The paper shows that the value effect and the idiosyncratic volatility (IVol) discount (Ang et al., 2006) arise because growth firms and high IVol firms beat the CAPM during the periods of increasing aggregate volatility, which makes their risk low. All else equal, growth options' value...

I show that turnover is unrelated to several alternative measures of liquidity and liquidity risk and that liquidity risk factors cannot explain why higher turnover predicts lower future returns. I find that the aggregate volatility risk factor explains why higher turnover predicts lower future...

The paper shows that small growth firms earn low expected returns because they are a hedge against expected aggregate volatility. Consistent with that, the ICAPM with the aggregate volatility risk factor can explain the small growth anomaly, as well as the new issues puzzle and the cumulative...

The paper shows that new issues earn low expected returns because they are a hedge against increases in expected aggregate volatility. Consistent with that, the ICAPM with the aggregate volatility risk factor can explain the new issues puzzle, as well as the small growth anomaly and the...

The paper shows that the post earnings announcement drift is stronger for conglomerates, despite conglomerates being larger, more liquid, and more actively researched by investors. We attribute this finding to slower information processing about complex firms and show that the post earnings...

We propose a risk-based firm-type explanation on why stocks of firms with high relative short interest (RSI) have lower future returns. We argue that these firms have negative alphas because they are a hedge against expected aggregate volatility risk. Consistent with this argument, we show that...