Reforming U.S. Financial Markets


Book Description

Two top economists outline distinctive approaches to post-crisis financial reform. Over the last few years, the financial sector has experienced its worst crisis since the 1930s. The collapse of major firms, the decline in asset values, the interruption of credit flows, the loss of confidence in firms and credit market instruments, the intervention by governments and central banks: all were extraordinary in scale and scope. In this book, leading economists Randall Kroszner and Robert Shiller discuss what the United States should do to prevent another such financial meltdown. Their discussion goes beyond the nuts and bolts of legislative and regulatory fixes to consider fundamental changes in our financial arrangements. Kroszner and Shiller offer two distinctive approaches to financial reform, with Kroszner providing a systematic analysis of regulatory gaps and Shiller addressing the broader concerns of democratizing and humanizing finance. After brief discussions by four commentators (Benjamin M. Friedman, George G. Kaufman, Robert C. Pozen, and Hal S. Scott), Kroszner and Shiller each offer a response to the other's proposals, creating a fruitful dialogue between two major figures in the field.







How Markets Really Work


Book Description

For years, traders and investors have been using unproven assumptions about popular patterns such as breakouts, momentum, new highs, new lows, market breadth, put/call ratios and more without knowing if there is a statistical edge. Common wisdom holds that the stock markets are ever changing. But, as it turns out, common wisdom can be wrong. Offering a comprehensive look back at the way the markets have acted over the last two decades, How Markets Really Work: A Quantitative Guide to Stock Market Behavior, Second Edition shows that nothing has changed, that the markets behave the same way today as they have in years past, and that understanding this puts you in a prime position to profit. Written by two top financial experts and filled with charts and graphs that illustrate the market concepts they develop, the book takes a sometimes contrarian view of everything from market edges to historical volatility, and from volume to put/call ratio, giving you all that you need to truly understand how the markets function. Fully revised and updated, How Markets Really Work, Second Edition takes a level-headed, data-driven look at the markets to show how they function and how you can apply that information intelligently when making investment decisions.




Behavioral Finance


Book Description

A definitive guide to the growing field of behavioral finance This reliable resource provides a comprehensive view of behavioral finance and its psychological foundations, as well as its applications to finance. Comprising contributed chapters written by distinguished authors from some of the most influential firms and universities in the world, Behavioral Finance provides a synthesis of the most essential elements of this discipline, including psychological concepts and behavioral biases, the behavioral aspects of asset pricing, asset allocation, and market prices, as well as investor behavior, corporate managerial behavior, and social influences. Uses a structured approach to put behavioral finance in perspective Relies on recent research findings to provide guidance through the maze of theories and concepts Discusses the impact of sub-optimal financial decisions on the efficiency of capital markets, personal wealth, and the performance of corporations Behavioral finance has quickly become part of mainstream finance. If you need to gain a better understanding of this topic, look no further than this book.




Behavioral Explanations of Investors' Trading in Financial Markets


Book Description

In the first essay, I examine the effect of social media sentiment on the trading behavior of individual investors. I document a positive association between sentiment and retail order imbalances (i.e., individual investors tend to buy more than they sell as they become more optimistic about stocks). The association between retail investor activity and sentiment is stronger for hard-to-value stocks (small cap, low institutional ownership, and low analyst coverage firms). Finally, the association between retail order imbalances and stock returns exists only in conjunction with investor sentiment. In the second essay, I consider the effect of firm-level sentiment extracted from a social network platform on the presence of herding behavior in the US equity market. Applying a quantile regression model enables me to investigate the existence of herding during both quiet periods and extreme market movements. I also benefit from using different sampling frequencies (daily, weekly, and monthly) for detecting investor herding. I document an asymmetric association between herding and investor sentiment. Herding is present in low-optimism portfolios but not in high-optimism portfolios. I also find evidence of herding in intermediate quantiles (i.e., relatively quiet market periods but not during extreme market movements). The degree of investor attention has a moderating impact on the relationship between investor optimism and the tendency to herd, with herding being more intense among low-optimism stocks. I also find evidence that trading volume drives herding behavior. In the third essay, I estimate the impact of investor sentiment in the stock market on the return and volatility spillover risks between real estate investment trusts (REITs) and a broader equity index. The total return spillover risk from equity market to real estate is higher for low-optimism portfolios (45.76%) relative to high-optimism portfolios (41.41%). I do not document any significant impact of investor sentiment on the volatility spillover risk between REITs and the equity market (34.85% versus 34.17%). My results highlight the importance of considering investor sentiment in the stock market when constructing multi-asset portfolios that include REITs in addition to other asset classes.




What Investors Really Want: Know What Drives Investor Behavior and Make Smarter Financial Decisions


Book Description

A pioneer in the field of behavioral finance presents an investment guide based on what really drives investors Perfectly timed to give readers a real edge for investing in post-crash markets Author is a leading authority on the theory and application of behavioral finance and a fixture in The Wall Street Journal and other leading media outlets Poised to become the definitive text on how investors and managers make financial decisions—and how these decisions are reflected in financial markets




Stock-market Psychology


Book Description

'Stock-Market Psychology gives an excellent overview of the state-of-the-art literature on this subject in the fields of economics, psychology and finance. . . a comprehensive overview of the behavior of investors in the stock market. As such, this book is valuable for the classroom. . . Stock-Market Psychology provides researchers with numerous ideas for future research and readers with useful and fun tips without taking away our hopes of ever becoming rich from investing in stocks. What more is there to ask from a book?' - Joost M.E. Pennings, Journal of Economic Psychology 'George Goodman (Adam Smith) once wrote, "you can find out who you are by investing in the stock market, but it will be an expensive lesson". It is far smarter and cheaper to read Wärneryd's book instead. At a time when global stock markets are driven by emotions and passions, and are highly volatile, Chapter Six will tell you why, far better than a hundred analysts' reports.' - Shlomo Maital, TIM-Technion Institute of Management and the Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, Israel The rationale behind how people value and trade stocks is of unparalleled interest to governments, companies and other participants in stock markets. The book focuses on the way in which investors process information and form expectations about future gains. It argues that humans fall short of the perfect information processing required by theory, and that their expectations are based on more than just future company earnings.




Retail Investor Sentiment and Behavior


Book Description

Using a unique data set consisting of more than 36.5 million submitted retail investor orders over the course of five years, Matthias Burghardt constructs an innovative retail investor sentiment index. He shows that retail investors’ trading decisions are correlated, that retail investors are contrarians, and that a profitable trading strategy can be based on these aggregated sentiment measures.




Individual Investors' Trading Behavior and the Competence Effect


Book Description

The paper analyzes the impact of competence of individual investors on their trading behavior in the stock market. Individual investors are seen trading too frequently. This impacts their returns from their investments, their belief in the stock markets, and also the functioning of financial markets to some extent. Investors with high level of competence tend to trade more frequently. While some factors affect individuals' perception towards external issues, some affect their belief in themselves, which in turn, influences their confidence and belief in their own judgment and decision making. This holds true in the context of investors in general and individual investors in particular. Individual investors take trading decisions based on their self-perceived competence that is influenced by several factors. The present study identifies the factors that determine individual investors' competence. The study examines the trading behavior of individual investors by using a modified questionnaire. A survey of 250 individual investors across the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) was undertaken to collect the primary data. The study uses a competence model to assess the competence effect on trading frequency of individual investors. Based on the findings of the survey data, the study explores the individual investors' trading behavior in the stock market.




Behavioral Trading


Book Description

Dorsey, a publisher of market commentary since 1985, explains market semiotics, his market research philosophy based on the logic of behavioral finance. His proprietary market diagnosis techniques have been described as market expectations theory, behavioral finance, and contrary opinion analysis. Annotation ♭2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).