I link an asset's risk premium to two characteristics of its underlying cash flow: covariance and duration. Using empirically novel estimates of both cash flow characteristics based exclusively on accounting earnings and aggregate consumption data, I examine their dynamic interaction in a two‐factor cash flow model and find that they are able to explain up to 82% of the cross‐sectional variation in the average returns on size, book‐to‐market, and long‐term reversal‐sorted portfolios for the period 1964 to 2002. This finding highlights the importance of fundamental cash flow characteristics in determining the risk exposure of an asset.

We argue that the empirical evidence against the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) based on stock returns does not invalidate its use for estimating the cost of capital for projects in making capital budgeting decisions. Because stocks are backed not only by projects in place, but also by the options to modify current projects and undertake new ones, the expected returns on stocks need not satisfy the CAPM even when expected returns of projects do. We provide empirical support for our arguments by developing a method for estimating firms' project CAPM betas and project returns. Our findings justify the continued use of the CAPM by firms in spite of the mounting evidence against it based on the cross section of stock returns.

We show that the abnormal returns on high default risk stocks documented by Vassalou and Xing (2004) are driven by short-term return reversals rather than systematic default risk. These abnormal returns occur only during the month after portfolio formation and are concentrated in a small subset of stocks that had recently experienced large negative returns. Empirical evidence supports the view that the short-term return reversal arises from a liquidity shock triggered by a clientele change. Copyright © Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington 2010.

We propose a direct measure of abnormal institutional investor attention (AIA) using news searching and news reading activity for specific stocks on Bloomberg terminals. AIA is highly correlated with institutional trading measures and related to, but different from, other investor attention proxies. Contrasting AIA with retail attention measured by Google search activity, we find that institutional attention responds more quickly to major news events, leads retail attention, and facilitates permanent price adjustment. The well-documented price drifts following both earnings announcements and analyst recommendation changes are driven by announcements to which institutional investors fail to pay sufficient attention. Received February 24, 2016; editorial decision December 29, 2016 by Editor Andrew Karolyi.

We show that a mutual fund's stock selection skill can be decomposed into additional components that include liquidity-absorbing impatient trading and liquidity provision. We find that past performance predicts future performance better among funds trading in stocks affected more by information events: Past winners earn a risk-adjusted after-fee excess return of 35 basis points per month in the future. Most of that superior performance comes from impatient trading. We also find that impatient trading is more important for growth-oriented funds, and liquidity provision is more important for younger income funds.

Fractional trading (FT)—the ability to trade less than a whole share—removes barriers to high-priced stocks and facilitates entry by capital-constrained retail investors. We observe a surge of tiny trades, measured using off-exchange one-share trades, among high-priced stocks compared to low-priced stocks after FT is introduced to the U.S. equity markets. These tiny trades, when coordinated during attention-grabbing events, are forceful enough to exert large price pressure on high-priced stocks. Further evidence suggests that FT can even fuel meme-stock-like trading frenzies and bubbles in high-priced stocks, for which the feedback effect likely plays a role.

We document a novel channel through which coordinated trading exerts externalities on financial markets. We study the impact of a financial advisory firm that recommends frequent reallocations between equity and bond funds to Chilean pension investors. The recommendations generate large and coordinated fund flows that are exacerbated by the strategic complementarity arising from fund trading restrictions. The recommendations generate significant price pressure and increased volatility in the stock market. In response to these large trade flows, pension funds shift their allocations to more liquid securities. Our findings suggest that giving retirement savers unconstrained reallocation opportunities can destabilize financial markets. Received March 11, 2016; editorial decision July 8, 2017 by Editor Itay Goldstein.

We find that consumption risk is lower in states that implement countercyclical fiscal policies. Moreover, firms with an investor base that is concentrated in countercyclical states have lower stock returns, along with firms that relocate their headquarters to a countercyclical state. Therefore, countercyclical fiscal policies lower the consumption risk of investors and, consequently, their required equity return premium. This conclusion is confirmed by smaller declines in market participation during recessions in countercyclical states. Overall, the location of a firm’s investor base enables state-level fiscal policy to influence stock returns.

Short selling efficiency (SSE), measured each month by the slope coefficient of cross-sectionally regressing abnormal short interest on a mispricing score, significantly and negatively predicts stock market returns both in-sample and out-of-sample, suggesting that mispricing gets corrected after short sales are executed on the right stocks. We show conceptually and empirically that SSE has favorable predictive ability over aggregate short interest, as SSE reduces the effect of noises in short interest and better captures the amount of aggregate short selling capital devoted to overpricing. The predictive power is stronger during the periods of recession, high volatility, and low public information. In addition, low SSE precedes the months when the CAPM performs well and signals an efficient market. Overall, our evidence highlights the importance of the disposition of short sales in stock markets.