Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage such as options and leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors' leverage constraints and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis,...

This paper examines the combined role of momentum and term structure signals for the design of profitable trading strategies in commodity futures markets. With significant annualized alphas of 10.14% and 12.66% respectively, the momentum and term structure strategies appear profitable when...

We investigate the informational content of options-implied probability density functions (PDFs) for the future price of oil. Using a semiparametric variant of the methodology in Breeden and Litzenberger (1978), we investigate the fit and smoothness of distributions derived from alternative PDF...

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the role of credit default swaps (CDS) in information production surrounding earnings announcements. First, we demonstrate that the strength of CDS price discovery prior to earnings announcements is related to the presence of private information...

We find and describe four futures markets where the bid-ask spread is bid down to the fixed price tick size practically all the time, and which match counterparties using a pro-rata rule. These four markets' offered depths at the quotes on average exceed mean market order size by two orders of...

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of options volatility and bid-ask spread as microstructural variables in determining whether the foreign exchange market’s price formation process in response to macroeconomic announcements is characterised by changes in risk perception and...