Asymmetric shocks are common in markets; securities'; payoffs are not normally distributed and exhibit skewness. This paper studies the portfolio holdings of heterogeneous agents with preferences over mean, variance and skewness, and derives equilibrium prices. A three funds separation theorem...

This paper presents a rational expectations model of asset prices with rationally inattentive investors that, unlike previous papers, explains both the substantial amount of equity wealth invested domestically and the puzzling time series behavior of the home bias - an initial plateau before...

We construct a zero-net-worth uninformed "naive investor" who uses a random portfolio allocation strategy. We then compare the returns of the momentum strategist to the return distribution of naive investors. For this purpose we reward momentum profits relative to the return percentiles of the...

Loss aversion has been used to explain why a high equity premium might be consistent with plausible levels of risk aversion. The intuition is that the first-order-different utility impact of wealth gains and losses leads loss-averse investors to behave similarly to investors with high risk...

There is pervasive evidence that individuals invest primarily in domestic assets and thus hold poorly diversified portfolios. Empirical studies suggest that informational asymmetries may play a role in explaining the bias towards domestic assets. In contrast, theoretical studies based on...

In dealership markets, asymmetric information feeds through to higher transaction costs as dealers adjust their bid-ask spreads to compensate for anticipated losses. In this paper, we show that the presence of asymmetric information can also provide a positive externality to those market...

We examine how residents of the United States allocate their stock portfolios internationally. We find that a large U.S. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) position in a destination country in 1990 is associated with a relatively large stock portfolio position in that country in the 2001-2006...

We propose a portfolio optimization approach to identifying private information. In our model, investors are exposed to liquidity and private information shocks and optimize their trading across stocks taking into account price impact (Kyle's Lambda). We obtain a very simple expression for a...

When a long-term investor trades a slowly changing portfolio, she is not very time sensitive to when she should place or modify her bet. Short-term information can be used to guide the investor on how to time her trades. Strategic trade modification provides exposure to short-term signals...

Banks produce short-term debt for transactions and storing value. The value of bank money must not vary over time so agents can easily trade this debt at par. This requires that no agent finds it profitable to produce costly private information about the bank's loans. To produce safe liquidity...