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PurposeThis paper intends to study how geographic heterogeneity in urban vibrancy, especially in human capital creation, helps explain persist firm valuation dispersion across cities in China.Design/methodology/approachThis paper studies geographic differences in firm valuations of 1,023 listed companies headquartered in 35 major cities in China from 2001 to 2018. The authors estimate panel regressions of local firm Tobin's q on city fixed effects or city endowed attributes in human capital creation after controlling industry-year fixed effects as well as a set of firm and city time variant attributes.FindingsThe results show persistent, significant city-to-city differences in Tobin's q, especially among large, mature or high labor-intensive firms. To explain such geographic differences in firm valuations, the authors identify several factors of the endowed city competitive advantages in creating human capital that play important roles in explaining the persistent geographic firm valuation premia.Originality/valueThis paper provides the first systematic analysis of urban vibrancy in human capital supply in explaining persistent geographic firm valuation dispersion in China. The evidence suggests that city endowed comparative advantages in supplying human capital have created long-lasting, and growing, shareholder wealth by attracting and retaining talents and human resources in local firms.

Many corporate executives believe blockchain technology is broadly scalable and will achieve mainstream adoption, yet there is little evidence of significant shareholder value creation associated with corporate adoption of blockchain technology. We collect a broad sample of firms that invest in blockchain technology and examine the stock price reaction to the first public revelation of this news. Initial reactions average close to +13% and are followed by reversals over the next three months. However, we report a striking difference based on the credibility of the investment. Blockchain investments that are at an advanced stage or are confirmed in subsequent financial statements are associated with higher initial reactions and little or no reversal. The results suggest that credible corporate strategies involving blockchain technology are viewed favorably by investors.

Existing research has found cross-sectional seasonality of stock returns—the periodic outperformance of certain stocks during the same calendar months or weekdays. We hypothesize that assets’ different sensitivities to investor mood explain these effects and imply other seasonalities. Consistent with our hypotheses, relative performance across individual stocks or portfolios during past high or low mood months and weekdays tends to recur in periods with congruent mood and reverse in periods with noncongruent mood. Furthermore, assets with higher sensitivities to aggregate mood—higher mood betas—subsequently earn higher returns during ascending mood periods and earn lower returns during descending mood periods.

What is the central question of this study? What is the role of pinin (PNN) in the malignant phenotype of colon adenocarcinoma cells and the underlying mechanism? What is the main finding and its importance? PNN mRNA can be stabilized and upregulated by methyltransferase like 3 (METTL3), which promotes glycolysis in colon adenocarcinoma and augments cell proliferation, migration and invasiveness. METTL3 and PNN might serve as potential targets for the treatment of colon adenocarcinoma.Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is a fatal malignancy with high morbidity and mortality rates globally. Pinin (PNN), a desmosome associated protein, has been revealed as a tumour driver in several malignancies. This study aims to probe the expression and role of PNN in COAD and the underlying mechanism. PNN was expressed at high levels in clinically collected COAD tumours and was linked to poor prognosis of patients. Downregulation of PNN reduced glucose uptake, lactate production and ATP levels in COAD cells and suppressed cell proliferation, migration and invasiveness. Methyltransferase like 3 (METTL3) was positively associated with PNN levels in COAD tumour tissues. RNA immunoprecipitation and N

We find that investors react more favorably to corporate announcements of share repurchases, SEOs, earnings, dividend changes, and acquisitions if the announcement is made immediately prior to or on holidays. These announcements are associated with more positive reactions for favorable events and less negative reactions for unfavorable events. This effect is robust to controls for market conditions and a selection bias, is accompanied by subsequent reversals, and is present in several international markets. Our findings suggest that predictable individual mood changes can cause biases in market reactions to firm-specific news.

The article proposes a semi-martingale approximation to a fractional Levy processes that is capable of capturing long and short memory in the stochastic process together with fat tails. We use the semi-martingale process in option pricing and empirically compare its performance to other option pricing models, including a stochastic volatility Levy process. We contribute to the empirical literature by being the first to report the implied Hurst index computed from observed option prices using the Levy process model. Calibrating the implied Hurst index of S&P 500 option prices in a period that covers the 2008 financial crisis, we find that the risk-neutral measure is characterized by a short memory in turbulent markets and a long memory in calm markets. TOPICS:Options, statistical methods, performance measurement

We find that the level of short interest in a firm's stock significantly predicts future seasoned equity offers (SEOs). The probability of an SEO announcement increases by 34% (decreases by 49%) for firms in the top (bottom) quintile of short interest. We identify a causal impact of short interest on SEO issuance using a novel instrument for short interest based on future litigation filings in close geographical proximity to hedge fund centers. Our findings suggest that corporate decisions can be triggered by the aggregate trading activity of sophisticated outside investors.

We study whether mortgage debt obtained from licensed financial institutions and informal home loans obtained from private lending have differing impacts on stock ownership. Using the China Household Finance Survey data, we show that the two forms of borrowing have opposite effects on stock market participation. Mortgage debt is positively, while informal home loan is negatively, related to a household’s likelihood and degree of stock market participation. Further tests based on instrumental variables suggest a causal impact of mortgage debt and informal home loan on stock market participation. The positive role of mortgage debt is more pronounced among urban, highly educated, or financially literate households, while the negative role of the informal home loan is more visible among rural households and those with lower levels of education or financial literacy. High borrowing cost plays an important role in the negative impact of the informal home loan on household stock investing.

Investors have preferences for local companies, as well as companies in connected cities. We develop a novel approach to exploit the geographic connections of investor watched stocks to identify latent city-to-city connections that influence geographic investment preferences in China. We find cities that are more connected to the others with greater investor stock demand relative to local supply are associated with higher stock valuations, greater share turnover, and better liquidity of their local firms. The city-connection-induced geographic gaps in valuation, turnover, and liquidity are robust with controls for local stock demand and that from geographically proximate cities, are stronger for small firms, and extend to stock returns. Furthermore, local and connected city stocks share excess return comovement beyond common risk factors. The findings suggest that watchlist-revealed city connectivity helps to discover an important network factor in asset pricing.

We show that the personal traits of analysts, as revealed by their political donations, influence their forecasting behavior and stock prices. Analysts who contribute primarily to the Republican Party adopt a more conservative forecasting style. Their earnings forecast revisions are less likely to deviate from the forecasts of other analysts and are less likely to be bold. Their stock recommendations also contain more modest upgrades and downgrades. Overall, these analysts produce better quality research, which is recognized and rewarded by their employers, institutional investors, and the media. Stock market participants, however, do not fully recognize their superior ability as the market reaction following revisions by these analysts is weaker.

Many corporate executives believe blockchain technology is broadly scalable and will achieve mainstream adoption, yet there is little evidence of significant shareholder value creation associated with corporate adoption of blockchain technology. We collect a broad sample of firms that invest in blockchain technology and examine the stock price reaction to the first public revelation of this news. Initial reactions average close to +13% and are followed by reversals over the next three months. However, we report a striking difference based on the credibility of the investment. Blockchain investments that are at an advanced stage or are confirmed in subsequent financial statements are associated with higher initial reactions and little or no reversal. The results suggest that credible corporate strategies involving blockchain technology are viewed favorably by investors.

We examine the relation between the CEO’s childhood socioeconomic class and corporate labor policies. We find that CEOs raised in low socioeconomic class families are less likely to invest in employee friendly firm policies measured by several types of labor and employment litigation, including litigation by unions, and occupational safety measures. These results are confirmed by crowdsourced employee firm reviews across several workplace dimensions. Our findings are supported by the studies of within-family transmission of occupational knowledge and formation of occupational norms as well as development of empathy and altruistic behaviors in children.

Using data from 11 major international markets that celebrate six cultural New Year holidays that do not occur on January 1, we find that stock markets tend to outperform in days surrounding a cultural New Year. After controlling for firm characteristics, an average stock earns 2.5% higher abnormal returns across all markets in the month of a cultural New Year relative to other months of the year. Further evidence suggests that positive holiday moods, in conjunction with cash infusions prior to a cultural New Year, produce elevated stock prices, particularly among those stocks most preferred and traded by individual investors

We examine how pre-announcement weather conditions near a firm's major institutional investors affect stock market reactions to firms' earnings announcements. We find that unpleasant weather experienced by institutional investors leads to more delayed market responses to subsequent earnings news. Moreover, unpleasant weather of institutional investors is associated with higher earnings announcement premia. The influence of institutional investors' weather is robust after controlling for New York City weather, extreme weather conditions, and firm local weather. Additional cross-sectional evidence suggests that the strength of this weather effect is related to institutional investors' trading behavior.

Traditional finance explains individual investor’s behavior and financial decision making based on economic incentives and rationality. Modern finance, however, takes a holistic view and searches for not only economic but also biological, psychological, and social factors that shape decision making. In this new approach, genetics, life experiences, psychological traits, social norms, and peer influences, as well as beliefs, values, and culture help determine an investor’s stock market participation, equity holdings, frequency of trading, extent of diversification, and investment preferences. The collective preferences and actions of individual investors also have an impact on asset pricing and corporate decisions.

Behavioral theories predict that firm valuation dispersion in the cross-section (“dispersion”) measures aggregate overpricing caused by investor overconfidence and should be negatively related to expected aggregate returns. This paper develops and tests these hypotheses. Consistent with the model predictions, I find that measures of dispersion are positively related to aggregate valuations, trading volume, idiosyncratic volatility, past market returns, and current and future investor sentiment indexes. Dispersion is a strong negative predictor of subsequent short- and long-term market excess returns. Market beta is positively related to stock returns when the beginning-of-period dispersion is low and this relationship reverses when initial dispersion is high. A simple forecast model based on dispersion significantly outperforms a naive model based on historical equity premium in out-of-sample tests and the predictability is stronger in economic downturns.

Prior literature shows that implied volatility spreads between call and put options are positively related to future underlying stock returns. In this paper, however, we demonstrate that the volatility spreads are negatively related to future out-of-the-money call option returns. Using unique data on option volumes, we reconcile the two pieces of evidence by showing that option demand by sophisticated, firm investors drives the positive stock return predictability based on volatility spreads, while demand by less sophisticated, customer investors drives the negative call option return predictability. Overall, our evidence suggests that volatility spreads contain information about both firm fundamentals and option mispricing.

Theory predicts that securities with greater limits to arbitrage are more subject to mispricing and thus should command a higher return premium. We test this prediction using the unique regulatory setting from the Hong Kong stock market, in which some stocks can be sold short and others cannot. We show that no-short stocks on average earn significantly higher returns than shortable stocks and the two groups of stocks tend to comove negatively. Moreover, stocks that comove more with the portfolio of no-short stocks on average earn higher subsequent abnormal returns while those comoving more with the shortable stocks earn lower subsequent abnormal returns. New additions to and deletions from the shorting list only partially contribute to the no-short return premium.

Existing research has documented cross-sectional seasonality of stock returns – the periodic outperformance of certain stocks relative to others during the same calendar month, weekday, or pre-holiday periods. A model based on the differential sensitivity of stocks to investor mood explains these effects and implies a new set of seasonal patterns. We find that relative performance across stocks during positive mood periods (e.g., January, Friday, the best-return month realized in the year, the best-return day realized in a week, pre-holiday) tends to persist in future periods with congruent mood (e.g., January, Friday, pre-holiday), and to reverse in periods with non-congruent mood (e.g., September/October, Monday, post-holiday). Stocks with higher mood betas estimated during seasonal windows of strong moods (e.g., January/September/October, Monday/Friday, pre-holidays) earn higher expected returns during future positive mood seasons but lower expected returns during future negative mood seasons, including those induced by Daylight Saving Time changes and weather conditions.

This paper shows that a New Year's gambling preference of individual investors impacts prices and returns of assets with lottery features. January call options, especially the out-of-the-money calls, have higher retail demand and are the most expensive and actively traded. Lottery-type stocks outperform their counterparts in January but tend to underperform in other months. Retail sentiment is more bullish in lottery-type stocks in January than in other months. Furthermore, lottery-type Chinese stocks outperform in the Chinese New Year's Month but not in January. This New Year effect provides new insights into the broad phenomena related to the January effect. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.

We examined reference point adaptation following gains or losses in security trading using participants from China, Korea, and the US. In both questionnaire studies and trading experiments with real money incentives, reference point adaptation was larger for Asians than for Americans. Subjects in all countries adapted their reference points more after a gain than after an equal-sized loss. When we introduced a forced sale intervention that is designed to close the mental account for a prior outcome, Americans showed greater adaptation toward the new price than their Asian counterparts. We offer possible explanations both for the cross-cultural similarities and the cross-cultural differences.

According to prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), gains and losses are measured from current wealth, which serves as a reference point. We attempted to ascertain to what extent the reference point shifts following gains or losses. In questionnaire studies we asked subjects what stock price today will generate the same utility as a previous change in a stock price. From participants’ responses we calculated the magnitude of reference point adaptation, which was significantly greater following a gain than following a loss of equivalent size. We also found the asymmetric adaptation of gains and losses persisted when a stock was included within a portfolio rather than being considered individually. In studies using financial incentives within the Becker, DeGroot, and Marschak (1964) procedure, we again noted faster adaptation of the reference point to gains than losses. We related our findings to several aspects of asset pricing and investor behavior.

We find that investors react more favorably to announcements of share repurchases, SEOs, acquisitions, and earnings if the announcement is made immediately prior to or on holidays. Preholiday corporate announcements are associated with more positive reactions for favorable events and less negative reactions for unfavorable events. We provide direct evidence pointing to an optimistic preholiday mood as the root cause of abnormally high reactions to preholiday corporate announcements. The results are not driven by aggregate market performance, limited attention, or a selection bias. Our findings suggest that individuals’ anticipation of holidays prompts investors to view firm-specific news through rose-colored glasses.

Using a large sample of U.S. individuals, we show that individuals with higher levels of trust have lower likelihoods of default in household debt and higher net worth. The effect is driven by trust values inherited from cultural and family backgrounds more than by trust beliefs about others. We demonstrate a causal impact of trust on financial outcomes by extracting the component of trust correlated with early-life experiences. The effect of trust is more pronounced among females, those with lower education, lower income, lower financial literacy, and higher debt-to-income ratio. Further evidence suggests that enhancing individuals' trust, to the right amount, can improve household financial well-being.

Using a large sample of U.S. individuals, we show that individuals with higher levels of trust have lower likelihoods of default in household debt and higher net worth. The effect is driven by trust values inherited from cultural and family backgrounds more than by trust beliefs about others. We demonstrate a causal impact of trust on financial outcomes by extracting the component of trust correlated with early-life experiences. The effect of trust is more pronounced among females, those with lower education, lower income, lower financial literacy, and higher debt-to-income ratio. Further evidence suggests that enhancing individuals' trust, to the right amount, can improve household financial well-being.

Using three natural experiments, we test the hypothesis that investor overconfidence produces overpricing of high idiosyncratic volatility stocks in the presence of binding short-sale constraints. We study three events: IPO lockup expirations, option introductions, and the 2008 short-sale ban on financial firms. Consistent with our prediction, we show that when short-sale constraints are relaxed, event stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility tend to experience greater price reductions, as well as larger increases in trading volume and short interest, than those with low idiosyncratic volatility. These results hold when we benchmark event stocks with non-event stocks with comparable idiosyncratic volatility. Overall, our findings suggest that biased investor beliefs and binding short-sale constraints contribute to idiosyncratic volatility overpricing.