The correlation of returns for various equity asset classes has been high. In addition, the range or "dispersion" of returns across asset classes - and across sectors within those asset classes - has been low. These factors have made it difficult for active managers to outperform. But dispersion...

Stock momentum, long-term reversal, and other past return characteristics that predict future returns also predict future realized betas, suggesting these characteristics capture time-varying risk compensation. We formalize this argument with a conditional factor pricing model. Using...

We provide strong evidence that the dispersion of individual stock options trading volume across moneynesses (IDISP) contains valuable information about future stock returns. Stocks with high IDISP consistently underperform those with low IDISP by more than 1% per month. In line with the idea...

We document significant persistence in the market timing performance of active individual investors, suggesting that some investors are skilled at timing. Using data on all trades by active Finnish individual investors over almost 15 years, we also show that the net purchases of skilled versus...

I investigate whether the relation between investor sentiment and profitable trading strategies is due to short sale constraints. I find that the average security in these strategies is not hard-to-short. Furthermore, the short leg does not appear to be harder to short or more overvalued than...

Building on prior literature which suggests that investors in most countries, but not Japan, are subject to behavioural biases that cause momentum, and informed by the shared cultural values in Japan which leans heavily in favour of collective action, this paper asks whether stock return...

I examine whether the market's reaction to firms' earnings news varies with analysis (i.e., editorial content) produced by financial journalists. A series of restructuring events at The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests that WSJ articles improve price discovery and increase trading volume at...

Recent evidence shows that investor sentiment is a contrarian predictor of stock returns with speculative stocks earning lower (higher) future returns than safe stocks following high (low) sentiment states. We extend this argument by conditioning expected stock returns on sentiment dynamics and...

We show meetings of investors and firms convey information about expected returns. Investors frequently travel to meet in-person with firms before investing, and we show firms with abnormally frequent meetings predictably outperform firms with abnormally infrequent meetings by roughly 70-to-100...

When value and glamour stocks missed earnings expectation targets, what happened to their stock prices over the following year? Prices of value stocks increased when earnings expectations were beat and missed - and even when business fundamentals deteriorated. Glamour stocks behaved more...