We investigate and test hypotheses on how informed trading varies with market-wide factors and the structural and trading characteristics of a firm. We find strong evidence of commonality in informed trading, and a systematic dependence of informed trading on firm characteristics that is largely...

Regulatory and media concern has focused heavily on the potentially manipulative distortion of market prices associated with naked short selling. However, naked shorting can also have beneficial effects for liquidity and pricing efficiency. We empirically investigate the impact of naked...

We investigate the association of various firm-specific and market-wide factors with the riskneutral skewness (RNS) implied by the prices of individual stock options. Our analysis covers 149 U.S. firms over a four-year period. Our choice of firms is based on adequate liquidity and trading...

The volatility information content of stock options for individual firms is measured using option prices for 149 U.S. firms and the S&P 100 index. ARCH and regression models are used to compare volatility forecasts defined by historical stock returns, at-the-money implied volatilities and...

We find that corporate governance characteristics of acquiring firms (board ownership, board size, and block-holder control) have an economically and statistically significant impact on operating performance changes following mergers. We also show that dispersion of intra-board ownership stakes...

We investigate the nature and extent of information asymmetry among traders in companies with government ownership. Consistent with a less transparent information environment, we find relatively less informed trading in the shares of firms with government presence, and specifically, fewer...