This Article argues that the rise of algorithmic trading undermines efficient capital allocation in securities markets. It is a bedrock assumption in theory that securities prices reveal how effectively public companies utilize capital. This conventional wisdom rests on the straightforward...

The prohibition against insider trading is becoming increasingly anachronistic in markets where derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS) operate. Lenders use these instruments to trade the credit risk of the loans they extend. By design, CDS appear to subvert insider trading laws, insofar as...

Scholars assume that lenders that protect themselves using credit derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS) have limited interest in debt governance. However, they overlook the role of financial firms that sell this credit protection and thereby assume economic risk on the underlying borrower....

This Article challenges the academic and policy consensus that clearinghouses adequately mitigate the risks of trading credit derivatives. The Article advances two arguments. First, scholars have devoted little attention to the risks posed by underlying assets (e.g. a mortgage loan) that the...

According to statute, securities exchanges play an essential role in ensuring compliance with applicable laws and industry standards. Long imagined as unique in their institutional capacity to bring traders together, collect information and exclude problem participants from the marketplace,...

This Article outlines a possible cure to the “empty creditor” problem in sovereign debt markets: a market for sovereign creditor control. Scholars and policymakers have long lamented the troubling influence of credit derivatives on sovereign debt. Lenders that use instruments like credit...

Trading the preeminent risk-free security, the $21 trillion U.S. Treasury market supports the country’s borrowing needs, financial stability, and investor appetite for a safe asset. Straddling the nexus between a securities market and a systemically essential institution, the Treasury market...

Totaling in excess of $100 billion dollars in transactions annually, debt buybacks allow a company to repurchase bonds from investors, rewriting bargains and stripping away creditor control rights in the process. This Article shows that regulation systematically under-protects bondholders in the...

The cryptocurrency market has proven notoriously challenging to regulate. Even as “crypto-winter” extinguished two trillion dollars in value, leaving ordinary savers wiped out and crypto-ventures collapsing, regulation has shown itself to be woefully under-protective to either mitigate risks...