In recent history, financial markets worldwide experienced severe turmoil due to the subprime crisis originating from the practice of US mortgage banks to securitise loans given especially to subprime borrowers. In the same crisis, several distressed banks were bailed out by states with even...

We show that the information on derivatives usage and securitization activities of U.S. banks as disclosed in their pre-crisis 10-K filings predicts their systemic equity risk during the financial crisis. Investors predominantly exited stocks of banks that had previously disclosed a more...