk about the future asset price....

A major inconvenience of the traditional approach in portfolio choice, based upon historical information, is its inability to anticipate sudden changes of price tendencies. Introducing information about future behavior of the assets fundamentals may help to make more appropiate choices. However...