Jeremy C. Stein

Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies

Various theories have been proposed to explain momentum in stock returns. We test the gradual-information-diffusion model of Hong and Stein ~1999! and establish three key results. First, once one moves past the very smallest stocks, the profitability of momentum strategies declines sharply with firm size. Second, holding size fixed, momentum strategies work better among stocks with low analyst coverage. Finally, the effect of analyst coverage is greater for stocks that are past losers than for past winners. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that firm-specific information, especially negative information, diffuses only gradually across the investing public.

Exchange Rates and Foreign Direct Investment: an Imperfect Capital Markets Approach

We examine the connection between exchange rates and foreign direct investment that arises when globally integrated capital markets are subject to informational imperfections. These imperfections cause external financing to be more expensive than internal financing, so that changes in wealth translate into changes in the demand for direct investment. By systematically lowering the relative wealth of domestic agents, a depreciation of the domestic currency can lead to foreign acquisitions of certain domestic assets. we develop a simple model of this phenomenon and test for its relevance in determining international capital flows.

Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia

This paper examines the familiar argument that takeover pressure can be damaging because it leads managers to sacrifice long-term interests in order to boost current profits. If stockholders are imperfectly informed, temporarily low earnings may cause the stock to become undervalued, increasing the likelihood of a takeover at an unfavorable price; hence the managerial concern with current bottom line. The magnitude of the problem depends on a variety of factors, including the attitudes and beliefs of shareholders, the extent to which corporate raiders have inside information, and the degree to which managers are concerned with retaining control of their firms.

The Impact of Monetary Policy on Bank Balance Sheets

This paper uses disaggregated data on bank balance sheets to provide a test of the lending view of monetary policy transmission. We argue that if the lending view is correct, one should expect the loan and security portfolios of large and small banks to respond differentially to a contraction in monetary policy. We first develop this point with a theoretical model; we then test to see if the models predictions are borne out in the data.

Prices and Trading Volume in the Housing Market: A Model with Down-Payment Effects

This paper presents a simple model of trade in the housing market. The crucial feature is that a minimum downpayment is required for the purchase of a new home. The model has direct implications for the volatility of house prices, as well as for the correlation between prices and trading volume. The model can also be extended to address the correlation between prices and time-to-sale, as well as certain aspects of the cyclical behavior of housing starts.

Forecasting crashes: trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices

This paper is an investigation into the determinants of asymmetries in stock returns. We develop a series of cross-sectional regression specifications which attempt to forecast skewness in the daily returns of individual stocks. Negative skewness is most pronounced in stocks that have experienced: 1) an increase in trading volume relative to trend over the prior six months; and 2) positive returns over the prior thirty-six months. The first finding is consistent with the model of Hong and Stein (1999), which predicts that negative asymmetries are more likely to occur when there are large differences of opinion among investors. The latter finding fits with a number of theories, most notably Blanchard and Watsons (1982) rendition of stock-price bubbles. Analogous results also obtain when we attempt to forecast the skewness of the aggregate stock market, though our statistical power in this case is limited.

Convertible bonds as backdoor equity financing

This paper argues that corporations may use convertible bonds as an indirect (albeit possibly risky) method for getting equity into their capital structures in situations where adverse selection problems make a conventional stock issue unattractive. Unlike other theories of convertible bond issuance, the model of this paper highlights: 1) the importance of call provisions on convertibles; and 2) the significance of costs of financial distress to the Information content of a convertible issue.

Informational Externalities and Welfare-Reducing Speculation

Introducing more speculators into the market for a given commodity leads to improved risk sharing but can also change the informational content of prices. This inflicts an externality on those traders already in the market, whose ability to make inferences based on current prices will be aff ected. In some cases, the externality is negative: the entry of new s peculators lowers the informativeness of the price to existing trader s. The net result can be one of price destabilization and welfare red uction. This is true even when all agents are rational, risk-averse c ompetitors who make the best possible use of their available informat ion. Copyright 1987 by University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 2 - Agency, Information and Corporate Investment

This essay surveys the body of research that asks how the efficiency of corporate investment is influenced by problems of asymmetric information and agency. I organize the material around two basic questions. First, does the external capital market channel the right amount of money to each firm? That is, does the market get across-firm allocations right, so that the marginal return to investment in firm i is the same as the marginal return to investment in firm j? Second, do internal capital markets channel the right amount of money to individual projects within firms? That is, does the internal capital budgeting process get within-firm allocations right, so that the marginal return to investment in firm i’s division A is the same as the marginal return to investment in firm i’s division B? In addition to discussing the theoretical and empirical work that bears most directly on these questions, the essay also briefly sketches some of the implications of this work for broader issues in both macroeconomics and the theory of the firm.

Aggregate Short Interest and Market Valuations

We examine some basic data on the evolution of aggregate short interest, both during the dot-com era, and at other times in history. Total short interest moves in a countercyclical fashion. For example, short interest in NASDAQ stocks actually declines as the NASDAQ index approaches its peak. Moreover, this decline does not seem to reflect a substitution away from outright short-selling and towards put options, as the ratio of put-to-call volume displays the same countercyclical tendency. The evidence suggests that: i) arbitrageurs are reluctant to bet against aggregate mispricings; and ii) short-selling does not play a particularly helpful role in stabilizing the overall stock market.