This paper examines how firm specific and macroeconomic announcements affect transaction rates in U.S. airline stocks. Using a version of the autoregressive conditional hazard framework of Hamilton and Jordà (2002) that incorporates market microstructure variables, we show that on average, trading intensity spikes prior and consequent to macroeconomic announcements, but decreases around firm-specific releases. Further, when we use intraday crude oil futures returns as a proxy for industry relevant and globally important news we find that their effects are statistically significant, with higher oil futures returns increasing the probability of trade.

This study characterizes volatility dynamics in external emerging bond markets and examines how prices and volatility respond to macroeconomic news. As in mature bond markets, surprises about macroeconomic conditions in emerging markets are found to affect both conditional returns and volatility of external bonds, with the effects on volatility being more pronounced and longer lasting than those on prices. Yet the process of information absorption tends to be more drawn-out than in mature bond markets. Global and regional macroeconomic news is at least as important as local news for both price and volatility dynamics.