The securitization of various financial assets provides liquidity, facilitates the transfer of risk, and presents unique risk-return opportunities to buyers of such securities. These products can also provide financing in ways that cannot be normally obtained through conventional loans. Here, we...

We model the decision to exhaust depth by high speed traders, which either flips the best bid or ask quote to the opposite side or widens the spread. Such events are common and often revert to the previous best quote levels. Consistent with the model, such quote flipping results in large trade...

By computing a volatility index (CVX) from cryptocurrency option prices, we analyze the market's expectation of future volatility. Our method addresses the challenging liquidity environment of this young asset class and allows us to extract stable market implied volatilities. Two alternative...

We propose option-implied measures of conditional asymmetry based upon quantiles and expectiles inferred from weekly options. All quantities are by construction forward looking and estimated non-parametrically through a novel arbitrage-free natural smoothing spline technique that produces quick...

This paper investigates the impact of speculative trading on the commodity futures risk premium. We focus on speculators' spread positions, and study the asset pricing implications of spreading pressure on the cross-section of commodity futures returns. In an era of financialization of commodity...

After a market downturn, especially in an uncertain economic environment such as the current state, there can be a relatively long period with a sideways market, where indexes, stocks, etc., move in channels with support and resistance levels. We discuss option pricing in such scenarios, in both...

Using high-frequency intraday trading and quoting data, we study the temporal effects in index credit default swap (CDS) trading and liquidity. We find strong intraday variations in index CDS trading activities and liquidity. Unlike the U-shaped pattern in the equity market, index CDSs exhibit a...

I examine corporate pandemic bonds, whose proceeds are committed to COVID-19 containing activities. I find an average cumulative abnormal return of 1.33–1.71% during the five trading days surrounding their issuance announcement. Also, their yield spread is 13.8–20.9 basis points lower than...

The existing replication policies at top finance journals are far weaker than the policies at top economics journals. This paper explores both the costs and benefits of having a stronger replication policy in the context of my failed 2010 initiative to develop a unified policy across all top...

This paper exploits a natural experiment from the late 1800s in which many U.S. firms had inadvertently issued both taxable and tax-exempt bonds. Investors paid income tax on taxable bonds, but firms covered income tax on investors' behalf on tax-exempt bonds. Using a unique data-set of these...