This paper examines whether the tone of corporate textual disclosures related to risk and uncertainty conveys relevant information to the credit default swap (CDS) market. Prior studies largely focus on the amount of risk disclosures and provide inconclusive evidence on the usefulness of risk disclosures for investors in assessing firm risk. Using a large sample of textual risk disclosures in the Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) section of 10‐K and 10‐Q filings, I predict and find that the change in CDS spreads over the three‐day window surrounding the 10‐K/Q filing date is positively associated with the pessimism of the language used in the risk disclosures. I conduct several analyses to show that the effect of the tone of risk disclosures is distinguishable from that of the amount of such disclosures. Cross‐sectional analyses reveal that the CDS market reaction to the tone of MD&A risk disclosures is more pronounced for reference entities closer to default, consistent with creditors' particular concern about downside risk. Further, the CDS market reacts more significantly to the tone of MD&A risk disclosures for reference entities with a weaker information environment. Overall, these results support the view that the tone of textual risk disclosures in MD&As has information content for investors in the CDS market in particular and debt markets in general. My findings improve the understanding of textual risk disclosures by showing that the tone and the amount of such disclosures have different implications for debt market investors' risk perceptions.

This study shows that less readable 10‐K reports are associated with higher stock price crash risk. The results are consistent with the argument that managers can successfully hide adverse information by writing complex financial reports, which leads to stock price crashes when the hidden bad news accumulates and reaches a tipping point. Cross‐sectional analyses show that the effect of financial reporting complexity on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with persistent negative earnings news or transitory positive earnings news, greater chief executive officer stock option incentives, or lower litigation risk. Finally, accrual manipulation appears to be positively related to crash risk, even since the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, if the manipulation is accompanied by complex 10‐K reports.

We provide maximum likelihood estimators of term structures of conditional probabilities of corporate default, incorporating the dynamics of firm-specific and macroeconomic covariates. For US Industrial firms, based on over 390,000 firm-months of data spanning 1980 to 2004, the term structure of conditional future default probabilities depends on a firm's distance to default (a volatility-adjusted measure of leverage), on the firm's trailing stock return, on trailing S&P 500 returns, and on US interest rates. The out-of-sample predictive performance of the model is an improvement over that of other available models.

Securities litigation risk is a well‐recognized yet underexplored source of financial reporting complexity or unreadability. This study examines the effect of litigation risk on the readability of corporate financial reports. The 1999 Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) court ruling unexpectedly reduced litigation risk for firms within the Ninth Circuit Court's jurisdiction. Using a difference‐in‐differences design centered on the SGI court ruling, we find that, while the readability of financial reports generally declines over the sample period, treated firms in the Ninth Circuit experience a comparatively smaller decline in readability than control firms in other states after the ruling. Put differently, treated firms experience a relative improvement in reporting readability following the ruling. This effect is concentrated among firms prone to securities litigation and those with greater external financing needs, but it is muted for firms engaging in earnings management. Furthermore, improved reporting readability among treated firms can be partially attributed to alleviated concerns about the adequacy of cautionary language, as evidenced by a significant decrease in negative forward‐looking statements, particularly risk‐related ones. Collectively, our findings suggest that securities litigation risk contributes to reduced readability in financial reporting.

Using novel supervisory data reported in the Volcker metrics, we examine how the internal risk limits of bank-affiliated corporate bond dealers evolved from 2017 to 2020 as indication of capacity constraints on their market making activity. We document that dealers’ internal risk limits came closer to binding during the March 2020 market turmoil. Although dealers eased their limits to accommodate increased liquidity demand, limit adjustments were not enough to offset the increase in risk exposures. We find limit tightness is negatively associated with subsequent inventory growth at dealers’ bond trading desks, especially during the COVID-19 crisis or on days with limit changes. Overall, our results indicate the importance of internal risk limits in driving dealers’ liquidity provision in time of stress.

The broad economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic poses the first major test of the bank regulatory reforms put in place after the Global Financial Crisis. Our study assesses the U.S. regulatory framework, with an emphasis on capital and liquidity requirements. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, banks were well capitalized and held ample liquid assets, which partly reflects enhanced requirements. The overall robust capital and liquidity levels resulted in a resilient banking system, which maintained lending and market making through the early stages of the pandemic. Trading activity was a source of strength for banks, reflecting in part a prudent regulatory approach. That said, leverage requirements are associated with more repo position netting by banks, with potential implications for market making.