The October 14, 2008 TARP program mandated a forced issuance of TARP preferred stock by the largest U.S. banks. Soon after, many smaller banks were not forced but chose to issue TARP preferred stock after being approved for issuance. We investigate the impact of TARP preferred issuance upon...

In April 1998, Level 3, a telecommunications company, sold $2 billion of 9.19%, ten-year bonds to finance the building of a fiber-optic network. Like most below-investment-grade issues, as well as many investment-grade issues, the Level 3 issue contained an embedded call option that gave the...