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Is Amazon a Retailer, a Tech Firm, or a Media Company? How AI Can Help Investors Decide

More companies are bringing seemingly unrelated businesses together in new ways, challenging traditional stock categories. MarcAntonio Awada and Suraj Srinivasan discuss how applying machine learning to regulatory data could reveal new opportunities for investors.

The Popular Stock Metric That Can Lead Investors Astray

Investors may rely too heavily on a financial measure that no longer reflects the economic fundamentals of modern business. What should investors do? Research by Charles C.Y. Wang and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Aggregate and Firm-Level Stock Returns During Pandemics, in Real Time

This paper explains the seemingly conflicting narratives from the stock and labor market about the underlying state of the economy. We show that day-to-day changes in the predictions of standard models of infectious disease forecast changes in aggregate stock returns in pandemics.

The Creation and Evolution of Entrepreneurial Public Markets

Since 1990, new stock exchanges geared toward fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies have proliferated around the world. This analysis shows that exchanges in countries with better shareholder protection allowed younger and less profitable companies to raise more capital. These markets alone cannot boost entrepreneurial activity but need enabling institutions.

Brokers and Order Flow Leakage: Evidence from Fire Sales

This study finds that brokers tend to reveal the occurrence of a fire sale to their best clients, allowing them to generate significant profits by predating on the liquidating fund. Such information leakage comes at the expense of higher price impact, and leads to a more costly liquidation for the fire sale originator.

Stock Price Synchronicity and Material Sustainability Information

This paper seeks to understand and provide evidence on the characteristics of emerging accounting standards for sustainability information. Given that a large number of institutional investors seek sustainability data and have committed to using it, it is increasingly important to develop a robust accounting infrastructure for the reporting of such information.

Equality and Equity in Compensation

Why do some firms such as technology startups offer the same equity compensation packages to all new employees despite very different cash salaries? This paper presents evidence that workers dislike inequality in equity compensation more than salary compensation because of the perceived scarcity of equity.

Bubbles for Fama

Nobel laureate Eugene F. Fama has famously claimed that there is no such thing as a bubble, which he defines as a large price run-up that predictably crashes. Analyzing industry data for the US and internationally, the authors find that Fama is mostly right that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio does not, on average, predict unusually low returns going forward. Yet the authors show that there is much more to a bubble than merely increases in prices; they show a number of characteristics that predict an end to the bubble.

Rainy Day Stocks

Niels Gormsen and Robin Greenwood identify characteristics of stocks that an investor who is worried about bad times should buy— a “rainy day” portfolio. They also propose a simple methodology that places greater weight on performance achieved during bad times than performance achieved during good times, essentially evaluating returns under a risk-neutral probability measure.

Economic Uncertainty and Earnings Management

This paper provides the first evidence on how market participants' uncertainty about firms' future prospects affects managerial decisions in financial reporting. Firms are more likely to manage earnings downward during times of elevated uncertainty, particularly when managers face greater incentives or enjoy greater ability to do so.