A unified explanation of risk and mispricing in stock returns underpinned by their aggregate liquidity risk is presented. We argue alternating liquidity exposures depict two distinct investment preferences-hedging against aggregate liquidity risk or betting on it. A three-factor model capturing...

We examine the puzzling negative relation between financial distress risk and the cross-section of expected returns. We find that the negative relation is most pronounced for up to six months after portfolio formation but after that, high distress stocks eventually earn persistently high...

This paper aims to reconcile and shed new light on the “distress premium puzzle” by employing a carefully refined measure that captures company distress levels more accurately. It is found that liquidity, proxied by a trading noise parameter, can distort asset pricing results through...