I introduce a method for gauging the qualitative similarity of firm-specific information based on linguistic commonality in newswire text. I show that this new qualitative similarity measure predicts future cross-firm return correlation even after accounting for the pair's contemporaneous price comovement, common exposures to systematic risk, firm liquidity, price, index membership, text volume, headquarters location, product similarity, shared mutual fund or institutional ownership, common analyst following and newswire co-mentions. I also demonstrate that content produced solely by journalists cannot predict an economically meaningful portion of future comovement. Out-of-sample tests confirm that knowledge of qualitative similarity can also reduce portfolio risk.

We examine the operating performance improvements associated with the extension of trade credit. Our results suggest a positive and significant relation between future profitability and contemporaneous trade credit provision. Further findings indicate significantly higher margins, revenues and market shares for firms that extend more trade credit than industry competitors with similar characteristics, operational necessities and financial distress levels. These inferences are robust to several econometric concerns such as the joint determination of trade credit extension and firm performance. Overall, our results imply that aggressive trade credit policies can provide firm management with a unique channel to improve product market performance.

Prior research suggests that nonfundamental exchange-traded fund (ETF) price shocks are transmitted to their portfolios through an arbitrage mechanism. We test this proposition by examining minute-by-minute returns and order imbalances but find little evidence that ETF trading impacts underlying returns. Specifically, panel vector autoregression shows that ETF returns do not lead portfolio prices. Instead, arbitrage opportunities arise from order imbalances and price movements in the underlying securities and are subsequently eliminated by ETF quote adjustments, rather than arbitrage trading. We extend our analysis to a daily frequency but still find little relation between ETF trading and constituent security prices.