Long-term growth expectations are central to investment analysis and corporate valuation. Despite a dominant effect on firm value, the academic literature and practitioner conventions provide little guidance on determining this long-term growth rate. This article takes a step in addressing this gap: we estimate the relationship between long-term growth and an extensive selection of firm, industry, and market characteristics. Market prices do not seem to fully capture long-term growth information. Cross sectional tests yield substantial positive abnormal returns for firms with high expected long-term growth.

We develop a novel measure to identify short squeezes triggered by sharp price increases. These “market squeezes” drive short sellers to close their positions early. To provide a comprehensive analysis of short squeeze dynamics, we also examine lender squeezes, identified through share recalls. We find that stock-day short-squeeze events are rare and short-lived. However, the quarterly proportion of unique stocks experiencing market squeezes is 9.9% (12.3%) in the US (EU), compared to 8.7% (5.4%), for lender squeezes. Our analysis shows that market and lender squeezes are driven by different determinants. We find that market squeezes impair price discovery, consistent with significant declines in short interest after these events. This contrasts with lender squeezes, after which short interest remains stable or increases, and price discovery remains unaffected.

On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced a largely unexpected domination plan for Volkswagen. The resulting short squeeze in Volkswagen’s stock briefly made it the most valuable listed company in the world. We argue that this was a manipulation designed to save Porsche from insolvency and the German laws against this kind of abuse were not effectively enforced. Using hand-collected data we provide the first rigorous academic study of the Porsche-VW squeeze and show that it significantly impeded market efficiency. Preventing manipulation is important because without efficient securities markets, the EU’s major project of the Capital Markets Union cannot be successful.