His research in capital markets and corporate finance has received several awards, including the inaugural $100,000 Stephen A. Ross Prize in Financial Economics in 2008.
[1][2][3] This includes portfolio insurance, option pricing with transactions costs, and valuation of risky corporate debt.
[5][page needed] LOR's protected asset base grew rapidly, reaching $50 billion by mid-1987 (the equivalent of almost $500 b when adjusted to the S&P 500 level in mid-2017).
While these arguments are now widely accepted and relief has been granted to hundreds of ETFs, the request was controversial at the time and required five amended applications and a hearing before the full Commission prior to final approval in October 1990.
[12][13] After some initial funding delays, LOR launched the SuperTrust with $1 billion in assets in November, 1992, with the SuperUnit shares trading on the American Stock Exchange (Amex).
The Amex initially had cooperated with LOR to develop a basket product, but subsequently decided to follow their own path with the Standard and Poor's Depository Receipt (SPDR), also based on the S&P 500.
[15] Their proposal was somewhat different in structure (e.g., redemption in large stock bundles only, and no sub-shares) but cited The SuperTrust exemptive order as precedent, using many of the same arguments made previously in application by LOR.
However, with the Amex's marketing blitz (e.g., "spiders" descending from the ceiling onto the trading floor) and campaign, the SPDR ultimately became the basket product that gained liquidity and for many years was the largest ETF.