Knowledge that Transforms

We develop a valuation model for venture capital–backed companies and apply it to 135 US unicorns, that is, private companies with reported valuations above $1 billion. We value unicorns using financial terms from legal filings and find that reported unicorn post-money valuations average 48% above fair value, with 14 being more than 100% above. Reported valuations assume that all shares are as valuable as the most recently issued preferred shares. We calculate values for each share class, which yields lower valuations because most unicorns gave recent investors major protections such as initial public offering (IPO) return guarantees (15%), vetoes over down-IPOs (24%), or seniority to all other investors (30%). Common shares lack all such protections and are 56% overvalued. After adjusting for these valuation-inflating terms, almost one-half (65 out of 135) of unicorns lose their unicorn status.

Time series momentum (TSM) refers to the predictability of the past 12-month return on the next one-month return and is the focus of several recent influential studies. This paper shows that asset-by-asset time series regressions reveal little evidence of TSM, both in- and out-of-sample. While the t-statistic in a pooled regression appears large, it is not statistically reliable as it is less than the critical values of parametric and nonparametric bootstraps. From an investment perspective, the TSM strategy is profitable, but its performance is virtually the same as that of a similar strategy that is based on historical sample mean and does not require predictability. Overall, the evidence on TSM is weak, particularly for the large cross section of assets.

Shorting flows remain a significant predictor of negative future stock returns during 2010–2015, when daily short-sale volume data are published in real time. This predictability decays slowly and lasts for a year. Long-term shorting flows are more informative than short-term shorting flows. Indeed, abnormal short-term shorting flows do not predict future returns or anticipate bad news. We find that short sellers exploit prominent anomalies. A comparison with the Regulation SHO data indicates that the predictability is much shorter-term during 2005–2007. Short sellers appear to have shifted from trading on short-term private information to trading on long-term public information that is gradually incorporated into prices.

We study how the Italian sovereign bond scarcity premia, specialness, in the repo market were affected by the European Central Bank (ECB)’s purchases during the euro area sovereign debt crisis. We propose and calibrate a search-based dynamic model with a central bank acting as a buy-and-hold investor. Consistent with model predictions, ECB purchases drive specialness of targeted securities in combination with short-selling. Special benchmark bonds entail a positive cash premium, but their market liquidity decreases when purchased by the ECB. Short-sellers were more likely to fail-to-deliver very special bonds, while holders of these bonds were less inclined to pledge them as collateral to the ECB liquidity operations.

Blockholders play a large role in corporate governance. We examine their voting behavior by adding a voter with many votes, i.e., a blockholder, to a standard voting model. A blockholder may not vote with all of her shares. This is efficient because it prevents her from drowning out the information in others’ votes. This effect holds even when shares may be traded. Consequently, regulations prohibiting abstention will harm information aggregation, though such regulations may promote information acquisition by blockholders. We extend the model by allowing: the blockholder to announce her information upfront, the possibility of blockholder bias, and asymmetric priors.

Off-balance sheet financing of an investment is covered by limited liability, whereas on-balance sheet financing creates unlimited liability towards the bank’s asset-in-place. Off-balance sheet funding thus gives the bank flexibility to voluntarily support debt repayments when the investment fails, which allows the bank to signal information about the quality of its future projects, improving investment efficiency. Yet, limited liability reduces the bank’s effort incentives. Off-balance sheet funding with voluntary support is optimal for activities that are rapidly growing or negatively correlated with existing assets. The model yields testable predictions on the relationship between off-balance sheet debt spreads and sponsors’ characteristics.

Using a novel database that tracks web traffic on the Security Exchange Commission's EDGAR server between 2004 and 2015, we show that institutional investors gather information on a very particular subset of firms and insiders, and their surveillance is very persistent over time. This tracking behavior has powerful implications for their portfolio choice and its information content. An institution that downloaded an insider trading filing by a given firm last quarter increases its likelihood of downloading an insider trading filing on the same firm by more than 41.3 percentage points this quarter. Moreover, the average tracked stock that an institution buys generates annualized alphas of over 12% relative to the purchase of an average non tracked stock. We find that institutional managers tend to track top executives and to share educational and locational commonalities with the specific insiders they choose to follow. Collectively, our results suggest that the information in tracked trades is important for fundamental firm value and is only revealed following the information-rich dual trading by insiders and linked institutions.

We find a significant positive relation between changes in policy uncertainty and changes in credit spreads. Macroeconomic conditions, including general uncertainty, do not explain this result, which also holds when we use instrumental variables to address endogeneity issues. The impact of policy uncertainty is greater for firms that operate in regulation-intensive industries, face high tax rates, or are dependent on government spending. It is also stronger for firms that engage in political activities or rely on external financing. We conclude that policy uncertainty has a significant effect on firms’ borrowing costs, with exposure to government policies representing an important channel.

During the 2008 financial crisis, the Federal Reserve established two emergency facilities for broker-dealers: one provided collateralized loans; the other, collateral upgrades. These facilities alleviated dealers’ funding pressures when access to repos backed by illiquid collateral deteriorated. The ability to upgrade collateral allowed dealers to continue funding their own illiquid inventories (avoiding potential firesales) and to provide better bond market liquidity. It also helped sustain dealers’ credit to hedge fund clients, which in turn posted relatively better returns.

We use merger-induced changes to shareholder structure to test for active catering to dividend clienteles. Following mergers, acquirers adjust their dividend payout toward that of the target, but only when they inherit target shareholders through stock swaps. This adjustment is stronger when legacy shareholders are more influential and reveal a greater preference for dividends through portfolio holdings and trading behavior. Country-level differences in dividend taxes, governance quality, and population age further shape the extent of adjustment in ways consistent with dividend preferences. Pre-closing, differences in dividend payout discourage the use of stock as a payment method.