U.S. stocks are more volatile than stocks of similar foreign firms. A firm's stock return volatility can be higher for reasons that contribute positively (good volatility) or negatively (bad volatility) to shareholder wealth and economic growth. We find that the volatility of U.S. firms is higher mostly because of good volatility. Specifically, stock volatility is higher in the United States because it increases with investor protection, stock market development, new patents, and firm‐level investment in R&D. Each of these factors is related to better growth opportunities for firms and better ability to take advantage of these opportunities.

Using more than 50,000 firm-years from 1988 to 2015, we show that the empirical relation between a firm's Tobin's q and managerial ownership is systematically negative. When we restrict our sample to larger firms, as in the prior literature, we confirm earlier findings of an increasing and concave relation between q and managerial ownership. We show that cumulative past performance and liquidity can explain these seemingly contradictory results. Better performing firms have more liquid equity, which enables firms and insiders to more easily sell shares after the IPO, and they also have a higher Tobin's q.

Short‐term trade ideas are a component of analyst research highly valued by institutional investors. Using a novel and comprehensive database, we find that trade ideas have a stock price impact at least as large as recommendation and target price changes. Trade ideas based on expectations of future events are more informative than those identifying incomplete incorporation of past information in stock prices. Analysts with better access to a firm's management produce better trade ideas. Institutional investors trade in the direction of trade ideas. Investors following trade ideas can earn significant abnormal returns, consistent with analysts possessing valuable short‐term stock‐picking skills.