This paper presents and describes a large, monthly frequency, macroeconomic database with the goal of establishing a convenient starting point for empirical analysis that requires ”Big Data.” The dataset mimics the coverage of those already used in the literature but has three appealing features. First, it is designed to be updated in real-time using the FRED database. Second, it will be public...

Using a large and representative dataset of commodity trading advisors (CTAs), we provide compelling evidence that CTAs generate significant net excess returns of at least 4.1% annually; that approximately 64% of the funds have positively skewed returns; and that there is considerable heterogeneity among CTAs, with systematic trend followers doing significantly better than other subcategories. ...

This paper studies portfolio choice and pricing in markets in which immediate trading may be impossible. It departs from the literature by removing restrictions on asset holdings, and finds that optimal positions depend significantly and naturally on liquidity: When expected future liquidity is high, agents take more extreme positions, given that they do not have to hold those positions for lon...

Credit default swaps (CDS) are similar to out-of-the-money put options in that both offer a low cost and effective protection against downside risk. This study investigates whether put optionimplied volatility is an important determinant of CDS spreads. Using a large sample of firms with both CDS and options data, we find that individual firms’ put option-implied volatility dominates historical...

We analyze the effects of differences of opinion on the dynamics of trading volume in stocks and options.We find that disagreements about the mean of the currentand next-period public information lead to trading in stocks in the current period but have no effect on options trading. Without options, we find that disagreements about the precision of all past and current public information affect ...

Performance measures such as the Sharpe ratio and the information ratio are estimation subject to estimation error. Lo (2002) derives the explicit expressions for the statistical distribution of the Sharpe ratio. Bertrand and Protopopescu (2007) have extended his work to the bivariate case which corresponds to the Information ratio. In the present paper, we analyze the effects of skewness and k...

This paper extends Merton’s continuous time (instantaneous) mean-variance analysis and the mutual fund separation theory. Given the existence of a Markovian state price density process, the optimal portfolios from concave utility maximization are instantaneously mean-variance efficient independent of the concave utility function’s form. The Capital Asset Pricing Model holds with the market port...

We propose an equilibrium model to study the impact of short-sale constraints on market prices and liquidity in imperfectly competitive markets where market makers have significant market power and are averse to inventory risk. We show that shortsale constraints decrease bid because of the market power and increase ask because of the risk aversion. Our model can therefore help explain why short...

We investigate how the inability to continuously trade an asset affects portfolio choice. We extend the standard Merton model to include an illiquid asset that can only be traded at infrequent, stochastic intervals. Because consumption is financed through liquid wealth only, the presence of illiquidity leads to increased and state-dependent risk aversion. Illiquidity leads to under-investment i...

I analyze the optimal intertemporal portfolio problem of an investor who worries about model misspecification and insists on robust decision rules when facing a mean-reverting risk premium. The desire for robustness lowers the total equity share, but increases the proportion of the intertemporal hedging demand. I present a methodology for calculation of detection-error probabilities, which is b...