This study examines the pricing efficiency for the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin using spot prices and all CBOE and CME futures contracts traded from January 2018 to March 2019. We find that the futures basis provide some predictive power for future changes in the spot price and in the risk premium. However, the basis of Bitcoin is a biased predictor of the future spot price changes. Cointegration tests also demonstrate that futures prices are biased predictors of spot prices. Deviations from no-arbitrage between spot and futures markets are persistent and widen significantly with Bitcoin thefts (hacks, frauds) as well as alternative cryptocurrency issuances.

This research investigates how culture moderates the impact of risk on individual investors' trading behavior in nine Eurozone countries, where risk is measured by conventional and extreme risk. These markets were particularly affected by the global financial crisis, the subsequent European banking crisis, and the European sovereign debt crisis. Using mutual fund flows as proxy of investors' trading behavior, our evidence indicates that country culture variable significantly affects investor' trading responsiveness to risk. Specifically, the impact of risk on fund flows is significantly positive and is larger in scale in countries with individualist cultures.JEL codes: G11, G12, G15 Keywords: volatility; extreme risk; small investor behavior; country culture ☆ This paper was presented at the 2017 Cross Country Perspectives of Finance conferences held in Chengdu, China and Chiang Mai, Thailand. We would like to thank the Editors, Zhenyu Wu and Gady Jacoby, the referee, and the conference participants. Financial support from the SSHRC to the Switzer and Wang and the Autorité des Marchés Financiers to Switzer is gratefully acknowledged. Wang further acknowledges support from the Dancap Research Fund in the DAN Department of Management and Organizational Studies, University of Western Ontario.

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This study looks at the inefficiency of stock indices of France, Italy, and Spain around their financial regulatory authorities' short-sale ban during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The empirical analysis of this study provides evidence of price predictability of the basis of futures contract prior to the short-sale restriction. Moreover, the results show a significant underpricing in futures contracts of FTSE MIB and IBEX35 indices while the two months of short-sale banned period. These findings suggest that prohibiting short selling during the market downturn might undermine the stock markets' efficiency and generate arbitrage opportunities for speculative investors.