Date of Award

5-2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Economics and Finance

Committee Chair(s)

Tyler Brough

Committee

Tyler Brough

Committee

Ben Blau

Committee

Ryan Whitby

Abstract

Is financial innovation good or bad? Finance research analyzes data in an attempt to answer this and many other questions. This paper seeks to determine at least a partial answer to this question for one particular financial innovation, the inverse ETF. We look at how the introduction of the first inverse ETF affects the market quality of the component stocks. We find that volatility and illiquidity of the component stocks decreases relative to the rest of the market, on average, after the introduction of the first inverse ETF. We also find that short selling increases in the component stocks relative to the rest of the market. We further our analysis and find that there is a positive relationship between the increased level of short selling and both volatility and liquidity. Therefore, we conclude that the improved market quality of the component stocks is attributable directly to the inverse ETF and not to the increased level of short selling.

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