Knowledge that Transforms

Ji-Chai Lin, Michael S. Rozeff, Price Adjustment Delays and Arbitrage Costs: Evidence from the Behavior of Convertible Preferred Prices, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 61-80

The Capital Asset Pricing Model predicts that investors will hold diversified portfolios, but many households actually hold very few assets. The paper examines the asset pricing implications of one possible explanation for this phenomenon, fixed costs of holding assets. While earlier authors found the exact asset pricing effects of such costs in single-period models under restrictive assumptions, I derive a general upper bound on these effects that is also valid in continuous time. Illustrative calculations reveal that large holding costs must be postulated to generate significant asset pricing effects.

Financial studies examining stock price behavior have principally relied on end-of-day data. This paper illustrates a bias in closing prices by reexamining the when-issue pricing anomaly with intraday data. With intraday data, major portions of the pricing anomaly can be explained by: a nonsynchronous matching of trades; a difference in the settlement procedures (labeled time value of money in Choi and Strong (1983)); a mismatching of market purchases with market sales (first proposed by Lamoureux and Wansley (1989)); and a higher frequency of market purchases relative to market sales. In addition, the small remaining portion of the anomaly cannot be arbitraged. The remaining premium is attributed to a lower level of limit order competition and an order imbalance in the when-issued shares.

Restrictions on transaction price changes are a feature of many security markets. This paper analyzes the impact of such price continuity rules on price dynamics and examines possible rationales for their existence. Contrary to popular belief, continuity rules need not reduce price efficiency, although they do result in a redistribution of profits among traders and dealers.- Indeed, continuity rules may enhance price efficiency because traders have greater incentives to gather costly information. We provide a new rationale for continuity rules besides the stated objective of stabilizing prices. In particular, we show that continuity requirements act to restrict dealers' expected profits from trading with liquidity traders. The results provide insights into the design of an optimal continuity rule.

James A. Conover, David A. Dubofsky, Efficient Selection of Insured Currency Positions: Protective Puts vs. Fiduciary Calls, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 295-312

Based on the Beveridge-Nelson (1981) decomposition of an ARIMA process, I present a measure of true stock index value that is not directly observable due to infrequent trading of stocks. The technique is illustrated with daily observations of the Russell 2000 index. This new measure might well prove useful in studies of lead-lag relationships between index derivatives and spot market and futures basis measurements.

Recent theoretical models suggest debt and dividends can serve as substitute free cash flow control or signaling devices. I examine share price responses to announcements of straight debt issues and test whether there are systematic differences between low and high dividend payout firms. Share price response is significantly positive for low growth-low dividend payout firms, and is negatively related to cross-sectional dividend payout. The results support arguments that debt and dividends are substitutes. The results also support arguments that debt provides free cash flow or signaling benefits, but suggest the benefits are significant only for firms with low levels of substitutes. I also document that low growth-low dividend payout firms enter capital markets less frequently, but find no relation between share price response and this frequency.

David R. Peterson, The Informative Role of the Value Line Investment Survey: Evidence from Stock Highlights, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 607-618

Jinwoo Park, A Market Microstructure Explanation for Predictable Variations in Stock Returns following Large Price Changes, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 241-256

Thomas J. George, Chuan-Yang Hwang, Transitory Price Changes and Price-Limit Rules: Evidence from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 313-327