Dividing the 223 largest traders of heating oil futures between June 1993 and March 1997 into 11 different line-of-business groupings, we document their trading activity. We find substantial and significant differences between the 11 trader types in their propensity to take long, short, or...

Signaling strategies that sellers of higher-quality products or securities employ to differentiate their products include (1) development of a reputation for quality, (2) third-party certification, (3) warranties, and (4) information disclosure. These signaling strategies are compared using data...