Embedded Leverage / Andrea Frazzini, Lasse H. Pedersen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frazzini, Andrea.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Pedersen, Lasse H.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w18558.

NBER working paper series no. w18558

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2012.

Summary:

Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage such as options and leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors' leverage constraints and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that asset classes with embedded leverage offer low risk-adjusted returns and, in the cross-section, higher embedded leverage is associated with lower returns. A portfolio which is long low-embedded-leverage securities and short high-embedded-leverage securities earns large abnormal returns, with t-statistics of 8.6 for equity options, 6.3 for index options, and 2.5 for ETFs. We provide extensive robustness tests and discuss the broader implications of embedded leverage for financial economics.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2012.