An impossible dream back to the Home Front Keynes redux the new confusion the monetarists, rising and falling supply-side economics - a not-so-free lunch looking ahead, seeking a role.
This article shows that some of the wealth gains from financial decisions involving changes in security form occur on predictable ex dates. For a sample of 113 spinoffs during 1964 to 90, we document an average excess return of 3.0 percent on ex dates, roughly the same magnitude as the average announcement-date return. We conjecture that the spinoff ex-date return arises because the parent and subsidiary stocks attract different investors who prefer to buy the separated shares after the ex date. We also document that, on average, the target shareholders in stock-for-stock mergers earn an excess return of 1.5 percent on merger ex dates.
A privately informed trader will engage in costly arbitrage, that is, trade on his knowledge that the price of an asset is different from the fundamental value if: (1) his order does not move the price immediately to reflect the information; and (2) he can hold the asset until the date when the information is reflected in the price. We study a general equilibrium model in which all agents optimize. In each period, there may be a trader with a limited horizon who has private information about a distant event. Whether he acts on his information, and whether subsequent informed traders act, is shown to depend on the possibility of a sequence or chain of future informed traders spanning the event date. An arbitrageur who receives good news will buy only if it is likely that, at the end of his trading horizon, a subsequent arbitrageur's buying will have pushed up the expected price. We show that limited trading horizons result in inefficient prices, because informed traders do not act on their information until the event date is sufficiently close. We also show that limited horizons can arise because of the cost-carry associated with holding an arbitrage portfolio over an extended period of time.
We compare the relative magnitudes of the components of the bid-ask spread for New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)/American Stock Exchange (AMEX) stocks to those of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ)/National Market System (NMS) stocks. We find that the order-processing cost component is smaller, and the adverse selection component is greater on the NYSE/AMEX trading systems than on the NASDAQ/NMS system. The inventory holding component is also greater for exchange-traded stocks than for NASDAQ/NMS stocks, but this may be attributable to differences in the characteristics of the firms whose stocks trade on the respective systems.
Wildcard options are embedded in many derivative contracts. They arise when the settlement price of the contract is established before the time at which the wildcard option holder must declare his intention to make or accept delivery and the exercise of the wildcard option closes out the underlying asset position. This paper provides a simple method for valuing wildcard options and illustrates the technique by valuing the sequence of wildcard options embedded in the S&P 100 index (OEX) option contract. The results show that wildcard options can account for an economically significant fraction of OEX option value.
This article examines the effect of tax factors on the equity values of U.S. multinational corporations making foreign acquisitions. Abnormal stock returns are found to be related to a tax variable that captures differences in the international tax status of acquiring firms but not related to a naive tax variable that captures differences between tax rates in target countries and the United States. Our evidence suggests that aggregate intercountry differentials in after-tax returns are competed away, while firm-specific, tax-related advantages (or disadvantages) are reflected in abnormal returns around the announcement date of the acquisition.
This study shows how the standard portfolio model of futures trading should be modified when there is less than perfect information about the relevant parameters (estimation risk). The standard and the optimal decision rules for futures trading in the presence of estimation risk are compared and discussed. An operational model of futures trading for use under estimation risk is advanced. In the presence of relevant prior and sample information, the model can be used to optimally blend both types of information.
We document abnormal trading profits in Dutch auction self‐tenders. Tender period profits—buying after announcement and selling just before expiration—are 1.74 percent ( Bhagat, Brickley, and Lowenstein (1987) report similar profits for interfirm tenders). Buying just before expiration and tendering yields abnormal profits of 1.36 percent ( Lakonishok and Vermaelen (1990) report 9 percent for fixed‐price self‐tenders using a filter rule). Total profits from buying just after announcement and tendering remain positive after adjusting for bid‐ask spreads. Trading profits are higher for smaller firms, and positively correlated with tender period unsystematic risk, suggesting that they arise due to the pricing of event risk.
This article examines the effect of public information on the orange juice market. We investigate the rationality, information content, and price effects of U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts of the production of oranges. U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts are found to be unbiased and efficient. The first forecast contains the most new information, and subsequent reports become valuable only when freezes occur. Significant price movements occur in response to announced production in both Florida and California. However, the majority of price variations cannot be explained by these movements in supply. We are always talking about overproduction. There would not be any overproduction if we could get these oranges at a decent price to the people who … could use them. The children need them; they have so many vitamins. By keeping the price way up nobody can buy them and God knows, we get nothing for them. I sold my Valencias for 10 cents a box. I was offered 50 cents, and I thought I would hold out a little until I finally sold them for 10 cents.1