The article presents the main features of one category of innovative financial products – exchange traded commodities (ETCs) and results of the analysis of the European market for ETCs. ETCs are products listed and traded on the stock exchanges and they offer investors returns based on various...

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are one of the most influential financial innovations, reshaping the investment funds market in many countries, including Mexico. Due to their similar investment objectives, ETFs are considered substitutes for mutual funds. This paper examines the changes of the...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study if actively managed exchange-traded funds (AMETFs) and actively manager mutual funds (AMMFs) are complements or substitutes. It also tests if there are tax or liquidity clientele effects. Design/methodology/approach: The study investigates the...

Extant research provides evidence for financial innovation’s contribution to market efficiency by documenting that hedge funds which bet on positive earnings surprises manage their sector risk by shorting industry exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We add to this literature by considering a...

The market for passive ETFs and passive ETF benchmarks has exploded in the past decade. ETF sponsors get index benchmarks from brand name index providers (e.g., S&P, Russell, MSCI), a large number of smaller providers, or internally. We find that benchmark and index provider characteristics are...

Can ETFs trigger fire sales in illiquid assets? We develop and empirically examine a model where an authorized participant (AP) holds bond inventory and connects the ETF to the underlying bond market. For redemptions, the AP acts as a buffer between the two markets, holding redeemed bonds to...

We study different channels through which well-known benchmark indexes impact asset allocations, capital flows, and asset prices across countries, using unique monthly micro-level data of benchmark compositions and mutual fund investments during 1996-2014. Benchmarks are useful for...

A risk-neutral probability distribution (RND) for future S&P 500 returns extracted from index options contains investors' true expectations and also their risk preferences. But the empirical pricing kernel that emerges in a representative agent framework, which suppresses investor differences,...

This paper aims to empirically verify whether an individual European investor can enhance the diversification of his/her portfolio of financial assets by implementing an equity market neutral strategy. The analysis takes into consideration a typical European investor who has roughly diversified...

Consistent with information-based theories, ``regular'' ETFs (i.e., those without embedded leverage) are more liquid than their underlyings. Consistent with speculation-based theories, levered ETFs have substantially higher intermediation costs than regular ETFs. The cost difference between...