It is widely believed that stocks with high idiosyncratic risk exhibit stronger anomalies because arbitrageurs avoid holding these stocks due to diversification concerns, allowing deviations of prices from fundamental values. In this paper we test this proposition using hedge fund holding data....

Mandatory contributions to defined benefit pension plans provide a unique identification strategy to estimate the market's assessment of the value of internal resources controlling for investment opportunities. The drop in prices following these cash outflows is magnified for firms that appear a...

The paper studies institutional trading ahead of scheduled information releases, notably earnings announcements. While scheduled news are known to be preceded by sizeable stock returns, we find that institutional investors on average forego part of these premia as they decrease their exposure to...

We introduce a new dynamic trading strategy based on the systematic mispricing of U.S. companies sponsoring Defined Benefit pension plans. This portfolio produces an average return of 1.51% monthly between 1989 and 2004, with a Sharpe Ratio of 0.26. The returns of the strategy are not explained...

This paper finds that the market betas of value and small stocks have decreased by about 75% in the second half of the twentieth century. The path of beta can be closely tracked using variables that summarize the state of the economy. On the basis of this analysis, the decline in beta can be...

We evaluate how different betas and characteristics related to default, term, and liquidity risk fare against one another in explaining the cross-section of corporate bond returns. We find that characteristics-credit rating, duration, and Amihud illiquidity measure-fare better. Yields add...

We examine the impact of ETF ownership on the commonality in liquidity of underlying stocks, while controlling for other institutional ownership. Analyses using aggregate stock-level ETF ownership and common ETF ownership at the stock-pair level indicate that ETF ownership significantly...