Investor Beliefs Research Articles

Neglected Risks: The Psychology of Financial Crises

We model a financial market in which investor beliefs are shaped by representativeness. Investors overreact to a series of good news, because such a series is representative of a good state. A few bad news do not change investor minds because the good state is still representative, but enough bad news leads to a radical change in beliefs and a financial crisis. The model generates debt over-issuance, “this time is different” beliefs, neglect of tail risks, under- and over-reaction to information, boom-bust cycles, and excess volatility of prices in a unified psychological model of expectations.

The Rise and Fall of Demand for Securitizations

Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and private-label mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by nonprime loans played a central role in the recent financial crisis. Little is known, however, about the underlying forces that drove investor demand for these securitizations. Using micro-data on insurers’ and mutual funds’ bond holdings, we find considerable heterogeneity in investor demand for securitizations in the pre-crisis period. We argue that both investor beliefs and incentives help to explain this variation in demand. By contrast, our data paints a more uniform picture of investor behavior in the crisis. Consistent with theories of optimal liquidation, investors largely traded in more liquid securities such as government-guaranteed MBS to meet their liquidity needs during the crisis.

Venture Capital Deals: Beliefs and Ownership

We use a principal-agent model to examine how venture capitalists can determine the ownership division when fund-seeking entrepreneurs possess private information on their disutility of effort. This situation is especially applicable to early-stage first-time entrepreneurs seeking funding, since no history exists on their potential performance. The venture capitalist must thus consider this private information by forming a belief on the entrepreneur's effort level toward the proposed investment opportunity. Formal modeling enables us to describe how the deal process unfolds and to build a simulation. We then identify a unique investor's belief and resulting ownership sharing that maximizes the return to the entrepreneur, one that maximizes the return to the venture capitalist, as well as one that maximizes the deal welfare. We also conjecture an ordering relationship between these critical beliefs and between their resulting ownership allocations. Furthermore, we identify conditions under which the venture capitalist should choose to revise the investment offer if rejected by the entrepreneur. This paper thus moves us closer to a comprehensive theory of venture investment decisions.

Investor Beliefs and the Demand Pressure on Index Options in Taiwan

The effects of demand pressure on option prices have already been well documented within the extant literature; however, little appears to be known with regard to where the demand pressure on options originates. We set out in the present study to examine the ways in which investor beliefs affect the demand pressure on TAIEX options, employing forward‐looking risk‐neutral index distributions to evaluate such beliefs. Our examination of 2005–2012 high‐frequency data reveals that with an increase in the level of market fear amongst investors, there will be a corresponding rise in the demand for options, with greater pessimism amongst investors resulting in weaker (stronger) demand for calls (puts). Furthermore, during the 2008 financial crisis, the soaring market atmosphere, and the fears of a market crash which soon followed, clearly had dominating effects on demand pressure, with an increase (reduction) in demand pressure for call (put) options being discernible during the bullish sentiment period, and vice versa amid the subsequent fears of a market crash. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 35:1117–1132, 2015

Futures trading with information asymmetry and OTC predominance: Another look at the volume/volatility relations in the European carbon markets

This paper constitutes the first exercise of analysing the European carbon market efficiency from a double perspective combining both nature of execution venues (screen vs. OTC trading) and their volatility/liquidity relations. Using a bivariate asymmetric GJR-GARCH model, we first document that OTC (exchange traded) trading volume shows consistent bi-(uni) directional Granger causality to our volatility estimates, consistent with greater responsiveness of the OTC (exchange traded) market to changes in market-wide (idiosyncratic) risks. Second, we report significant contemporaneous and lagged positive causality of OTC derivatives volume on spot/futures volatility confirming that the Sequential Information Arrival Hypothesis (SIAH) applies. Third, we find that the one-way causality from OTC to futures volumes is mainly driven by heterogeneous investor beliefs: trading volume provides an indication on how (private) information is dispersed and held at different levels rather than proxying information signal itself. After rejecting execution venues' substitutability, we advocate for systematic clearing and netting of OTC positions through a unique clearing house and reporting rules to identify speculation in line with Mifid (Art. 59) proposals.

Sensitivity of trading intensity to optimistic and pessimistic beliefs: Evidence from the French stock market

In this paper, we will offer some evidence indicating that investor sentiment plays a central role in explaining trading intensity and market trend changes. Based on both econometric and fuzzy logic approaches, the empirical findings show that pessimistic sentiment has a particularly significant impact on the French financial market trend. Moreover, the results suggest that the impact of pessimism on asset returns exceeds that of optimism as a direct indicator of investor's beliefs. Indirect indicators of agent sentiment present more smoothed effects on these two market components. Our results indicate that incorporating psychological factors in macro-financial models leads to better supervision and control of the main drivers of the markets.

Short-sale constraints and the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: An event study approach

Abstract Using three natural experiments, we test the hypothesis that investor overconfidence produces overpricing of high idiosyncratic volatility stocks in the presence of binding short-sale constraints. We study three events: IPO lockup expirations, option introductions, and the 2008 short-sale ban on financial firms. Consistent with our prediction, we show that when short-sale constraints are relaxed, event stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility tend to experience greater price reductions, as well as larger increases in trading volume and short interest, than those with low idiosyncratic volatility. These results hold when we benchmark event stocks with non-event stocks with comparable idiosyncratic volatility. Overall, our findings suggest that biased investor beliefs and binding short-sale constraints contribute to idiosyncratic volatility overpricing.

Self-organization and phase transition in financial markets with multiple choices

Market confidence is essential for successful investing. By incorporating multi-market into the evolutionary minority game, we investigate the effects of investor beliefs on the evolution of collective behaviors and asset prices. It is found that the roles of market confidence are closely related to whether or not there exists another market. When there exists another investment opportunity, different market confidence may lead to the same price fluctuations and the same investment attainment. There are two feedback effects. Being overly optimistic about a particular asset makes an investor become insensitive to losses. A delayed strategy adjustment leads to a decline in wealth and one’s runaway from the market. The withdrawal of the agents results in the optimization of the strategy distributions and an increase in wealth. Being overly pessimistic about a particular asset makes an investor over-sensitive to losses. One’s too frequent strategy adjustment leads to a decline in wealth. The withdrawal of the agents results in the improvement of the market environment and an increase in wealth.

Do investors put their money where their mouth is? Stock market expectations and investing behavior

To understand how real investors use their beliefs and preferences in investing decisions, we examine a panel survey of self-directed online investors at a UK bank. The survey asks for return expectations, risk expectations, and risk tolerance of these investors in three-month intervals between 2008 and 2010. We combine the survey data with investors’ actual trading data and portfolio holdings. We find that investor beliefs have little predictive power for immediate trading behavior. The exception is a positive effect of increases in return expectation on buying activity. Portfolio risk levels and changes are more systematically related to return and risk expectations. In line with financial theory, risk taking increases with return expectations and decreases with risk expectations. In response to their expectations, investors also adjust the riskiness of assets they trade.

The Impact of Investor Heterogeneity in Beliefs on Share Repurchase

In this paper, we propose a new share repurchasing model to show the impact of the heterogeneity of investor beliefs on share repurchase. We first provide a comprehensive survey on the literature of share repurchases which has not been considered by previous studies, to the best of our knowledge. We review both the theoretical model structures and the major empirical results including various measures of divergence of opinion developed in the literature. Our new repurchasing model uses actual share repurchases to show that investors’ divergence of opinion on the firm value matters in a manager’s share repurchase decision. The long-term stock price performance is consistent with our model predictions.

Investment Beliefs of Endowments

Investment Beliefs of Endowments

Comment on “Response of Asset Prices to Monetary Policy under Abenomics”

Comment on “Response of Asset Prices to Monetary Policy under Abenomics”

How does earnings management influence investor’s perceptions of firm value? Survey evidence from financial analysts

Survey evidence shows CFOs to believe that earnings management can enhance investor valuation of their firms. This evidence raises the question of correspondence between the beliefs of CFOs and investors. Surveying financial analysts to gain insight into how earnings management influences investor perception of firm value, we find analysts’ and CFOs’ beliefs to be generally consistent. We find that analysts perceive meeting earnings benchmarks and smoothing earnings to enhance investor perception of firm value and all earnings management actions to reach a benchmark, save share repurchases, to be value destroying. CFOs, however, are reluctant to repurchase shares, preferring to use techniques viewed by analysts as value destroying (e.g., reductions in discretionary spending). Analysts’ inability to unravel such techniques perhaps explains CFOs’ preferences.

How Does Investor Confidence Lead to Trading? Theory and Evidence on the Links between Investor Return Experiences, Confidence, and Investment Beliefs

Confident investors trade more than less confident investors, but why? Prior research tests the ultimate relation between investor confidence and trading, but does not empirically examine the underlying mechanism that explains why confidence leads to trading. We complement the literature by developing a theoretical framework and presenting empirical evidence on a psychologically plausible mechanism through which confidence leads to trading. Using a combination of individual investors’ brokerage records and matching monthly survey data, we show that more confident investors rely more on intuitive judgments when forming beliefs about expected returns. In particular, they rely more on naive reinforcement learning and extrapolate individual return experiences into the future more strongly. Given the same return experience, more confident investors change their beliefs more strongly, providing more reason to trade. Ultimately, confident investors have higher turnover, which hurts their performance.

How Does Investor Confidence Lead to Trading? Theory and Evidence on the Links between Investor Return Experiences, Confidence, and Investment Beliefs

We develop a theory and present empirical evidence from a real trading environment on a mechanism through which investor confidence leads to trading. More confident investors rely more on intuitive judgments when forming beliefs about expected returns. In particular, they rely more on naive reinforcement learning and extrapolate recent individual return experiences into the future more strongly. Because such return experiences are volatile, more confident investors change their beliefs more strongly, and thus have more reason to trade.

Allocating Risk Capital: The Case of New Zealand Superannuation Fund

This article describes how New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF) allocates risk capital through its strategic tilting program. The process is based on the belief that a disciplined approach to risk allocation is a cornerstone of successfully implementing the Fund’s investment strategies and achieving its goals. The three key elements of the risk allocation approach are supportive investment beliefs, strong governance, and the disciplined use of NZSF’s active risk tool (ART). The article concludes with a summary of our experience with the approach to date. Other investors who engage in, or are considering engaging in, dynamic asset allocation may benefit from such an approach.

Investment Beliefs of Endowments

American university and college endowments now hold close to one-third of their portfolios in private equity and hedge funds. We estimate the implied beliefs of endowments about alternative assets' returns relative to equities and bonds. At the end of 2012, the typical endowment believes that its private equity investments will outperform a portfolio of conventional assets by 3.9% per year and that hedge funds will outperform by 0.7% per year. Out-performance beliefs, particularly for private equity, have increased since 2006. There are significant cross-sectional differences in beliefs and trends: private universities are, on average, less risk averse and have more optimistic beliefs and universities with larger endowments, higher spending rates, and those that rely more on the endowment to meet operational budgets tend to believe that alternatives deliver higher alphas. Taking into account the implied equity exposures in alternative asset positions, the effective equity holding of endowments is approximately 60%.

Macroeconomic information and implied volatility: evidence from Australian index options

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand that option pricing is the response of option implied volatility (IV) to macroeconomic announcements. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use high-frequency data on ASX SPI 200 index options to examine the response of option IV, as well as higher moments of the underlying return distribution, to macroeconomic announcements. Additionally, the authors identify the response of the moments as a function of moneyness of the options. Findings – The findings suggest that in-the-money and out-of-the money options have difference characteristics in their responses, leading to the conclusion that heterogeneity in investor beliefs and preferences affect option IV through the state price density (SPD) function. Originality/value – The research contributes to the literature that examines whether IV captures the beliefs of market participants about the likelihood of future states together with the preferences of market participants towards these states. In particular, the authors relate changes in option IV to changes in macroeconomic announcements, through the impact of these announcements on the moments of the SPD function.

Macroeconomic Information and Implied Volatility: Evidence from Australian Index Options

A key issue in understanding option pricing is the response of option implied volatility to macro-economic announcements. We use high frequency data on ASX SPI 200 Index Options to examine the response of option implied volatility, as well as higher moments of the underlying return distribution, to macroeconomic announcements. Additionally, we identify the response of the moments as a function of the moneyness of the options. Our findings suggest that in-the-money and out-of-the money options have different characteristics in their responses, leading to the conclusion that heterogeneity in investor beliefs and preferences affect option implied volatility through the state price density function.

The Surprising Alpha From Malkiel’sMonkey and Upside-Down Strategies

Recent index literature is replete with innovations that are based on quantitative strategies and predicated on sensible investment beliefs. Empirical studies confirm that these strategies deliver economically large and statistically significant excess returns over cap-weighted market benchmarks in nearly all regions and countries, over long periods of time. In this article, the authors show that inverting these portfolio-construction algorithms does not reverse the out-performance. Indeed, the upside-down strategies often outperform the originals. This paradoxical result is driven by the phenomenon that seemingly unrelated, non-value-based strategies and their inverted counterparts often have unintended and almost unavoidable value and small-cap tilts. Even Burt Malkiel’s legendary blindfolded monkey, throwing darts at the <i>Wall Street Journal’s</i> stock page, would produce a portfolio with a substantial value- and small-cap bias that would have historically outperformed the S&amp;P 500. The value and small-cap tilts stem from the fact that non-price-based weighting schemes sever the link between a company’s share price and its weight in the portfolio. Clearly, the inverted strategy of a non-price-weighted strategy is still a non-price-weighted strategy, would con-sequently have a value and small-cap tilt, and would there-fore have outperformed historically. <b>TOPICS:</b>Portfolio construction, passive strategies, equity portfolio management