We provide evidence on the role of commodity futures in portfolios comprised of stocks, bonds, T‐bills, and real estate. Over the period investigated (1973–1997), Markowitz optimization over a range of risk levels gives substantial weight to commodity futures, thereby enhancing the...

This paper analyzes security-market returns relative to the political party of the president, the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, the year of the president's term, and the state of political gridlock. Contrary to prior studies, which evaluated the influences separately, we jointly evaluate...

We perform a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of emerging market equities by extending previous research in four fundamental ways. The contribution of this study is that it 1) evaluates a more complete sample; 2) examines performance measures that account for asymmetric return...

Calling firms experience increases in systematic business risk following conversion-forcing calls of convertible debt. The increases in business risk are sufficiently large to offset the reductions in financial risk coming from the reduction in financial leverage following the call. As a result,...