Recent developments in financial economics have included many explorations into market microstructure, that is, the internal functioning of markets and the ways in which they provide liquidity to traders. An important contribution of this literature is that prices can deviate from their fundamental values. This paper describes models of imperfect liquidity and improperly processed information in financial markets, focusing on the noise trader and investor herding literature. The motivations for this line of research are presented, followed by a description of some of the major contributions and tests of some of their empirical implications.

Hedge funds are collective investment vehicles, often organized as private partnerships and resident offshore for tax and regulatory purposes. Their legal status places few restrictions on their portfolios and transactions, leaving their managers free to use short sales, derivative securities, and leverage to raise returns and cushion risk. This paper considers the role of hedge funds in financial market dynamics, with particular reference to the Asian crisis.

The ways financial analysts, traders, and other specialists use information and learn from each other are of fundamental importance to understanding how markets work and prices are set. This graduate-level textbook analyzes how markets aggregate information and examines the impacts of specific market arrangements--or microstructure--on the aggregation process and overall performance of financial markets. Xavier Vives bridges the gap between the two primary views of markets--informational efficiency and herding--and uses a coherent game-theoretic framework to bring together the latest results from the rational expectations and herding literatures. Vives emphasizes the consequences of market interaction and social learning for informational and economic efficiency. He looks closely at information aggregation mechanisms, progressing from simple to complex environments: from static to dynamic models; from competitive to strategic agents; and from simple market strategies such as noncontingent orders or quantities to complex ones like price contingent orders or demand schedules. Vives finds that contending theories like informational efficiency and herding build on the same principles of Bayesian decision making and that "irrational" agents are not needed to explain herding behavior, booms, and crashes. As this book shows, the microstructure of a market is the crucial factor in the informational efficiency of prices. Provides the most complete analysis of the ways markets aggregate information Bridges the gap between the rational expectations and herding literatures Includes exercises with solutions Serves both as a graduate textbook and a resource for researchers, including financial analysts

Financial Trading and Investing, Second Edition, delivers the most current information on trading and market microstructure for undergraduate and master's students. Without demanding a background in econometrics, it explores alternative markets and highlights recent regulatory developments, implementations, institutions and debates. New explanations of controversial trading tactics (and blunders), such as high-frequency trading, dark liquidity pools, fat fingers, insider trading, and flash orders emphasize links between the history of financial regulation and events in financial markets. New sections on valuation and hedging techniques, particularly with respect to fixed income and derivatives markets, accompany updated regulatory information. In addition, new case studies and additional exercises are included on a website that has been revised, expanded and updated. Combining theory and application, the book provides the only up-to-date, practical beginner's introduction to today's investment tools and markets. - Concentrates on trading, trading institutions, markets and the institutions that facilitate and regulate trading activities - Introduces foundational topics relating to trading and securities markets, including auctions, market microstructure, the roles of information and inventories, behavioral finance, market efficiency, risk, arbitrage, trading technology, trading regulation and ECNs - Covers market and technology advances and innovations, such as execution algo trading, Designated Market Makers (DMMs), Supplemental Liquidity Providers (SLPs), and the Super Display Book system (SDBK)

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Arbitrage, State Prices and Portfolio Theory / Philip h. Dybvig and Stephen a. Ross / - Intertemporal Asset Pricing Theory / Darrell Duffle / - Tests of Multifactor Pricing Models, Volatility Bounds and Portfolio Performance / Wayne E. Ferson / - Consumption-Based Asset Pricing / John y Campbell / - The Equity Premium in Retrospect / Rainish Mehra and Edward c. Prescott / - Anomalies and Market Efficiency / William Schwert / - Are Financial Assets Priced Locally or Globally? / G. Andrew Karolyi and Rene M. Stuli / - Microstructure and Asset Pricing / David Easley and Maureen O'hara / - A Survey of Behavioral Finance / Nicholas Barberis and Richard Thaler / - Derivatives / Robert E. Whaley / - Fixed-Income Pricing / Qiang Dai and Kenneth J. Singleton.