This study examines the informational content of options trading on acquirer announcement returns. We show that implied volatility spread predicts positively on the cumulative abnormal return (CAR), and implied volatility skew predicts negatively on the CAR. The predictability is much stronger around actual merger and acquisition (M&A) announcement days, as compared with pseudo-event days. The prediction is weaker if pre-M&A stock price has incorporated part of the information, but stronger if the acquirer’s options trading is more liquid. Finally, we find that a higher relative trading volume of options to stock predicts higher absolute CARs. The relation also exists among the target firms.

This paper examines how chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence affects firms’ choice of corporate debt issuance. We find that firms with overconfident CEOs tend to issue more private debt, especially bank loans, than public bonds compared with firms with nonoverconfident CEOs. The effect of CEO overconfidence is more pronounced when default spreads are wide, when gross domestic product growth is slow, during recessions, and among firms that face high distress and cash flow risk. Furthermore, the relationship between CEO overconfidence and bank loan issuance depends on collateralization; however, our main finding is not driven by debt maturity. To alleviate endogeneity concerns, we investigate matched samples and a subsample with exogenous CEO turnover events and find supportive and statistically stronger results.

We use data on signed option volume to study which components of option volume predict stock returns and resolve the seemingly inconsistent results in the literature. We find no evidence that trades related to synthetic short positions in the underlying stocks contain more information than trades related to synthetic long positions. Purchases of calls that open new positions are the strongest predictor of returns, followed by call sales that close out existing purchased call positions. Overall, our results indicate that the role of options in providing embedded leverage is the most important channel why option trading predicts stock returns.