The Illiquidity Discount of Life Insurance Investments

We incorporate an illiquid life insurance investment in the multi-period investment strategy of an investor with constant relative risk aversion and independent and identically distributed returns. In our setup, the liquid and the illiquid assets are risky and correlated and the illiquid investment cannot be rebalanced. We calculate the illiquidity discount as the difference in certainty equivalent rates of return between the optimal strategy with all assets being rebalanced in each period and the strategy with the illiquid investment. Calibrating our model to data of the German market we find a negative relationship between the level of risk aversion and the illiquidity discount when the investor does not rebalance at all. However, when the investor rebalances his liquid assets in each period to hedge against the illiquid investment the illiquidity discount becomes economically negligible.     

Stock market illiquidity,bargaining power and the cost of borrowing

We show that firms with illiquid stock have higher syndicated loan spreads. This result is invariant to measurement of stock illiquidity, and is robust to a wide set of cross-sectional loan and firm features, firm and time fixed effects. It also holds using a matched difference-in-differences estimator, at an exogenous reduction in the minimum tick size of major United States exchanges, and using a two-stage least squares estimator. Stock illiquidity is shown to increase spreads more when a lead lender has a high market share or a borrower has a low credit rating. It increases spreads less when a borrower has public rated debt and it diminishes the benefit to the loan recipient of a lending relationship. Measurements of stock price informativeness and firm-level governance do not affect the stock illiquidity and loan spread relation. A rationale for these findings is that stock illiquidity impairs the bargaining power of corporate borrowers, in negotiating a loan rate, as it raises the cost of alternatively raising funds by issuing equity.     

Liquidity and information asymmetry considerations in corporate takeovers

ABSTRACT

We examine how stock market liquidity and information asymmetry considerations influence the wealth effects of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). We present a simple model predicting that M&As of listed targets that have relatively illiquid stocks are profitable for acquirers due to (a) the weak bargaining power of the targets’ shareholders, and (b) the limited information asymmetry concerns when evaluating takeover synergies. Our results show that cash-financed M&As of listed targets that have relatively illiquid stocks are associated with an increase in acquirer risk-adjusted returns. These gains are equivalent to those realized from comparable private target M&As. When engaging in stock-financed listed-target M&As, acquirers with liquid stocks enjoy significant gains when the targets have relatively illiquid stocks. This result holds especially when the deal is announced during periods of deterioration in the overall stock market liquidity. Lastly, we find that liquidity considerations affect the acquirer’s choice of the target firm’s listing status, as well as the M&A method of payment.     

Expected returns and expected dividend growth

We investigate a consumption-based present-value relation that is a function of future dividend growth and find that changing forecasts of dividend growth are an important feature of the post-war U.S. stock market, despite the failure of the dividend–price ratio to uncover such variation. In addition, dividend forecasts are found to covary with changing forecasts of excess stock returns over business cycle frequencies. This covariation is important because positively correlated fluctuations in expected dividend growth and expected returns have offsetting effects on the log dividend–price ratio. The market risk premium and expected dividend growth thus vary considerably more than is apparent using the log divided–price ratio alone as a predictive variable.     

Liquidity risk of corporate bond returns: conditional approach

We study the exposure of the US corporate bond returns to liquidity shocks of stocks and Treasury bonds over the period 1973–2007 in a regime-switching model. In one regime, liquidity shocks have mostly insignificant effects on bond prices, whereas in another regime, a rise in illiquidity produces significant but conflicting effects: Prices of investment-grade bonds rise while prices of speculative-grade (junk) bonds fall substantially (relative to the market). Relating the probability of these regimes to macroeconomic conditions we find that the second regime can be predicted by economic conditions that are characterized as “stress.” These effects, which are robust to controlling for other systematic risks (term and default), suggest the existence of time-varying liquidity risk of corporate bond returns conditional on episodes of flight to liquidity. Our model can predict the out-of-sample bond returns for the stress years 2008–2009. We find a similar pattern for stocks classified by high or low book-to-market ratio, where again, liquidity shocks play a special role in periods characterized by adverse economic conditions.     

Illiquidity,return and risk in G7 stock markets: Interdependencies and spillovers

Trading activity in G7 stock markets reflects not only the macroeconomic and financial impact of these G7 economies in international economic growth, but also their financial interdependence. While this nexus of major stock markets has been explored in terms of volatility and return spillovers, there has been no combined analysis of return, volatility and illiquidity spillovers. We study illiquidity spillovers because they are transmissions of trading activity and, thereof, transmissions of information and market sentiment. We find that the dynamics of international stock markets are characterized by persistent illiquidity and also that illiquidity shocks are significantly correlated across markets. Furthermore, we discover Granger causal associations between risk, return and illiquidity across G7 stock market and also within each stock market. Our findings bear significance for the regulation of international financial markets and also for international portfolio diversification.     

The Equity Premium: Consistent with GDP Growth and Portfolio Insurance

We find that the long‐term equity premium is consistent with both GDP growth and portfolio insurance. We use a supply‐side growth model and demonstrate that the arithmetic average stock market return and the returns on corporate assets and debt depend on GDP per capita growth. The implied equity premium matches the U.S. historical average over 1926–2001. Separately, we find that the equity premium tracks the value of a put option on the S&P 500. Our theory predicts a smaller equity premium in the future, assuming that the recent regime shifts in dividend policies, interest rates, and tax rates are permanent.     

The 2008 short sale ban: Liquidity, dispersion of opinion, and the cross-section of returns of US financial stocks

This study examines the cross-sectional impact of the 2008 short sale ban on the returns of US financial stocks. Motivated by the large cross-sectional variation in the extent to which banned stocks suffer an illiquidity shock, we hypothesize that stocks with larger liquidity declines are associated with poorer contemporaneous stock returns. The evidence supports this hypothesis and suggests that this effect is stronger for more liquid stocks, as predicted by Amihud and Mendelson (1986). Moreover, consistent with Miller’s (1977) model, we report a valuation reversal whereby stocks with higher abnormal returns at the onset of the ban have lower abnormal returns at its removal. Our findings are robust when we control for firms most affected by TARP, include non-banned matched firms, and compare banned firms’ stock returns with their bond returns. From a policy standpoint, the ban reduced valuations, ceteris paribus, of the stocks that were hardest hit by illiquidity.     

Time‐Varying Risk–Return Trade‐off in the Stock Market

We uncover a strong comovement of the stock market risk–return trade‐off with the consumption–wealth ratio (CAY). The finding reflects time‐varying investment opportunities rather than countercyclical aggregate relative risk aversion. Specifically, the partial risk–return trade‐off is positive and constant when we control for CAY as a proxy for investment opportunities. Moreover, conditional market variance scaled by CAY is negatively priced in the cross‐section of stock returns. Our results are consistent with a limited stock market participation model, in which shareholders require an illiquidity premium that increases with CAY, in addition to the risk premium that is proportional to conditional market variance.     

Hierarchical Determinants of Brazilian Stock Returns During the 2008 Financial Crisis

Abstract:

We analyze the influence of firm- and industry-level determinants on stock returns during the 2008 financial crisis, using a hierarchical linear model to analyze the returns of 135 Brazilian firms. The impact of these determinants on stock returns has not received sufficient attention in periods of severe market decline. The following determinants were significant: (1) industry-level determinants (unlevered beta, historical sales growth, and regulated tariff), and (2) firm-level determinants (size, illiquidity, and book-to-market ratio). We also identified an indirect influence of unlevered beta over book-to-market that reflects a behavior that we call the “misconfidence effect.”     

A comparison among various dimensions of illiquidity effect: A case study of Finland

We study different dimensions of the illiquidity effect on asset returns in the Finnish market. The market illiquidity is measured as unexpected rises and falls in average monthly zero returns across all stocks. We find that for the returns on the specific class of assets, a flight to the liquidity effect is the most important systematic risk among all dimensions of the illiquidity effect. In other words, higher returns for illiquid assets in good times compensate for a pronounced drop in those returns in bad times and vice versa. Furthermore, only one illiquidity-related factor has a similar pricing capacity as Fama and French's (1993) three-factor model and Carhart's (1997) four-factor model in the context of this study.     

Size,time-varying beta,and conditional heteroscedasticity in UK stock returns

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between firm size and time-varying betas of UK stocks. We extend the Schwert and Seguin (1990)(Journal of Finance 45, 1120–1155) methodology by explicitly modeling conditional heteroscedasticity in the market model residual returns. Our results show that the time-varying coefficient is not statistically significant for both small and large firm stock indexes. We also find that accounting for GARCH effects in the Schwert-Seguin market model yields beta estimates that are markedly differently from those when conditional heteroscedasticity is ignored. Event studies that ignore conditional heteroscedasticity may bias the abnormal returns of small and large firms, thereby leading to a different conclusion regarding the significance of an information event.     

Stock market short-termism—an international perspective

This study uses a VAR approach with a time-varying risk premium to see if stock market investors are short-term oriented, placing too much weight on current and near cash flows. Using aggregate stock market data for Australia, Germany, Japan, USA and UK markets (1977–1999), we find the degree of persistent under-valuation of future cash flows is far higher in the UK relative to the other countries in our sample, and is market-wide. Also, over the period, US investors appear to have consistently underestimated long horizon cash flows in current stock market valuations relative to a rational valuation model.     

What Determined the Great Cap Rate Compression of 2000–2007, and the Dramatic Reversal During the 2008–2009 Financial Crisis?

In this paper we revisit the many studies that have attempted to explain the determinants of commercial real estate capitalization rates. We introduce two new innovations. First we are able to incorporate two macroeconomic factors that greatly impact cap rates besides treasury rates and local market fundamentals – the variables most commonly used in such research. These are the general corporate risk premium operating in the economy, and the growth rate of debt relative to GDP in the general economy (liquidity). The addition of these factors greatly adds to the ability of previous models to explain the secular fall of cap rates in the last decade and their recent rise – in terms of traditional measures of within-sample fit. Our second innovation is methodological; our analysis uses a large and robust quarterly panel data set of over 30 US metropolitan areas from 1980q1 through 2009q3. With this data we compare 3 models: a “base model” and then one that selectively adds each of our macro-economic variables. We test the ability of each of these models to fit the 2002–2009 period using “back test” dynamic forecasts. Our conclusion is that much of the secular decline in cap rates from 2000 through 2007 and their subsequent rise seem attributable to the macro-economic factors and less to movements in market fundamentals.     

Pricing of time-varying liquidity risk in Finnish stock market: new evidence

Using two recently developed illiquidity measures, we estimate a conditional version of liquidity-adjusted capital asset pricing model (LCAPM), which allows for a time-varying decomposition of the total illiquidity premium into a level component and three risk components. The total estimated annualized illiquidity premium for the Finnish equities during 1997–2015 is 1.13–1.90% depending on the illiquidity measure. Of the three systematic liquidity risk components, risk arising from hedging of wealth shocks is the most important followed by commonality in liquidity risk, whereas flight to liquidity risk is not significantly priced in the Finnish stock market. Our results show that the liquidity risk is time varying, therefore the models estimating the risk-return relationship should address the issue of conditionality.     

Performance of Thinly Traded Assets: A Case in Real Estate

Thinly traded private assets do not fit into the traditional finance paradigm of a liquid and well‐functioning market where trading is continuous and instantaneous. Since private assets cannot be bought and sold easily, they bear liquidity risk. Classical finance theories cannot properly gauge the performance of illiquid private assets because they implicitly assume such illiquidity is trivial. This paper proposes an alternative performance metric for the illiquid private asset, which explicitly captures liquidity risk in a formal analysis. Applying the new performance metric, we are able to explain the decades‐old “real estate risk premium puzzle.”     

Assessing the accuracy and dispersion of real estate investment forecasts

Existing empirical evidence has frequently observed that professional forecasters are conservative and display herding behaviour. Whilst a large number of papers have considered equities as well as macroeconomic series, few have considered the accuracy of forecasts in alternative asset classes such as real estate. We consider the accuracy of forecasts for the UK commercial real estate market over the period 1999–2011. The results illustrate that forecasters display a tendency to under-estimate growth rates during strong market conditions and over-estimate when the market is performing poorly. This conservatism not only results in smoothed estimates but also implies that forecasters display herding behaviour. There is also a marked difference in the relative accuracy of capital and total returns versus rental figures. Whilst rental growth forecasts are relatively accurate, considerable inaccuracy is observed with respect to capital value and total returns.     

The empirical relationship between risk and return: evidence from the UK stock market

Previous studies reach no consensus on the relationship between risk and return using data from one market. We argue that the world market factor should not be ignored in assessing the risk-return relationship in a partially integrated market. Applying a bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity in mean (GARCH-M) model to the weekly stock index returns from the UK and the world market, we document a significant positive relationship between stock returns and the variance of returns in the UK stock market after controlling for the covariance of the UK and the world market return. In contrast, conventional univariate GARCH-M models typically fail to detect this relationship. Nonnested hypothesis tests supplemented with other commonly used model selection criteria unambiguously demonstrate that our bivariate GARCH-M model is more likely to be the true model for UK stock market returns than univariate GARCH-M models. Our results have implications for empirical assessments of the risk-return relationship, expected return estimation, and international diversification.     

A note on price limit performance: The case of illiquid stocks

In the Chinese stock markets, there are A-shares and B-shares. Both share-types have identical cash flow rights but different ownership structures (i.e., A-shares are owned by local Chinese citizens and B-shares are owned primarily by foreigners), causing B-shares to be less liquid relative to A-shares. However, even though B-shares have much wider bid—ask spreads than A-shares, both share-types are subject to the same 10% daily price limit regulation. As such, B-shares, simply due to their wider spreads, may be more inclined than A-shares to hit price limits. Our empirical results support this contention. The findings have policy implications. First, given wide spreads for illiquid stocks, exchanges may consider using midpoint prices (between bid and ask prices) to establish price limit ranges for illiquid stocks. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, exchanges may consider using wider price limits for less liquid classes of stocks.     

Option market making under inventory risk

We propose a mean-variance framework to analyze the optimal quoting policy of an option market maker. The market maker’s profits come from the bid-ask spreads received over the course of a trading day, while the risk comes from uncertainty in the value of his portfolio, or inventory. Within this framework, we study the impact of liquidity and market incompleteness on the optimal bid and ask prices of the option. First, we consider a market maker in a complete market, where continuous trading in a perfectly liquid underlying stock is allowed. In this setting, the market maker may remove all risk by Delta hedging, and the optimal quotes will depend on the option’s liquidity, but not on the inventory. Second, we model a market maker who may not trade continuously in the underlying stock, but rather sets bid and ask quotes in the option and this illiquid stock. We find that the optimal stock and option quotes depend on the relative liquidity of both instruments as well as on the net Delta of the inventory. Third, we consider an incomplete market with residual risks due to stochastic volatility and large overnight moves in the stock price. In this setting, the optimal quotes depend on the liquidity of the option and on the net Vega and Gamma of the inventory.