Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are simply enterprises that raise money from the public with the intention of purchasing an existing business and become publicly-traded in the securities markets. If the SPAC is successful in raising money and the acquisition takes place, the target...

Manipulation in the VIX settlement can cause significant losses to investors. Analysing high-frequency data, we present indications of VIX manipulation accelerating since 2017. Deviations have an upward direction and average at around 6%. Specific effects accompany settlement days. The put/call...

Acquirer advisors now often arrange syndicated loans financing merger and acquisition deals they advise on. This paper shows that such an advisor-lender dual role facilitates valuable big-ticket deals. There is a positive announcement effect for the acquirer which also shows no systematic...

We examine the price discovery process of initial public offerings (IPOs) from the offer price to the first day’s open price. Stock exchanges have made major changes to the IPO preopening process, and introduced an open auction process in which all investors are able to enter orders and...

In this research I empirically study the effects of information acquisition by investors or traders on analysts' forecast bias. Based on the theoretical literature on sell-side analysts, I argue that forecast bias is correlated to investors' information gathering, in two opposite directions. On...

We study how institutional investors utilize potentially biased information by analyzing the effect of IPO underwriters' earnings forecasts on investors' bidding behaviors in Chinese IPO auctions. Despite the presence of upward biases in underwriters' earnings forecasts, we nd that investors'...

This paper examines the effect of Environmental-, Social- and Governance- (ESG) rating events on returns and risks of stocks based on a large sample of US firms and their MSCI ESG ratings. Using event study methodology, we find that markets react with significant negative abnormal returns to...

Sell-side analysts commonly transition to buy-side money managers. I examine whether these career transitions compromise sell-side research, relying on granular career information of 6,310 analysts. I find that these analysts issue recommendations that favor their future buy-side employers...

We examine how sell-side equity analysts strategically disclose information of differing quality to the public versus the buy-side mutual fund managers to whom they are connected. We consider cases in which analysts recommend that the public buys a stock, but some fund managers sell it. We...