This paper examines the valuation impacts of specially designated dividends (SDDs) by analyzing the behavior of stock and bond prices on dates surrounding their announcements. The evidence presented here suggests that SDDs are considered positive signals by the market, with (most of) the gains associated with their announcements accruing to stockholders. In addition, we present some evidence that the gain to stockholders is negatively related to the frequency of SDD announcements.

This paper extends the Roll model for implicit bid-ask spreads by incorporating the possibility of serial correlation in transaction type. The validity of this formula is examined using intra-day transactions and bid-ask spread data for options traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The results indicate that the model derived here closely estimates the effective bid-ask spread in that it explains more than 80 percent of the crosssectional differences in announced bid-ask spreads.