"Siegel's conclusion - that, when long-term purchasing power is considered, stocks are actually safer than bank deposits! - is now strengthened with updated research findings and information that include a thorough analysis of the "Dow 10" and other yield-based strategies that have captivated investors over the past several years; how the Baby Boom generation will change the stock market forever - knowledge that can energize your own portfolio's performance; the amazing effect of the calendar on stock market performance - and how investing at certain times of the year can enhance performance; how the newest tax laws impact your investment returns and the funding of your retirement account; analyses and performance comparisons of highly publicized market sectors such as small cap stocks, growth stocks, and the "Nifty Fifty" stocks; and how Wall Street pros use investor sentiment and Fed policy to successfully time stock purchases over the investment cycle."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This paper examines the effect of information networks on the trading behavior of mutual funds and on stock returns. An information or stock ownership linkage between two mutual funds is defined by large positions in the same stock. Mutual funds trade together with other funds in their information network after controlling for the overall trading behavior of the mutual fund sector. The effect is robust and cannot be explained by style investing or geographic location. The paper also examines the effect of the structure of information networks on stock returns and stock volatility. Using network density as a measure for the speed of information diffusion in a network of investors, I find that stocks with a lower network density demonstrate stronger return momentum over medium horizons and also show a delayed response to the market-wide information. The evidence is consistent with the gradual information diffusion model of Hong and Stein (1999). Finally, I provide empirical evidence in support of recent theoretical models that study the asset pricing implications of social networks. I show that centralized information networks lead to a higher volatility of individual stocks in the cross-section and also explain the variation in average stock idiosyncratic volatility over time.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1.0, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, course: Advanced Financing, language: English, abstract: This paper is concerned with analyzing the basic determinants of option prices. These are the information derived from the underlying stock, namely the mean and the volatility of its returns. Therefore, this paper aims at answering the question, what influence stock return mean and volatility have on the respective option prices. This can be important to option traders trying to identify the stocks for which to trade options, by providing an understanding for the foundations of the option pricing and the information those prices provide. To isolate these basic determinants from the other influences, described above as structural and institutional factors, a simulation study is conducted. Section 2 will provide the theoretical framework and simulation methodology for the study. Section 3 describes the used dataset and section 4 presents and discusses the results of the simulation.