This paper investigates the mechanism through which short selling of a bank’s stocks can trigger the failure of the bank. In the model, creditors, who learn information from stock prices, will grow increasingly unsure about the bank’s true fundamentals in facing noisier stock prices; thus a run on the bank is more likely because of creditors’ concave payo¤. Understanding this, speculators condu...

We use data extracted from many weblogs to identify the underlying relations of a set of companies in the Standard and Poor (S&P) 500 index. We define a pairwise similarity measure for the companies based on the weblog articles and then apply a graph clustering procedure. We show that it is possible to capture some interesting relations between companies using this method. As an application of ...

This paper studies the exposure of the stock prices of Australian gold-mining firms to changes in gold prices and the valuation effects of gold price exposure. Goldmining firms have significant gold price exposure; the price of the average goldmining stock moves 0.76% for each 1.00% change in Australian-dollar-denominated gold prices. Evidence from the behaviour of stock price sensitivities sug...

This paper provides an exposition of the nature, means of estimation and uses of Financial Conditions Indexes (FCIs) and their relationship to the more common Monetary Conditions Indexes (MCIs) that are used by market analysts, international organisations and central banks. Using panel datasets for Western Europe we explore how asset prices, particularly house and stock prices, can provide usef...

This paper provides an exposition of the nature, means of estimation and uses of Financial Conditions Indexes (FCIs) and their relationship to the more common Monetary Conditions Indexes (MCIs) that are used by market analysts, international organisations and central banks. Using panel datasets for Western Europe we explore how asset prices, particularly house and stock prices, can provide usef...

In 1996 Alan Greenspan warned that stock prices were \unduly escalated" and re ected \irrational exuberance". In this paper we describe an economy that can support a prolonged surge of asset prices, accompanied by a sharp increase of volatility. We study an equilibrium model where some agents are risk averse while others have loss averse preferences over wealth, according to prospect theory. We...

Billions of dollars worth of shares are traded in the stock market on a daily basis. Many people depend on the stock market as their primary source of income while others have their retirement funds tied to the stock market. The importance of “good” performance of the stock market is obvious. History has shown that a downturn in stock prices can cause major disturbances in the lives of many. Al...