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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Seasonality in the Risk‐Return Relationship: Some International Evidence
Published: 03/01/1987 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1987.tb02549.x
ALBERT CORHAY, GABRIEL HAWAWINI, PIERRE MICHEL
We report evidence of seasonality in the Fama and MacBeth estimate of the CAPM‐based risk premium in four stock exchanges: the NYSE and the London, Paris, and Brussels exchanges. Specifically, we found that, in Belgium and France, risk premia are positive in January and negative the rest of the year. There is no January seasonal in the U.K. risk premium. Instead, we observed in this country a positive April seasonal and a negative average risk premium over the rest of the year. In the U.S., the pattern of risk‐premium seasonality coincides with the pattern of stock‐return seasonality. Both are positive and significant only in January. We also found that the January risk premium in the U.S. is significantly larger than those observed in the European markets. Interestingly, the reported patterns of risk‐premium seasonality in European equity markets do not fully coincide with the observed patterns of stock‐return seasonality in these markets. For example, in the U.K., average stock returns are significant and positive in January and April, whereas the market risk premium is significantly positive only in April. A possible interpretation of this phenomenon is presented in the paper.
High‐Frequency Trading around Large Institutional Orders
Published: 02/14/2019 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12759
VINCENT VAN KERVEL, ALBERT J. MENKVELD
Liquidity suppliers lean against the wind. We analyze whether high‐frequency traders (HFTs) lean against large institutional orders that execute through a series of child orders. The alternative is HFTs trading with the wind, that is, in the same direction. We find that HFTs initially lean against these orders but eventually change direction and take positions in the same direction for the most informed institutional orders. Our empirical findings are consistent with investors trading strategically on their information. When deciding trade intensity, they seem to trade off higher speculative profits against higher risk of being detected and preyed on by HFTs.
Information Asymmetry and Asset Prices: Evidence from the China Foreign Share Discount
Published: 01/10/2008 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01313.x
KALOK CHAN, ALBERT J. MENKVELD, ZHISHU YANG
We examine the effect of information asymmetry on equity prices in the local A‐ and foreign B‐share market in China. We construct measures of information asymmetry based on market microstructure models, and find that they explain a significant portion of cross‐sectional variation in B‐share discounts, even after controlling for other factors. On a univariate basis, the price impact measure and the adverse selection component of the bid‐ask spread in the A‐ and B‐share markets explains 44% and 46% of the variation in B‐share discounts. On a multivariate basis, both measures are far more statistically significant than any of the control variables.
Stock Market Volatility and Learning
Published: 10/13/2015 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12364
KLAUS ADAM, ALBERT MARCET, JUAN PABLO NICOLINI
We show that consumption‐based asset pricing models with time‐separable preferences generate realistic amounts of stock price volatility if one allows for small deviations from rational expectations. Rational investors with subjective beliefs about price behavior optimally learn from past price observations. This imparts momentum and mean reversion into stock prices. The model quantitatively accounts for the volatility of returns, the volatility and persistence of the price‐dividend ratio, and the predictability of long‐horizon returns. It passes a formal statistical test for the overall fit of a set of moments provided one excludes the equity premium.
Beliefs Aggregation and Return Predictability
Published: 12/10/2022 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13195
ALBERT S. KYLE, ANNA A. OBIZHAEVA, YAJUN WANG
We study return predictability using a model of speculative trading among competitive traders who agree to disagree about the precision of private information. Although traders apply Bayes' Law consistently, returns are predictable. In addition to trading on long‐term fundamental value, traders also trade on perceived short‐term opportunities arising from foreseen future disagreement, as in a Keynesian beauty contest. Contradicting conventional wisdom, this short‐term speculation dampens price fluctuations and generates time‐series momentum. Model calibration shows quantitatively realistic patterns of return dynamics. Consistent with empirical evidence, our model predicts more pronounced momentum for stocks with higher trading volume.
Does Algorithmic Trading Improve Liquidity?
Published: 01/06/2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2010.01624.x
TERRENCE HENDERSHOTT, CHARLES M. JONES, ALBERT J. MENKVELD
Algorithmic trading (AT) has increased sharply over the past decade. Does it improve market quality, and should it be encouraged? We provide the first analysis of this question. The New York Stock Exchange automated quote dissemination in 2003, and we use this change in market structure that increases AT as an exogenous instrument to measure the causal effect of AT on liquidity. For large stocks in particular, AT narrows spreads, reduces adverse selection, and reduces trade‐related price discovery. The findings indicate that AT improves liquidity and enhances the informativeness of quotes.
The Flash Crash: High‐Frequency Trading in an Electronic Market
Published: 01/25/2017 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12498
ANDREI KIRILENKO, ALBERT S. KYLE, MEHRDAD SAMADI, TUGKAN TUZUN
We study intraday market intermediation in an electronic market before and during a period of large and temporary selling pressure. On May 6, 2010, U.S. financial markets experienced a systemic intraday event—the Flash Crash—where a large automated selling program was rapidly executed in the E‐mini S&P 500 stock index futures market. Using audit trail transaction‐level data for the E‐mini on May 6 and the previous three days, we find that the trading pattern of the most active nondesignated intraday intermediaries (classified as High‐Frequency Traders) did not change when prices fell during the Flash Crash.
Equilibrium Bitcoin Pricing
Published: 01/19/2023 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13206
BRUNO BIAIS, CHRISTOPHE BISIÈRE, MATTHIEU BOUVARD, CATHERINE CASAMATTA, ALBERT J. MENKVELD
We offer a general equilibrium analysis of cryptocurrency pricing. The fundamental value of the cryptocurrency is its stream of net transactional benefits, which depend on its future prices. This implies that, in addition to fundamentals, equilibrium prices reflect sunspots. This in turn implies multiple equilibria and extrinsic volatility, that is, cryptocurrency prices fluctuate even when fundamentals are constant. To match our model to the data, we construct indices measuring the net transactional benefits of Bitcoin. In our calibration, part of the variations in Bitcoin returns reflects changes in net transactional benefits, but a larger share reflects extrinsic volatility.
Goal Setting and Saving in the FinTech Era
Published: 04/11/2024 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13339
ANTONIO GARGANO, ALBERTO G. ROSSI
We study the effectiveness of saving goals in increasing individuals' savings using data from a Fintech app. Using a difference‐in‐differences identification strategy that randomly assigns users into a group of beta testers who can set goals and a group of users who cannot, we find that setting goals increases individuals' savings rate. The increased savings within the app do not reduce savings outside the app. Moreover, goal setting helps those individuals previously identified as having the lowest propensity to save. Matching App user survey responses to their behavior highlights the relative merits of monitoring and concreteness channels in explaining our findings.
Why Invest in Emerging Markets? The Role of Conditional Return Asymmetry
Published: 05/23/2016 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12420
ERIC GHYSELS, ALBERTO PLAZZI, ROSSEN VALKANOV
We propose a quantile‐based measure of conditional skewness, particularly suitable for handling recalcitrant emerging market (EM) returns. The skewness of international stock market returns varies significantly across countries over time, and persists at long horizons. In EMs, skewness is mostly positive and idiosyncratic, and significantly relates to a country's financial and trade openness and balance of payments. In an international portfolio setting, return asymmetry leads to sizeable certainty‐equivalent gains and increases the weight on emerging countries to about 30%. Investing in EMs seems to be about expectations of a higher upside than downside, consistent with recent theories.
Data‐Snooping, Technical Trading Rule Performance, and the Bootstrap
Published: 12/17/2002 | DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00163
Ryan Sullivan, Allan Timmermann, Halbert White
In this paper we utilize White's Reality Check bootstrap methodology (White (1999)) to evaluate simple technical trading rules while quantifying the data‐snooping bias and fully adjusting for its effect in the context of the full universe from which the trading rules were drawn. Hence, for the first time, the paper presents a comprehensive test of performance across all technical trading rules examined. We consider the study of Brock, Lakonishok, and LeBaron (1992), expand their universe of 26 trading rules, apply the rules to 100 years of daily data on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and determine the effects of data‐snooping.
Sovereign Default, Domestic Banks, and Financial Institutions
Published: 11/19/2013 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12124
NICOLA GENNAIOLI, ALBERTO MARTIN, STEFANO ROSSI
We present a model of sovereign debt in which, contrary to conventional wisdom, government defaults are costly because they destroy the balance sheets of domestic banks. In our model, better financial institutions allow banks to be more leveraged, thereby making them more vulnerable to sovereign defaults. Our predictions: government defaults should lead to declines in private credit, and these declines should be larger in countries where financial institutions are more developed and banks hold more government bonds. In these same countries, government defaults should be less likely. Using a large panel of countries, we find evidence consistent with these predictions.
The Time Variation of Risk and Return in the Foreign Exchange and Stock Markets
Published: 06/01/1989 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb05059.x
ALBERTO GIOVANNINI, PHILIPPE JORION
This paper attempts to determine whether the fluctuations of conditional first and second moments—which are observed for many assets—are consistent with the Sharpe‐Lintner‐Mossin capital asset pricing model. We test the mean‐variance model under several different assumptions about the time variation of conditional second moments of returns, using weekly data from July 1974 to December 1986, that include returns on a portfolio composed of dollar, Deutsche mark, sterling, and Swiss franc assets, together with the U.S. stock market. The results indicate that estimated conditional variances cannot explain the observed time variation of risk premia.
Estimating the Divisional Cost of Capital: An Analysis of the Pure‐Play Technique
Published: 12/01/1981 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb01071.x
RUSSELL J. FULLER, HALBERT S. KERR
This paper suggests that the pure‐play technique can be used in conjunction with the capital asset pricing model to determine the cost of equity capital for the divisions of a multidivision firm. Since the beta for a division is unobservable in the marketplace, a proxy beta derived from a publicly traded firm whose operations are as similar as possible to the division in question is used as the measure of the division's systematic risk. To provide empirical support for using the pure‐play technique, a sample of multidivision firms and pure‐play associated with each division is examined. It is shown that an appropriately weighted average of the betas of the pure‐play firms closely approximates the beta of the multidivision firm.
Decentralized Investment Management: Evidence from the Pension Fund Industry
Published: 01/30/2013 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12024
DAVID BLAKE, ALBERTO G. ROSSI, ALLAN TIMMERMANN, IAN TONKS, RUSS WERMERS
Using a unique data set, we document two secular trends in the shift from centralized to decentralized pension fund management over the past few decades. First, across asset classes, sponsors replace generalist balanced managers with better‐performing specialists. Second, within asset classes, funds replace single managers with multiple competing managers following diverse strategies to reduce scale diseconomies as funds grow larger relative to capital markets. Consistent with a model of decentralized management, sponsors implement risk controls that trade off higher anticipated alphas of multiple specialists against the increased difficulty in coordinating their risk‐taking and the greater uncertainty concerning their true skills.