An option contract is a zero-sum game, so two identical risk-averse investors would never take opposite sides of it. While they will agree on the correct option price, they would never trade with each other. Heterogeneity is essential for options trading to exist, and aggregating diverse...

This study tests whether investor belief differences affect the cross-sectional variation of risk-neutral skewness, using data on firm-level stock options traded on the CBOE from 2003 to 2006. Using well known proxies for heterogeneous beliefs, we find that stocks with greater belief differences...

This study tests whether belief differences affect the cross-sectional variation of risk-neutral skewness using data on firm-level stock options traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange from 2003 to 2006. We find that stocks with greater belief differences have more negative skews, even...

This paper studies the effectiveness of technical trading approaches in market environments of varying sentiment. Due to short-sale constraints, overpricing with high sentiment (i.e. relatively optimistic sentiment) is more prevalent compared to underpricing with low sentiment (i.e. relatively...

This paper hypothesizes that market liquidity constrains mutual fund managers' ability to outperform, which introduces a higher liquidity risk exposure (beta) for skilled managers. Consistently, we document an annual liquidity beta performance spread of 4% in the cross-section of mutual funds...

We study the performance consequences of exposure to corporate social responsibility (CSR) through stock holdings for mutual funds. Using a large sample of U.S. domestic mutual funds, we find that funds overweighting low-CSR stocks outperform funds underweighting them by between 1.7% and 2.6%...