Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2013)
Motivated by the recent subprime mortgage crisis, we explore whether speculative bubble models of equity based on investor disagreement and short-sales constraints can also provide an explanation for the overvaluation of debt contracts. We find that this is unlikely. Equity bubbles are loud: price and volume go together as investors speculate on capital gains from reselling to more optimistic investors. But this resale option is limited for debt since its upside payoff is bounded. Debt bubbles then require an optimism bias among investors. But greater optimism leads to less speculative trading as investors view the debt as safe and having limited upside. Debt bubbles are hence quiet-high price comes with low volume. We find the predicted price-volume relationship of credits over the 2003-2007 credit boom. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.
    Cover page: Quiet bubbles
    • Article
    Recent Work (2002)

    We test the hypothesis that the gradual diffusion of information across asset markets leads to cross-asset return predictability. Using thirty-four industry portfolios and the broad market index as our test assets, we establish several key results. First, a number of industries such as retail, services, commercial real estate, metal, and petroleum lead the stock market by up to two months. In contrast, the market, which is widely followed, only leads a few industries. Importantly, an industry’s ability to lead the market is correlated with its propensity to forecast various indicators of economic activity such as industrial production growth. Consistent with our gradual-information-diffusion hypothesis, these findings indicate that the market reacts with a delay to information in industry returns about its fundamentals.

      Cover page: Do Industries Lead the Stock Market? Gradual Diffusion of Information and Cross-Asset Return Predictability
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Davis Previously Published Works (2013)
        Top