An Anatomy of Commodity Futures Risk Premia

We identify two types of risk premia in commodity futures returns: spot premia related to the risk in the underlying commodity, and term premia related to changes in the basis. Sorting on forecasting variables such as the futures basis, return momentum, volatility, inflation, hedging pressure, and liquidity results in sizable spot premia between 5% and 14% per annum and term premia between 1% and 3% per annum. We show that a single factor, the high‐minus‐low portfolio from basis sorts, explains the cross‐section of spot premia. Two additional basis factors are needed to explain the term premia.     

Liquidity of emerging markets

Emerging markets are characterized by volatile, but substantial returns that can easily exceed 75% per annum. Balancing these lofty returns are liquidity costs that, using the bid–ask spread as a basis, range from 1% for the Taiwanese market to over 47% for the Russian market. However, the paucity of bid–ask spread information across countries and time requires the use of liquidity estimates in emerging markets even though little is known about the efficacy of these estimates in measuring bid–ask spread costs. Using firm-level quoted bid–ask spreads as a basis, I find that price-based liquidity measures of Lesmond et al. [Review of Financial Studies 12 (1999) 1113] and Roll [Journal of Finance 39 (1984) 1127] perform better at representing cross-country liquidity effects than do volume based liquidity measures. Within-country liquidity is best measured with the liquidity estimates of either Lesmond, Ogden, and Trzcinka or, to a lesser extent, Amihud (2002). Examining the impact of legal origin and political institutions on liquidity levels shows that countries with weak political and legal institutions have significantly higher liquidity costs than do countries with strong political and legal systems, even to the exclusion of legal origin or insider trading enforcement. Higher incremental political risk is associated with a 10 basis point increase in transaction costs, using the Lesmond, Ogden, and Trzcinka estimate, or a 1.9% increase in price impact costs, using the Amihud estimate.     

Liquidity Premia and Transaction Costs

Standard literature concludes that transaction costs only have a second‐order effect on liquidity premia. We show that this conclusion depends crucially on the assumption of a constant investment opportunity set. In a regime‐switching model in which the investment opportunity set varies over time, we explicitly characterize the optimal consumption and investment strategy. In contrast to the standard literature, we find that transaction costs can have a first‐order effect on liquidity premia. However, with reasonably calibrated parameters, the presence of transaction costs still cannot fully explain the equity premium puzzle.     

Adverse selection in cryptocurrency markets

In this article we investigate the influence that information asymmetry may have on future volatility, liquidity, market toxicity, and returns within cryptocurrency markets. We use the adverse-selection component of the effective spread as a proxy for overall information asymmetry. Using order and trade data from the Bitfinex exchange, we first document statistically significant adverse-selection costs for major cryptocurrencies. Also, our results suggest that adverse-selection costs, on average, correspond to 10% of the estimated effective spread, indicating an economically significant impact of adverse-selection risk on transaction costs in cryptocurrency markets. Finally, we document that adverse-selection costs are important predictors of intraday volatility, liquidity, market toxicity, and returns.     

Cross-sectional dispersion and expected returns

This study investigates whether the cross-sectional dispersion of stock returns, which reflects the aggregate level of idiosyncratic risk in the market, represents a priced state variable. We find that stocks with high sensitivities to dispersion offer low expected returns. Furthermore, a zero-cost spread portfolio that is long (short) in stocks with low (high) dispersion betas produces a statistically and economically significant return. Dispersion is associated with a significantly negative risk premium in the cross section (–1.32% per annum) which is distinct from premia commanded by alternative systematic factors. These results are robust to stock characteristics and market conditions.     

Currency momentum strategies

We provide a broad empirical investigation of momentum strategies in the foreign exchange market. We find a significant cross-sectional spread in excess returns of up to 10% per annum (p.a.) between past winner and loser currencies. This spread in excess returns is not explained by traditional risk factors, it is partially explained by transaction costs and shows behavior consistent with investor under- and overreaction. Moreover, cross-sectional currency momentum has very different properties from the widely studied carry trade and is not highly correlated with returns of benchmark technical trading rules. However, there seem to be very effective limits to arbitrage that prevent momentum returns from being easily exploitable in currency markets.     

Measuring bond mutual fund performance with portfolio characteristics

This paper studies the performance of U.S. bond mutual funds using measures constructed from a novel data set of portfolio weights. Active fund managers exhibit outperformance before costs and fees generating, on average, gross returns of 1% per annum over the benchmark portfolio constructed using past holdings (approximately the same magnitude as expenses and transaction costs combined). This suggests that fund managers are able to earn back their fees and costs. There is evidence of neutral ability to time different portfolio allocations (sector, credit quality, and portfolio maturity allocations) and only a subgroup of bond funds exhibit successful timing ability. One performance measure based on portfolio holdings predicts future fund performance and provides information not contained in the standard measures. These results provide the first evidence of the value of active management in bond mutual funds.     

Inferring the Components of the Bid-Ask Spread: Theory and Empirical Tests

The relation between the square of the quoted bid-ask spread and two serial covariances—the serial covariance of transaction returns and the serial covariance of quoted returns—is modeled as a function of the probability of a price reversal, π, and the magnitude of a price change, ?, where ? is stated as a fraction of the quoted spread. Different models of the spread are contrasted in terms of the parameters, π and ?. Using data on the transaction prices and price quotations for NASDAQ/NMS stocks, π and ? are estimated and the relative importance of the components of the quoted spread—adverse information costs, order processing costs, and inventory holding costs—is determined.     

Transaction costs, trading volume, and the liquidity premium

In a market with one safe and one risky asset, an investor with a long horizon, constant investment opportunities and constant relative risk aversion trades with small proportional transaction costs. We derive explicit formulas for the optimal investment policy, its implied welfare, liquidity premium, and trading volume. At the first order, the liquidity premium equals the spread, times share turnover, times a universal constant. The results are robust to consumption and finite horizons. We exploit the equivalence of the transaction cost market to another frictionless market, with a shadow risky asset, in which investment opportunities are stochastic. The shadow price is also found explicitly.     

Asymmetric Trading Costs Prior to Earnings Announcements: Implications for Price Discovery and Returns

We show that the cost of trading on negative news, relative to positive news, increases before earnings announcements. Our evidence suggests that this asymmetry is due to financial intermediaries reducing their exposure to announcement risks by providing liquidity asymmetrically. This asymmetry creates a predictable upward bias in prices that increases preannouncement, and subsequently reverses, confounding short‐window announcement returns as measures of earnings news and risk premia. These findings provide an alternative explanation for asymmetric return reactions to firms' earnings news, and help explain puzzling prior evidence that announcement risk premia precede the actual announcements. Our study informs methods for research centering on earnings announcements and offers a possible explanation for patterns in returns around anticipated periods of heightened inventory risks, including alternative firm‐level, industry‐level, and macroeconomic information events.     

Australian evidence on the implementation of the size and value premia

This study investigates whether passive investment managers can exploit the size and value premia without incurring prohibitive transaction costs or being exposed to substantial tracking error risk. Returns on the value premium are shown to be pervasive across size groups, while the size premium is nonlinear and driven by microcaps. The value premium cannot be explained by the capital asset pricing model; however, returns on value portfolios do covary across monetary regimes. The substantial turnover required to achieve annual rebalancing and the relative illiquidity of Australian small‐cap firms means that investing in a portfolio of large‐cap value firms appears to be the best way for passive fund managers to exploit the Fama and French (1993) premia.     

Tactical Asset Allocation and Stock Issuance in the Korean Stock Market

Stock issuance predicts future stock returns in the Korean market. This creates profitable trading opportunities. Abnormal returns exist in the zero-cost portfolio that short the firms issuing large numbers of shares and longs those issuing small numbers of shares. Their average abnormal return is 12 percent per annum, which is highly significant even after controlling for market, size, value, and momentum factors as well as transaction costs. The authors suggest the possibility of fixed costs in equity market timing. Only the sizable benefit from market timing over fixed costs motivates firms to increase net equity shares.     

Trading and liquidity in the catastrophe bond market

We provide first insights into secondary market trading, liquidity determinants, and the liquidity premium of catastrophe bonds. Based on transaction data from TRACE (Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine), we find that cat bonds are traded less frequently during the hurricane season and more often close to maturity. Trading activity indicates that the market is dominated by brokers without a proprietary inventory. Liquidity is high in periods of high trading activity in the overall market and for bonds with low default risk or close to maturity, which results from lower order processing costs. Finally, using realized bid–ask spreads as a liquidity measure, we find that on average, 21% of the observable yield spread on the cat bond market is attributable to the liquidity premium, with a magnitude of up to 141 bps for high-risk bonds.     

Size,value, and momentum in developed country equity returns: Macroeconomic and liquidity exposures

The paper investigates value and momentum factors in 23 developed international stock markets. We find that typically value and momentum premia are smaller and more negatively correlated for large market capitalization stocks relative to small. Momentum factors are more highly correlated internationally relative to value. We provide international evidence on three sets of risk exposures of value and momentum returns: macroeconomic risk, funding liquidity risk, and stock market liquidity risk. We find that value returns are typically lower prior to a recession while momentum returns often exhibit little sensitivity. Value returns are typically lower in times of poor funding liquidity, whereas, with notable exceptions, momentum returns are typically unaffected. Lastly, for almost all countries, value returns are high in poor stock market liquidity conditions.     

Transparency,Liquidity, and Valuation: International Evidence on When Transparency Matters Most

We examine the relation between firm‐level transparency, stock market liquidity, and valuation across countries, focusing on whether the relation varies with a firm's characteristics and economic environment. We document lower transaction costs and greater liquidity (as measured by lower bid‐ask spreads and fewer zero‐return days) for firms with greater transparency (as measured by less evidence of earnings management, better accounting standards, higher quality auditors, more analyst following, and more accurate analyst forecasts). The relation between transparency and liquidity is more pronounced in periods of high volatility, when investor protection, disclosure requirements, and media penetration are poor, and when ownership is more concentrated, suggesting that firm‐level transparency matters more when overall investor uncertainty is greater. Increased liquidity is associated with lower implied cost of capital and with higher valuation as measured by Tobin's Q. Finally, a mediation analysis suggests that liquidity is a significant channel through which transparency affects firm valuation and equity cost of capital.     

A SPECIALIST'S QUOTED DEPTH AS A STRATEGIC CHOICE VARIABLE: AN APPLICATION TO SPREAD DECOMPOSITION MODELS

Although there is a sizable literature demonstrating that liquidity and transaction costs are multidimensional, researchers continue to estimate adverse‐selection costs using only prices. We present a model of a profit‐maximizing specialist who posts prices and depths. The model is simulated to measure changes in the adverse‐selection component of the spread that result under different levels of informed trading. We find that spread decompositions fail to capture the full extent of adverse‐selection risk when specialists choose depth. We recommend that researchers use adverse‐selection measures that account for depth as well as spread to mitigate this problem.     

CHANGES IN CAPITAL STRUCTURE,NEW EQUITY ISSUES,AND SCALE EFFECTS

This study determines the impact of a new issue of common stock on security holder wealth and the magnitude attributable to transaction costs, tax shield dilution, wealth transfers, and informational content. The empirical results indicate that shareholders of firms announcing new equity issues experience significant, abnormal, negative returns. The per share transaction cost accounts for 22.6 percent of the observed abnormal return. The tax shield dilution effect accounts for 7.8 percent. No evidence of a wealth transfer effect is found. Thus, approximately 70 percent of the abnormal return can be attributed to new unfavorable information that becomes available to the market.     

Municipal Debt and Marginal Tax Rates: Is There a Tax Premium in Asset Prices?

We study the marginal tax rate incorporated into short‐term municipal rates using municipal swap market data. Using an affine model, we identify the marginal tax rate and the credit/liquidity spread in 1‐week tax‐exempt rates, as well as their associated risk premia. The marginal tax rate averages 38.0% and is related to stock, bond, and commodity returns. The tax risk premium is negative, consistent with the strong countercyclical nature of after‐tax fixed‐income cash flows. These results demonstrate that tax risk is a systematic asset pricing factor and help resolve the muni‐bond puzzle.     

Liquidity and Returns to Target Shareholders in the Market for Corporate Control: Evidence from the US Markets

In this paper we analyze how stock market liquidity affects the abnormal return to target firms in mergers and tender offers. We predict that target firms with poorer stock market liquidity receive larger announcement day abnormal returns based on the following considerations. First, target firms with poorer stock market liquidity receive greater liquidity improvements after a merger or tender offer. Second, deals that involve less liquid targets are less anticipated and/or more likely to be completed. Third, less liquid stocks have more diverse reservation prices across shareholders and thus require a higher takeover return. Consistent with these expectations, we show that abnormal returns to target firms’ shareholders are significantly and positively related to the difference in liquidity (measured by the bid‐ask spread) between acquirers and targets as well as the magnitude of target firms’ liquidity improvement.     

Global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange market

Using a broad data set of 20 US dollar exchange rates and order flow of institutional investors over 14 years, we construct a measure of global liquidity risk in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Our FX liquidity measure may be seen as the analog of the well-known Pastor–Stambaugh liquidity measure for the US stock market. We show that this measure has reasonable properties, and that there is a strong common component in liquidity across currencies. Finally, we provide evidence that liquidity risk is priced in the cross-section of currency returns, and estimate the liquidity risk premium in the FX market around 4.7 percent per annum.