This empiric-analytic paper, aims at verifying whether the firms' capital structure is sensitive to leverage measures. It also verifies whether most of the leverage variability is due to financial debts. The sample consists of all non-financial companies with data available, positive equity and stocks listed in Bovespa between 1995 and 2007. Accordingly, we sampled on average 133 companies per year. The data required for the analysis were extracted from the Economatica database. In the methodology section we used cross-section linear regression in order to estimate the coefficients and other statistics of interest, following the methodology of Fama and MacBeth (1973). As main results, more than half of the cross-section heterogeneity of the leverage ratio comes from variations on the Non-financial Debts/Total Assets ratio. With respect to the sensibility of the measures used for the leverage, we conclude that profitability is the only variable that is reasonably consistent, in magnitude, sign and significance, with the different measures of leverage.

There are basic misunderstandings on derivative markets. Some professionals believe that they are a kind of casinos and have no utility for the investors. This work looks at the effects of options introduction in the Brazilian market, seeking for another benefit for this introduction: changes in the stocks risk leveI. Our results are the same found in the US and other markets: the options introduction reduces the stocks volatility. We also found that there is a slight indication that the volatility becames more stochastic with this alternative.

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the aim of this work is to check the effect of granting tag-along rights to stockholders by analyzing the behavior of the return of the stock. To do so we carried out event studies for a group of 21 company stocks, divided into service provider companies and others, who granted this right to their stockholders after Law 10,303 was passed in October, 2001. In the test we used two models for estimating abnormal returns: adjusted to the market and adjusted to the risk and market. The results of the tests we carried out based on these models did not capture abnormal returns (surpluses), telling us that the tag-along rights did not affect the pattern of daily returns of the stocks of companies traded on BOVESPA (The Sao Paulo Stock Exchange). We did not expect this result because of the new corporate governance practices adopted by companies in Brazil.

Does active management add or destroy value ? With a sample of 699 with four different main categories: stocks, fixed income, hedge and exchange rate mutual funds we conclude that the active management add value to investors in stocks and hedge funds. But in fixed income mutual funds the evidence is against the active management. We also analyze the determinants of significant alphas. For stocks and hedge funds the evidence suggests that old, big and active funds generate biggest alphas. In fixed income funds the evidence is not clear, only a positive relationship between size and alphas could be found.