The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Dynamic Asset Allocation and the Informational Efficiency of Markets
Published: 07/01/1995 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1995.tb04036.x
SANFORD J. GROSSMAN
Markets have an allocational role; even in the absence of news about payoffs, prices change to facilitate trade and allocate resources to their best use. Allocational price changes create noise in the signal extraction process, and markets where such trading is important are markets in which we may expect to find a failure of informational efficiency. An important source of allocational trading is the use of dynamic trading strategies caused by the incomplete equitization of risks. Incomplete equitization causes trade. Trade implies the inefficiency of passive strategies, thus requiring investors to determine whether price changes are informational or allocational.
Equilibrium Analysis of Portfolio Insurance
Published: 09/01/1996 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb04073.x
SANFORD J. GROSSMAN, ZHONGQUAN ZHOU
A martingale approach is used to characterize general equilibrium in the presence of portfolio insurance. Insurers sell to noninsurers in bad states, and general equilibrium requires that the risk premium rises to induce noninsurers to increase their holdings. We show that portfolio insurance increases price volatility, causes mean reversion in asset returns, raises the Sharpe ratio and volatility in bad states, and causes volatility to be correlated with volume. We also explain why out‐of‐the‐money S&P 500 put options trade at a higher volatility than do in‐the‐money puts.
Liquidity and Market Structure
Published: 07/01/1988 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1988.tb04594.x
SANFORD J. GROSSMAN, MERTON H. MILLER
Market liquidity is modeled as being determined by the demand and supply of immediacy. Exogenous liquidity events coupled with the risk of delayed trade create a demand for immediacy. Market makers supply immediacy by their continuous presence and willingness to bear risk during the time period between the arrival of final buyers and sellers. In the long run the number of market makers adjusts to equate the supply and demand for immediacy. This determines the equilibrium level of liquidity in the market. The lower is the autocorrelation in rates of return, the higher is the equilibrium level of liquidity.