We analyze the determinants of replacement investment decisions in a contingent claims model with maintenance and operation cost uncertainty. We find that the optimal time between replacements is increasing in the volatility of cost, the purchase price of a new asset, and the corporate tax rate; and is decreasing in the systematic risk of cost, the salvage value of the asset, and the investment tax credit. The optimal time between replacements can either increase or decrease with an increase in the depreciation rate. Extensions of the model to examine the effects of technological and tax policy uncertainty on replacement investment decisions give intuitive, but striking results. Uncertainty about the arrival of a technological innovation that would decrease maintenance and operation cost results in a significant decrease in replacement investment. Uncertainty in a tax law change that would encourage investment decreases current investment; and uncertainty in a tax law change that would discourage investment increases current investment.

We test whether the conversion price (ratio) is viewed by the stock market as a credible signal of the firm's future earnings prospects (Kim (1990)) and, subsequently, whether convertible debt serves as backdoor equity financing (Stein (1992)). Examining the conversion price in relation to current stock prices and a priori growth expectations produces an average expected time of less than 1.5 years for convertible bonds to be at-the-money. Thus, as Stein suggests, convertibles appear to be a method of drawing equity into a firm's capital structure. We also find that the size of the firm's announcement period abnormal returns is positively related to the expected time for the convertible to become at-the-money. Given these relationships, we conclude that convertible debt issue announcements, on average, send an equity-like signal to the market.

Unlike previous studies, this paper finds a consistent and highly significant relationship between beta and cross-sectional portfolio returns. The key distinction between our tests and previous tests is the recognition that the positive relationship between returns and beta predicted by the Sharpe-Lintner-Black model is based on expected rather than realized returns. In periods where excess market returns are negative, an inverse relationship between beta and portfolio returns should exist. When we adjust for the expectations concerning negative market excess returns, we find a consistent and significant relationship between beta and returns for the entire sample, for subsample periods, and for data divided by months in a year. Separately, we find support for a positive payment for beta risk.

Hull and White (1993) introduced a method to extend lattice-based contingent claim valuation techniques to problems with path-dependent payoffs. This paper builds upon their method in the process of valuing two types of commodity purchase contracts that exhibit a form of timing flexibility not previously analyzed in the literature. The techniques demonstrated take advantage of characteristics of claims that simplify incorporation of path dependencies. Possible uses for the methods demonstrated include the valuation of: portfolios of mortgages, capital projects where intensity of use affects productivity of the asset, and capital projects with storage characteristics.

We examine the empirical results from implementation of portfolio insurance strategies employing currency spot and futures options. Hypotheses are generated from Ogden and Tucker's (1988) generalizations concerning the relative values of American spot currency options and currency futures options. We find that protective puts using futures options are generally dominated by both protective puts that use options on spot currencies and by fiduciary calls on futures contracts. This suggests that the prices of puts on foreign currency futures contracts are too high, relative to foreign currency futures calls and to puts on spot currencies.

Financial studies examining stock price behavior have principally relied on end-of-day data. This paper illustrates a bias in closing prices by reexamining the when-issue pricing anomaly with intraday data. With intraday data, major portions of the pricing anomaly can be explained by: a nonsynchronous matching of trades; a difference in the settlement procedures (labeled time value of money in Choi and Strong (1983)); a mismatching of market purchases with market sales (first proposed by Lamoureux and Wansley (1989)); and a higher frequency of market purchases relative to market sales. In addition, the small remaining portion of the anomaly cannot be arbitraged. The remaining premium is attributed to a lower level of limit order competition and an order imbalance in the when-issued shares.

We examine how prices in interest rate and foreign exchange futures markets adjust to the new information contained in scheduled macroeconomic news releases in the very short run. Using 10-second returns and tick-by-tick data, we find that prices adjust in a series of numerous small, but rapid, price changes that begin within 10 seconds of the news release and are basically completed within 40 seconds of the release. There is some evidence that prices overreact in the first 40 seconds but that this is corrected in the second or third minute after the release. While volatility tends to be higher than normal just before the news release, there is no evidence of information leakage. In our analysis, we correct for the biases created by bid-ask spreads and tick-by-tick data.

I examine abnormal stock returns associated with “stock highlights” published by the Value Line Investment Survey. At the time of their publication, stock highlights elicit strong positive abnormal returns. They also have positive abnormal returns at the time of the earnings announcement preceding stock highlight publications. Post-earnings announcement drift is present, but is much too small to explain abnormal returns at the time of the publication of stock highlights. Thus, Value Line stock highlights provide useful information to investors. This information is rapidly reflected in stock prices, consistent with market efficiency.

This paper considers the class of Heath-Jarrow-Morton term structure models where the spot interest rate is Markov and the term structure at time t is a function of time, maturity, and the spot interest rate at time t. A representation for this class of models is derived and I show that the functional forms of the forward rate volatility structure and the initial forward rate curve cannot be arbitrarily chosen. I provide necessary and sufficient conditions indicating which combinations of these functional forms are allowable. I also derive a partial differential equation representation of the term structure dynamics that does not require explicit modeling of both the market price of risk and the drift term for the spot interest rate process. Using the analysis presented in this paper, a class of intertemporal term structure models is derived.

We compare the volatility of 24-hour returns computed from the opening and closing prices of a diverse sample of Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) stocks. We find that volatility at the open is greater than volatility at the close only for the most actively traded TSE stocks. Daytime and overnight return covariances suggest that the volatility patterns are explained by the effect of implicit bid-ask spreads at the open and partial price adjustment at the close, both of which are related to the intensity of trading. Our results challenge the view that open-to-open returns are more volatile than close-to-close returns for stocks, in general, and are consistent with the hypothesis that TSE price limit rules have a significant impact on the dynamics of security prices.

We examine the stock market effect of changes in the composition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Unlike S&P 500 listing studies, we find that the price and the trading volume of newly listed DJIA firms are unaffected. We attribute this result to a lack of index fund rebalancing, since index trading is limited for most of our sample period and index funds mimic the S&P 500, not the DJIA. Firms removed from the index, however, experience significant price declines. We consider information signaling, price pressure, imperfect substitutes, and information cost/liquidity explanations for these asymmetric findings. The evidence is consistent with the information cost/liquidity explanation, which holds that investors demand a premium for higher trading costs and for holding securities that have relatively less available information.

Based on the Beveridge-Nelson (1981) decomposition of an ARIMA process, I present a measure of true stock index value that is not directly observable due to infrequent trading of stocks. The technique is illustrated with daily observations of the Russell 2000 index. This new measure might well prove useful in studies of lead-lag relationships between index derivatives and spot market and futures basis measurements.

This study investigates the liquidity effects of reverse stock splits using bid-ask spread, trading volume, and the number of nontrading days as proxies for the liquidity of the stock. Results indicate a decrease in bid-ask spread and an increase in trading volume after reverse splits. More importantly, the number of nontrading days significantly declines following reverse splits. For the control group, however, no such changes are observed. These results suggest that reverse splits enhance the liquidity of the stock.