Assuming a symmetric relation between returns and innovations in implied market volatility, Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang (2006) find that sensitivities to changes in implied market volatility have a cross-sectional effect on firm returns. Dennis, Mayhew, and Stivers (2006), however, find an...

This study investigates if changes in risk-neutral systematic volatility, skewness, and kurtosis, are priced, either symmetrically or asymmetrically, as systematic risk factors in the cross-section of stock returns. The moments are constructed using options on the S&P 500, and represent...

Quarterly earnings conference calls are becoming a more pervasive tool for corporate disclosure. However, the extent to which the market embeds information contained in the tone (i.e. sentiment) of conference call wording is unknown. Using computer aided content analysis, we examine the...

Recent evidence (Stambaugh, Yu, and Yuan, 2015) indicates that the most promising explanation for the negative price of idiosyncratic volatility is from its function as a limit arbitrage. Our evidence incorporating firm specific news is inconsistent with the limited arbitrage explanation. Since...

We propose a parsimonious, comprehensive proxy for innovations in limited arbitrage: the divergence between the return on an ETF and the return on the underlying net asset value. Consistent with a common component, we confirm limited arbitrage risk-factors, LAF, constructed from return...

We examine the information contained in option trading and short selling using a dynamic VAR model. First, we address whether options and shorts are complements or substitutes. Contrary to existing event studies around option listing introductions, we show short selling and options trading are...

We explore the role of social connectedness in explaining the stock return comovement with the local portfolio. Using the Facebook Social Connectedness Index, we find the firms headquartered in the county with the higher average social connectedness with other counties exhibit lower local return...

This study explores the time series variability of the Stambaugh et al. (2012) aggregate mispricing score as well as its eleven individual components. We find that the predictive power of the mispricing score for future stock returns improves significantly when the mispricing score has been more...

Recent research finds that investors, broadly defined, react to the linguistic tone of quarterly earnings conference calls; there is a positive relation between firms' stock returns and call tone (a measure of “sentiment” related word tabulations). However, this type of soft information can...

Recent literature investigating profitability anomalies defines profitability in various ways (i.e. gross, operating, and cash-based). We show that limits to arbitrage are associated with returns of gross and cash-based operating profitability anomalies, suggesting mispricing. In contrast,...