Bo Hu

Dr. Bo Hu is an assistant professor of finance in the Costello College of Business at Mason. His research explores how financial markets become inefficient due to various mechanisms, including model risks, rational inattention, soft information, and trading restrictions. Specifically, Bo has studied how traders may rationally adopt machine-learning algorithms (e.g., LASSO) to do statistical arbitrage in a fat-tailed environment, how benchmarked asset managers optimally allocate their limited cognitive resources in acquiring private information for portfolio management, and how the subtleness of fundamental information disclosed by firms causes delayed abnormal returns in stock markets. His research has important implications for policy makers. For example, it can help people understand to what extent algorithmic traders should be regulated, whether trading frictions like the speculative position limits benefit commodity markets, and whether companies should use more visual elements to improve their information disclosures. A breakthrough in his recent research addresses a fundamental puzzle in term structure modeling and bond pricing. Bo has given presentations at top conferences such as Western Finance Association Annual Meeting and NYU Stern Microstructure Annual Meeting, and at regulatory institutions such as U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Education

• Ph.D. in Finance, University of Maryland, 2019 

Research Interests

• Asset Pricing
• Market Microstructure
• Machine Learning and AI

Teaching Interests

• Statistical Methods and Python in Finance
• Asset Pricing Theory
• International Finance
• Fixed Income Analysis
• Financial Management

Working Papers

• What if the Long Forward Rate is Flat?
• On the Dynamic Duopolistic Game with Sticky Prices (with Steven L. Heston)
• Whence LASSO? A Rational Interpretation with Implications for Market Efficiency (with Wen Chen and Liyan Yang)
• Seeing is Believing: Annual Report Graphicity and Stock Returns (with Wesley Deng, Lei Gao, and Guofu Zhou)
• How Does Benchmarking Affect Market Efficiency? The Role of Learning Technology (with Wen Chen and Yajun Wang)
• Does Position Limit Benefit Futures Market? (with Wen Chen and Yajun Wang)
• On Bubbles in Risk-Neutral Pricing  (in progress)
• Algorithmic Arbitrage with Fat Tail Beliefs (in progress)