Knowledge that Transforms

The pricing of new corporate bond issues is examined, with particular emphasis on the seasoning effect and the cost of underwriting. Considerable attention is paid to some special features of the corporate bond market, including the use of actual trader quotes so as to accurately measure holding period returns. Our results suggest that the cost of issuing corporate bonds is less than previously reported.

This study examines the effect of issuing common stock on shareholder wealth under two alternative methods of registration, shelf registration under the Securities and Exchange Commission's Rule 415 and the traditional method of registering shares for immediate sale. The stock price reactions accompanying security registrations and offerings over the period from March 1982 through November 1983 are examined for over two hundred issues. A negative price reaction is observed for traditional and shelf registrations for both utility and non‐utility issuers. No statistically significant difference is observed between shelf and traditional registrations. Further negative price reactions precede the offerings of these securities.

Recent theory has demonstrated that the Arbitrage Pricing Model with K factors critically depends on whether K eigenvalues dominate the covariance matrix of returns as the number of securities grows large. The purpose of this paper is to test whether sample covariance matrices can be characterized as having K large eigenvalues. Using all available data on the 1983 CRSP tapes, we compute sample covariance matrices of returns in sequentially larger portfolios of securities. Analyzing their eigenvalues, we find evidence that one eigenvalue dominates the covariance matrix indicating that a one-factor model may describe security pricing. We also find that, for values of K larger than one, there is no obvious way to choose the number of factors. Nevertheless, we find that while only the first eigenvalue dominates the matrix, the first five eigenvalues are growing more distinct.

The risk‐sensitive pricing of deposit insurance and the discount window is determined in an environment where banks have private information concerning their financial conditions. The two facilities are managed jointly; an incentive‐compatible policy is designed such that banks' choice of terms at which they can obtain insurance and access to discount window credit will reveal their asset quality. The function of the discount window is to be a risk‐neutral “lender of last resort” to banks in a market dominated by risk‐averse depositors.

A novel way of estimating the expected as opposed to the actual share price fall‐off is developed using option prices. This method is applied to the UK Traded Options Market using data from 1979 to 1984. The results show that: (a) the average expected fall‐off implicit in option prices is around 55 to 60% of the dividend and significantly different from it. The fall‐off also varied inversely with the dividend yield, which is consistent with the prediction of the “tax clientele hypothesis.” (b) The estimates of the expected fall‐off were not significantly different from the actual fall‐off. (c) Finally, the results imply that the usual assumption made in valuing options on dividend‐paying stocks, that the fall‐off is equal to the dividend, would lead to downward‐biased estimates of the option value.

The ownership of pension assets in a defined benefit pension plan is an unresolved issue in corporate finance. The issue is important because it defines the appropriate investment policy for a pension fund. In this paper, we summarize the ownership debate in the form of two mutually exclusive theories. We then focus on a recently popular event in pension finance, excess asset reversions. Our paper demonstrates the valuation effects associated with this event in a stochastic dominance framework. Under certain conditions, a reversion constitutes an expropriation of wealth from the participants and beneficiaries of the plan to the firm. Using data provided by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Center for Research in Security Prices tape, we examine the returns to the shareholders of 58 companies which conducted excess asset reversions between 1980 and 1984. Our results show that large abnormal returns accrued to these shareholders around the time of the reversion. These findings have implications both for the appropriate investment policy of pension funds and for public policy with respect to plan terminations.

The Chicago Board of Trade Treasury Bond Futures Contract allows the short position several delivery options as to when and with which bond the contract will be settled. The timing option allows the short position to choose any business day in the delivery month to make delivery. In addition, the contract settlement price is locked in at 2:00 p . m . when the futures market closes, despite the facts that the short position need not declare an intent to settle the contract until 8:00 p . m . and that trading in Treasury bonds can occur all day in dealer markets. If bond prices change significantly between 2:00 and 8:00 p . m ., the short has the option of settling the contract at a favorable 2:00 p . m . price. This phenomenon, which recurs on every trading day of the delivery month, creates a sequence of 6‐hour put options for the short position which has been dubbed the “wild card option.” This paper presents a valuation model for the wild card option and computes estimates of the value of that option, as well as rules for its optimal exercise.