We examine the connection between tail risk — as measured in Kelly and Jiang (2014) — and the cross-section of expected returns. In conditional predictive regression systems and vector-autoregressions of the market portfolio and the long- and shoresides of the Fama-French factor portfolios,...

The option implied volatility spread and skew predict stock returns. These variables also reflect the expected cost of borrowing stock to sell short. The stock borrowing fee implied from options prices predicts changes in quoted borrowing fees and stock returns; however, the volatility spread...

We examine the profitability of hedge fund equity short sales. We identify opening and closing trades by combining data on funds' transactions and holdings. Short sales covered within five trading days are highly profitable, but those kept open longer are not. Some of the profitability is due to...

Existing literature nds that proxies for short-sale constraints do not predict bond returns.Using more comprehensive data over a longer sample period and rating and maturity-matchedbenchmarks we nd that utilization, which proxies for short-sale constraints, predicts negativereturns. Many lending...

We use data on signed option volume to study which components of option volume predict stock returns and resolve the seemingly inconsistent results in the literature. We find no evidence that trades related to synthetic short positions in the underlying stocks contain more information than...