Models that examine investors’ motivations to trade often make opposite predictions about the relation between trading decisions and past returns. We find that, in the aggregate, both buyer- and seller-initiated trades increase with past returns. The difference between buyer- and seller-initiated trades is negatively related to short horizon returns but positively related to returns over longer horizons. Tax-loss-related seller-initiated trades in December and January are accompanied by increased buyer-initiated trades. Past returns significantly affect trading decisions, and these findings are consistent with a number of different models of trading behavior.

This paper examines heterogeneity in blockholder monitoring across investor types. We document which blockholder types (e.g., mutual funds, hedge funds) are more likely to be associated with active monitoring and show that firms targeted by such blockholders are more likely to increase the equity portion of chief executive officer (CEO) pay. Further, using market-wide and exogenous shocks to liquidity to identify differences in efficacy across blockholder types, we observe greater operating-performance improvements in actively monitored firms when passive monitoring is less effective, suggesting causal impact. We propose differences in compensation arrangements across blockholder types as a mechanism underlying blockholders’ heterogeneous role.

In this article, we examine the extent to which firm fundamentals can explain the cross-sectional variation in credit default swap (CDS) spreads. We construct a fundamental CDS valuation by combining the Merton distance-to-default measure with a long list of firm fundamentals via a Bayesian shrinkage method. Regressing CDS quotes against the fundamental valuation cross-sectionally generates an average R2 of 77%. The explanatory power is stable over time and robust in out-of-sample tests. Deviations between market quotes and the valuation predict future market movements. The results highlight the important role played by firm fundamentals in differentiating the credit spreads of different firms.

We use data from 2005–2009 that uniquely identify categories of traders to test how speculators such as hedge funds and swap dealers relate to volatility and price changes. In examining various subperiods where price trends are strong, we find little evidence that speculators destabilize financial markets. To the contrary, hedge fund position changes are negatively related to volatility in corn, crude oil, and natural gas futures markets. Additionally, swap dealer activity is largely unrelated to contemporaneous volatility. Our evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that hedge funds provide valuable liquidity and largely serve to stabilize futures markets.

Debt overhang and moral hazard predict that poorly capitalized banks have a lower likelihood to issue equity, while the presence of regulatory and market pressures posits an opposite theoretical prediction. By using an international sample of bank seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), we show that the likelihood of issuing SEOs is higher in poorly capitalized banks and that such banks prefer SEOs to alternative capitalization strategies. A series of tests exploring the variation of capital regulation and market discipline show that market mechanisms rather than capital regulation are the primary driver of the decision to issue by poorly capitalized banks.

We empirically study the strategic behavior of levered firms in competitive and noncompetitive environments. We find that regulation induces firms to increase leverage, and this reduces their ability to compete when deregulation occurs. Large and small levered firms adopt different strategies upon deregulation. Whereas more levered small firms charge higher prices to increase margins at the expense of market shares, highly levered large firms prey on their rivals by increasing output and reducing prices to increase their market shares. The difference in their behavior is due to differences in their probability of bankruptcy and their financing constraints.

Consistent with prior literature, we find that average relative effective spreads are higher for venues that pay for order flow (PFOF) than for venues utilizing the maker-taker (MT) model. This relation becomes more nuanced when liquidity fees are incorporated into liquidity cost measures. For the majority of options, PFOF venues offer lower average liquidity costs net of taker fees. Net liquidity costs for the high-priced options, however, are lower for MT venues. Overall, our results suggest that the inclusion of fees and rebates can rationalize the routing of most, but not all, marketable orders to PFOF venues.

Tying initial public offering (IPO) allocations to after-listing purchases of other IPO shares as a form of price support has generated much theoretical interest and media attention. Price support is price manipulation and can reduce secondary investor return. In the past, obtaining data to investigate price support has proven to be difficult. I document that price support is harming secondary investor return using new data from the Oslo Stock Exchange. I also show that investors who engage in price support are allocated more future oversubscribed allocations, whereas harmed secondary investors significantly reduce their future participation in the secondary market.

Building on the growing literature on interfirm links and limited attention, we find evidence of return predictability across alliance partners. A long–short portfolio sorted on lagged returns of strategic alliance partners provides a return of 89 basis points per month that is robust to a number of specifications. Investor inattention and limits to arbitrage may be the source of the underreaction of a firm’s returns to that of its partners.

Stock options are used only sparingly in Japan. Japanese firms are more likely to adopt new stock option plans when they are more (less) owned by arms-length investors (stable and controlling shareholders). Those firms have significantly more independent boards and pay higher dividends surrounding the adoption year than their industry peers. These results suggest that firms adopting stock options endeavor to meet demands for good governance practice from arms-length shareholders and to follow good governance practices in other dimensions. The coexistence of arms-length, stable, and controlling shareholders generates a situation in which stock options are not widely used in Japan.