Most previous studies demonstrating the influential role of the textual information released by the media on stock market performance have concentrated on earnings-related disclosures. By contrast, this paper focuses on disposal announcements, so that the impacts of listed companies’...

We study the empirical performance of the classical minimum-variance hedging strategy, comparing several econometric models for estimating hedge ratios of crude oil, gasoline and heating oil crack spreads. Given the great variability and large jumps in both spot and futures prices, great care is...

The majority of risk adjusted performance measures (RAPM) currently in use – e.g., Treynor ratio, (?/?)) ratio, Omega index, RoVaR, ‘coherent’ preference criteria, etc. – are incompat- ible with any sensible utility function and would be best avoided. We argue instead for the assessment...

Generalizations of traditional preference criteria such as the Sharpe ratio, the information ratio and the Jensen alpha are obtained by maximizing a certain equivalent excess return (CER) under relevant investment conditions. They are increasing functions of CERs and therefore equivalent...

Different theoretical and numerical methods for calculating the fair-value of a variance swap give rise to systematic biases that are most pronounced during volatile periods. For instance, differences of 10-20 percentage points would have been observed on fair-value index variance swap rates...

Credit spreads can be derived from the prices of securities traded in different markets. In this paper we investigate the price discovery process in single-name credit spreads obtained from bonds, credit default swaps, equities and equity options. Using a vector error correction model (VECM) of...

We design average portfolio insurance (API) strategies with an investment floor and a buffer that is a power of a geometric average of the underlying asset price. We prove that API strategies are optimal for investors with hyperbolic absolute risk aversion who become progressively more risk...

Annuities are perceived as being illiquid financial instruments, and this has limited their attractiveness to consumers and inclusion in financial models. However, short positions in annuities can be replicated using life insurance and debt, permitting long positions in annuities to be offset,...

This study presents and empirically tests a simple framework that examines the effects of market liquidity (the ease with which stocks are traded) and funding liquidity (the ease with which market participants can obtain funding) on stock market bubbles. Three key findings emerge from this...

In late 2005, a number of German open ended funds suffered significant withdrawals by unit holders. The crisis was precipitated by a long term bear market in German property investment and the fact that these funds offered short term liquidity to unit holders but had low levels of liquidity in...