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A correction is presented to the article "The Macroeconomic Uncertainty Premium in the Corporate Bond Market" which appeared in the August 2021 issue.

We investigate the link between exchange-traded funds and real investment. Cross-sectionally, higher ETF ownership is associated with an increased sensitivity of real investment to Tobin's q and a heightened ability of stock returns to forecast future earnings. Inclusion of stocks in industry ETFs enhances investment- |$q$| sensitivity and implies greater incorporation of earnings information into prices prior to public releases. Greater nonmarket ETF ownership leads to increased (reduced) reliance of real investment on own (peers') stock prices. Overall, the evidence is consistent with ETFs positively affecting real investment efficiency via greater flows of information. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We link equity and treasury bond markets via an informational channel. When macroeconomic state shifts are more probable, informed traders are more likely to have valid signals about fundamentals, so that uninformed traders are less willing to trade against informed ones. This implies low volume and high volatility, that is, a high volatility–volume ratio (VVR). Central banks react to state shifts, but their actions are uncertain. Therefore, a higher state shift likelihood implies larger bond risk premia. These arguments together imply that VVR should positively predict bond excess returns. We empirically test and confirm this prediction, both in- and out-of-sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that the volatility of order flow is a proxy for costs of information asymmetry, as order flow volatility varies positively with parameters that also influence adverse selection costs of trading. Empirically, order flow volatility is significantly higher prior to earnings or merger announcements when information asymmetry is likely to be elevated. Levels of and shocks to order flow volatility are positively and significantly correlated with existing illiquidity proxies, and strongly predict stock returns in the cross section. The impact of order imbalance volatility shocks on stock prices is reflected within one month in large, visible stocks but takes up to four months to be fully reflected in small, 'neglected' stocks. History: Accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance. Funding: This research was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 grant and the Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics at the Singapore Management University. In addition, J. Hu acknowledges financial support from the Lee Kong Chian Fund for Excellence, and A. Subrahmanyam acknowledges financial support from the National Science Foundation of China [Grant 71720107001]. Supplemental Material: The Internet appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2848. Keywords: asset pricing * investment * order flow, 1. Introduction We examine the relation between returns and both levels of as well as shocks to the variability of order flows. Both of the latter variables have an impact [...]

This paper explores liquidity spillovers in market-capitalization based portfolios of NYSE stocks. Return, volatility, and liquidity dynamics across the small and large cap sector are modeled by way of a vector autoregression model, using data that spans more than 3000 trading days. We find that volatility and liquidity innovations in either sector are informative in predicting liquidity shifts in the other. Impulse responses indicate the existence of persistent liquidity, return, and volatility spillovers across the large and small cap sectors. Lead and lag patterns across small and large cap stocks are stronger when spreads in the large cap sector are wider. Consistent with the notion that private informational trading in large cap stocks is transmitted to other stocks with a lag, order flows in large cap stocks decile significantly predict both transaction price-based and mid-quote returns of small cap deciles when large-cap spreads are high.

Since arbitrage involves trading, it is potentially impeded by market frictions and costs. We study whether stock market liquidity is related to the efficacy of arbitrage. Specifically, we examine the joint time-series of the NYSE Composite index futures basis and aggregate liquidity on the NYSE for a relatively long time-period, over 3000 trading days, and find that the basis and liquidity are jointly determined. Contemporaneous innovations in the absolute basis and in bid-ask spreads are positively correlated. There is also evidence of two-way Granger causality between short-term absolute bases and effective spreads. Impulse response functions indicate that shocks to the absolute basis are significantly informative in predicting spreads.

We study the consumption-investment problem of a CRRA agent who possesses private information about the future prospects of a stock. We compute the value of the information to the agent by comparing the utility equivalent with and without the information of the agent. The value of private of information to the agent depends linearly on the wealth of agents and decreases with both the propensity to intermediate consumption and the risk aversion. Agents with low coefficients of relative risk aversion value private information more highly. Consistent with the empirical literature, the optimal portfolio holdings of informed agents are correlated with expected returns on the risky asset.

In this study, we employ order imbalance measures to provide evidence that there exists an individual/institutional dichotomy in reactions to seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). The evidence supports the notion that small, possibly naıve, individual investors keep trading SEO stocks aggressively while the returns of these stocks reverse in the post-issue period. Investors appear to be tardy in adjusting their overoptimism, and their trades systematically lag the return response. It appears to take more than two years for small individual investors to adequately revise their overoptimistic views. Consequently, the SEO portfolios that individual investors buy on net strongly underperform relative to the size-matching nonissuer portfolios as well as to the SEO portfolios that institutional investors buy on net in the post-issue period.

We analyze the relation between analyst attributes (years of experience, reputation of the analysts’ brokerage houses) and the short- and long-term price reactions to recommendations made by the analysts. We find that in the long-term, the recommendation changes of highly experienced analysts outperform those of low-experience ones. In addition, investors appear to overreact to dramatic upgrades of low-ability analysts, and underreact to small upgrades by high-ability analysts. These results are consistent with the Griffin and Tversky (1992) argument that agents place too much emphasis on the strength of the signal (the dramatic nature of the event) and insufficient emphasis on the weight (the ability of the analyst making the recommendation). The study helps promote an understanding of the analyst industry and its interaction with the investing population.

We provide a model in which irrational investors trade based upon considerations that are not inherently related to fundamentals. However, because trading activity affects market prices, and because of feedback from security prices to cash flows, the irrational trades influence underlying cash flows. As a result, irrational investors can, in some situations, earn positive expected profits. These expected profits are not market compensation for bearing risk, and can exceed the expected profits of rational informed investors. The trades of irrational investors can distort real investment choices and lower ex ante firm values, even though stocks prices follow a random

We present a dynamic model of production in which a firm’s output increases when its managers share their information. Communication of ideas depends on the quality of the firm’s internal language. We prove that firms with richer languages (i.e., more organizational capital) will have higher market values. Organizational capital generates static complementarities among incumbents which implies that firms with richer languages will experience greater employee retention and higher wages. Dynamic complementarities between intertemporal investments in language generate long-run persistence in firm market-to-book and turnover ratios. We demonstrate that the optimal compensation of incumbents includes an earnings-insensitive component that is larger in firms with richer languages. In a simple model of mergers, we show that the most value-creating mergers are those between firms with highly disparate languages.

Daily returns for stocks listed on the New York Exchange (NYSE) are not serially dependent. In contrast, order imbalances on the same stocks are highly persistent from day to day. These two empirical facts can be reconciled if sophisticated investors react to order imbalances within the trading day by engaging in countervailing trades sufficient to remove serial dependence over the daily horizon. How long does this actually take? The pattern of intra-day serial dependence, over intervals ranging from five minutes to one hour, reveals traces of efficiency-creating actions. For the actively traded NYSE stocks in our sample, it takes longer than five minutes for astute investors to begin such activities. By thirty minutes, they are well along on their daily quest.

This paper investigates the effect of company brand perceptions on investor incentives to hold stocks. We find that, after controlling for other postulated determinants of stockholdings, there is a negative and significant cross-sectional relation between percentage institutional holdings and brand visibility. This finding indicates a propensity for individual investors to hold stocks with strong brand recognition, which is consistent with the hypothesis that individuals prefer to invest in companies whose products are readily recognized. Furthermore, we find that institutional holdings are positively related to firm size and beta, while being negatively related to total return volatility. Our analysis supports the notion that institutional portfolios eschew the relatively neglected sector characterized by small firms with high total volatility, whereas individual investors prefer holding stocks with low systematic risk and high recognition. The results contribute to our understanding of how financial market investors form their equity portfolios.

We study the joint time-series of daily liquidity in government bond and stock markets over the period 1991 to 1998. Innovations in liquidity are positively and significantly correlated across stock and bond markets. Further, order imbalances in the stock market impact bond and stock liquidity, even after controlling for order imbalances in the bond market. Both results suggest the existence of a common liquidity factor in stock and bond markets. We consider monetary conditions and mutual fund flows as sources of order flow and as primitive determinants of liquidity. Monetary expansion enhances stock market liquidity during crises. U.S. government bond funds see higher inflows and equity funds see higher outflows during financial crises, and these flows are associated with decreased liquidity in stock and bond markets. Our results establish a link between “macro” liquidity, or money flows, and “micro” or transactions liquidity.

We study how daily returns and volume behave around the Jewish High Holy Days. We find that on both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, volume is down significantly, relative to that on all trading days in the sample period. When we consider a cumulative measure that allows for preemptive or delayed trading activity, we find that returns are significantly positive around Rosh HaShanah and significantly negative around Yom Kippur. Overall, the results are consistent with our a priori intuition that Jews play a major role in equity trading, so that their sentiment around important Jewish holidays has a significant impact on the U.S. equity market.

Data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange identify the originator of each submitted order, and there are no designated dealers or specialists. We study marketable order imbalances, i.e., the net order flow resulting from trades that demand immediacy. We distinguish imbalances by trader type (individuals, domestic institutions, foreign institutions) and by the usual size of each trader’s order. Day-to-day persistence in order imbalance is strongest for small foreign institutions and weakest for large individual traders. Such persistence emanates both from splitting orders over time and from herding, and there is little evidence that aggregate price pressures from such persistence last beyond a trading day, indicating that de facto market-making is quite effective. We attempt to discern which types of traders are de facto liquidity-providers, which are likely to be informed, and which trade for liquidity reasons. The evidence indicates that all trader classes are successful market-makers, large domestic institutions conduct the most informed trades, and large individuals are noise or liquidity traders.

Note: This paper has been published in the "International Review of Finance." It is published in: Vol 3, No.1, March 2002,pp. 27-52 of the journal.

This paper studies the relation between order imbalances and daily returns of individual stocks. Our tests are motivated by a model which explicitly considers how market makers dynamically accommodate autocorrelated imbalances emanating from large traders who optimally choose to split their orders. Price pressures caused by autocorrelated imbalances cause a positive relation between lagged imbalances and returns, which reverses sign after controlling for the current imbalance. We find empirical evidence consistent with these implications. We also find that imbalance-based trading strategies yield statistically significant returns. Our results shed light on the role of inventory effects in daily stock price movements.

In this paper, we analyze cross-sectional heterogeneity in the time-series variation of liquidity in equity markets. Our analysis uses a broad time-series and cross-section of liquidity data. We find that average daily changes in liquidity exhibit significant heterogeneity in the cross-section; the liquidity of small firms varies more on a daily basis than that of large firms. A steady increase in aggregate market liquidity over the past decade is more strongly manifest in large firms than in small firms. Absolute stock returns are an important determinant of liquidity. We investigate cross-sectional differences in the resilience of a firm’s liquidity to information shocks. We use the sensitivity of stock liquidity to absolute stock returns as an inverse measure of this resilience, and find that the measure exhibits considerable cross-sectional variation. Firm size, return volatility, institutional holdings, and volume are all significant cross-sectional determinants of this measure.

Traditionally, volume has provided the link between trading activity and returns. We focus on a hitherto unexplored but intuitive measure of trading activity: the aggregate daily order imbalance on the New York Stock Exchange. Signed order imbalances increase (decrease) following market declines (rises), which reveals that investors are contrarians on aggregate. Order imbalances in either direction, either excess buy or sell orders, reduce liquidity. Market-wide returns are strongly affected by contemporaneous and lagged order imbalances. Market-wide returns reverse themselves after high negative imbalance, large negative return days; the magnitude of this reversal is partially predictable from the level of the imbalance and return. Even after controlling for aggregate market volume and liquidity, market returns are affected by order imbalance.