We hypothesize that managers can learn about a firm's investment uncertainty from the equity options market. Using a US sample of 1,865 merger and acquisition attempts during 1996–2015, we show that the volatility implied from an acquiring firm's equity options around an acquisition...

Divergence in investor beliefs is an important driver of the negative relation between option trading volume and future stock returns. We find a strong negative relation between disagreement-based option trades and future stock returns, and this relation is markedly amplified when the underlying...

We analyze the effect of option trading on the return predictability of short interest. There is no difference in the return predictability of short-interest ratios between stocks with and without traded options. The predictability of the put-call open interest ratio (PCOIR) is weaker than that...

If the implied volatility is higher than the realized volatility, OTM call returns can be negative and decrease in strike prices/skewness, a return pattern also consistent with skewness preference. Empirically, we find the above return pattern is not driven by investors purchasing OTM calls, but...