The virus outbreak supercharged a continuing shift in the markets, with a few giant companies now exerting the most influence over the direction of stocks since the tech boom. Research by Rene Stulz, the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics, shows as bigger companies have steadily grown, they’ve also snagged a larger share of profits.

This is not the first time the stock market has had to deal with a pandemic, and studying past pandemics, says Tod Schneider, a senior lecturer in finance, can provide important clues.

As the popularity of Bitcoin, XRP and Ethereum rise, scammers may take advantage of investors looking to buy, sell and "mine" cryptocurrencies. One problem is market manipulation. Large holders of a cryptocurrency, called “whales,” can bid up the price of, say, Bitcoin, drawing in new investors eager to get in on the action. As the currency rises, the whales take their profits and leave new investors with losses, according to University of Texas professor John Griffin and Fisher's Amin Shams.

The correlation between CEO turnover and gross domestic product is robust, and research from Assistant Professor of Finance Jack Liebersohn and his colleague, Heidi Packard, of the University of Michigan, demonstrates the relationship.

How can someone go from Powerball winner to completely bankrupt? Matt Sheridan, senior lecturer in finance, weighs in on how you can keep the wealth you accrue.

Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate at Fisher, and his colleagues studied the impact of large institutional ownership on stock prices in the US market. The researchers showed that ownership by large institutions increases volatility in the underlying securities, and that this increase reflects a rise of noise in stock prices.

Most mutual fund investors trade on noise rather than fundamentals. Research by Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and his colleagues, shows that many mutual fund investors "naively rely on external rankings as a way to chase past winners."

Researchers including Fisher's Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and René M. Stulz, the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics, find that financially distressed banks don’t try to gamble their way out of trouble by making riskier loans or investments, but instead act to decrease their debt and raise additional equity. 

Warren Buffett has snubbed KBW’s Meyer Shields from participating in his annual conclave for years. Why? The answer may lie in a difference of investing philosophies. Lu Zhang, the John W. Galbreath Chair in Real Estate at Fisher, points out that Buffett’s stock picking is value-oriented, a countercyclical style that has been out of fashion for much of the past decade. “Ten years is just too short to suggest Buffett should change his strategy,” Zhang says. “Over the long term, Berkshire has beaten any index, any index, hands down.”

Lu Zhang, the John W. Galbreath Chair in Real Estate,  andhis research have challenged the status quo of traditional finance and have led to a better understanding of how assets are priced. He has also shown that many of the factors that investors rely on may not hold up as well as we think in the real world. He shares why that is and discusses his research into what drives stock returns.

While most literature finds that individuals lose on average from trading, a few studies show that some individuals consistently outperform the benchmarks. Research by Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, illustrates how much of an advantage familiarity with the stocks and industries can be.

Research by Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and his colleagues shows that the asset management industry is getting more concentrated. Share of U.S. stock ownership by institutions has increased from around five percent in 1980 to about 22 percent in 2015.

Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and his colleagues share their research into the effectiveness and accuracy of portfolio rankings.

Do investors behave rationally? Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and his colleagues examine why, despite three decades of research on mutual funds, it is unclear whether investors in mutual funds display rational behavior. 

Research by Itzhak Ben-David, the Neil Klatskin Chair in Finance and Real Estate, and his colleagues seeks to address whether investors naively look only at raw returns when making asset allocation decisions, or if they adjust returns for risk, using an asset pricing model?