How Does Investor Sentiment Affect Stock Market Crises? Evidence from Panel Data

We test the impact of investor sentiment on a panel of international stock markets. Specifically, we examine the influence of investor sentiment on the probability of stock market crises. We find that investor sentiment increases the probability of occurrence of stock market crises within a one‐year horizon. The impact of investor sentiment on stock markets is more pronounced in countries that are culturally more prone to herd‐like behavior, overreaction and low institutional involvement.     

Cross-sectional performance and investor sentiment in a multiple risk factor model

Economists have long recognized the importance of information veracity in valuing risky securities. Market participants concerned about the credibility of information measures may require additional compensation to entice them to hold stocks with less transparent information. These same securities are expected to display greater sensitivities to measures of market sentiment. We find that investor sentiment sensitivities increase directly with multiple measures of opacity in the cross-section. Next we examine the extent to which sentiment sensitivities are priced in an asset pricing context. Using the Jha et al. (2009) model of conditional performance evaluation, we find an inverse relation between ex ante known investor sentiment and the marginal performance of opaque stocks. In contrast, translucent stocks exhibit relatively little variability in performance across levels of sentiment.     

Investor sentiment and the stock market’s reaction to monetary policy

This paper shows that monetary policy decisions have a significant effect on investor sentiment. The effect of monetary news on sentiment depends on market conditions (bull versus bear market). We also find that monetary policy actions in bear market periods have a larger effect on stocks that are more sensitive to changes in investor sentiment and credit market conditions. Overall, the results show that investor sentiment plays a significant role in the effect of monetary policy on the stock market.     

中国个人投资者处置效应研究——一个非理性信念的视角

处置效应是指投资者过早卖出盈利股票而长期持有亏损股票的现象。大量文献表明金融市场投资者存在显著的处置效应,但其产生的原因和机理存在争议。本文在前景理论框架下,构建了包含投资者非理性预期的离散时间投资组合决策模型,发现处置效应随投资者情绪升高而减弱。本文使用我国某券商2007—2009年近177万个人投资者股票账户的交易数据进行了实证分析,得到与理论模型预测的一致结果,即投资者情绪与投资者处置效应之间呈现显著的负相关关系。而且,受情绪影响,投资者处置效应在估值难度较大的股票中更弱。本文结论对理解投资者处置效应、优化投资者卖出决策和加强资本市场基础制度建设具有一定理论和实践意义。     

What Can “Nine‐Eleven” Tell Us about Closed‐end Fund Discounts and Investor Sentiment?

We use the horrific events of September 11, 2001 (“nine‐eleven”) as a natural test of the hypothesis that closed‐end mutual fund discounts from fund net asset values reflect small investor sentiment. Because nine‐eleven was a sudden, unforeseen, and significantly negative and exogenous shock to the world, the capital markets, and investor sentiment, our test avoids many of the problems of extant studies. Discounts worsened dramatically following the event, and then recovered alongside the broader market. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that discounts reflect the sentiment of small investors, who took their cues from the broader market's overall movement.     

ANALYZING STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY USING EXTREME‐DAY MEASURES

We develop a simple measure of volatility based on extreme‐day returns and apply it to market returns from 1885 to 2002. Because returns are not normally distributed, the extreme‐day measure, which is distribution free, might provide a better measure of stock market risk than the traditional standard deviation. The extreme‐day measure more accurately explains investor behavior relative to standard deviation as shown by equity fund flows, and we find evidence that large negative changes appear to influence investor behavior more than large positive changes.     

我国投资者情绪与股票收益实证研究

根据投资者情绪是股票价格形成重要影响因素这一研究观点,围绕投资者情绪是否构成系统性风险及其对不同类型股票的差异化影响,运用我国股市交易数据进行的实证研究结果表明,投资者情绪不构成股市的系统性风险,但对不同市值的股票有着差异化的影响,随着股票的"投机性"增加,投资者情绪对其影响也增大.此外,投资者情绪会削弱股票收益与其波动的正相关性,且对于"投机性"越高的股票,这一影响也越大.     

Do sentiment trades explain investor overconfidence around analyst recommendation revisions?

This study examines irrational stock market reactions to analyst recommendation revisions depending on investor sentiment levels prior to analyst report announcements. We construct a firm-specific sentiment indicator by extending Huang et al. (2015, Review of Financial Studies, 28, pp.791–837). Analyst recommendation revisions have more pronounced effects for downgrades, which is attributable to sentiment effects. Domestic investors tend to react less to upgrades (downgrades) news when their prior beliefs are pessimistic (optimistic), implying that they are overconfident. The domestic investors drive sentiment trades, whereas foreign investors are not biased.     

On the marketing of IPOs

Derrien [2005. Journal of Finance 60, 487–521] and Ljungqvist et al. [2006. Journal of Business] build upon the work of Miller [1977. Journal of Finance 32, 1151–1168] and claim that issuers and the regular customers of investment bankers benefit from the presence of sentiment investors (noise traders) in the market for an initial public offering (IPO). Thus we argue that investment bankers have an incentive to promote an IPO to induce sentiment investors into the market for it. Consistent with this motivation and these models, we expect that the promotional efforts of investment bankers should influence the compensation of investment bankers, the valuation of an IPO, its initial returns and trading, the wealth gains of insider shareholders, and the likelihood that an issuer switches investment bankers for a subsequent seasoned equity offering. Examining data for a sample of IPOs from 1993 through 2000, we find evidence consistent with these predictions and so with the proposition that an investment banker's ability to market an IPO to sentiment investors is important.     

DAYLIGHT AND INVESTOR SENTIMENT: A SECOND LOOK AT TWO STOCK MARKET BEHAVIORAL ANOMALIES

Kamstra, Kramer, and Levi (2000, 2003) describe two stock market behavioral anomalies associated with changes in investor sentiment caused by daylight saving time (DST) changes and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the hypothesized effects, DST changes and SAD affect asset prices by changing investors’ risk aversion. Although changes in the timing or amount of daylight are correlated with unusual stock market returns, I present evidence they do not cause those unusual returns. Instead, seasonal patterns in market‐related information during the sample period are the likely cause of the correlation between stock market returns and DST changes or SAD.     

Analysing Perceived Downside Risk: the Component Value‐at‐Risk Framework

Multinational companies face increasing risks arising from external risk factors, e.g. exchange rates, interest rates and commodity prices, which they have learned to hedge using derivatives. However, despite increasing disclosure requirements, a firm's net risk profile may not be transparent to shareholders. We develop the ‘Component Value‐at‐Risk (VaR)’ framework for companies to identify the multi‐dimensional downside risk profile as perceived by shareholders. This framework allows for decomposing downside risk into components that are attributable to each of the underlying risk factors. The firm can compare this perceived VaR, including its composition and dynamics, to an internal VaR based on net exposures as it is known to the company. Any differences may lead to surprises at times of earnings announcements and thus constitute a litigation threat to the firm. It may reduce this information asymmetry through targeted communication efforts.     

FOREX Risk: Measurement and Evaluation Using Value‐at‐Risk

Abstract:   We measure and evaluate the performance of a number of Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) methods using a portfolio based on the foreign exchange exposure of a small open economy (Ireland) among its trading partners. The sample period highlights the changing nature of Ireland's exposure to risk over the past decade in the run‐up to EMU. Our results offer an indication of the level of accuracy of the various approaches and discuss the issues of models ensuring statistical accuracy or more conservative leanings. Our findings suggest that the Orthogonal GARCH model is the most accurate methodology while the EWMA specification is the more conservative approach.     

The sentiment premium and macroeconomic announcements

Limits to arbitrage imply that market-wide investor sentiment should be a priced factor in the US equity market. While previous studies (Baker and Wurgler in J Financ 61:1645–1680, 2006) focus on the factor loading on market-wide investor sentiment, we study its factor premium in the present paper. This is important, because both factor loadings and premiums are required to estimate expected returns on stocks, which are essential for capital budgeting, portfolio evaluation, investment, and risk analysis decisions. If overpricing is more prevalent than underpricing (Stambaugh et al. in J Financ Econ 104:288–302, 2012), the premium on market-wide investor sentiment should be negative. Furthermore, the sentiment premium should be particularly significant on days without macroeconomic announcements, because there is a lack of information about the state of the economy at such times. We test these hypotheses in this paper, and find supporting evidence. Our findings have important theoretical as well as practical implications.     

Investor sentiment and the near-term stock market

We investigate investor sentiment and its relation to near-term stock market returns. We find that many commonly cited indirect measures of sentiment are related to direct measures (surveys) of investor sentiment. However, past market returns are also an important determinant of sentiment. Although sentiment levels and changes are strongly correlated with contemporaneous market returns, our tests show that sentiment has little predictive power for near-term future stock returns. Finally, our evidence does not support the conventional wisdom that sentiment primarily affects individual investors and small stocks.     

The impact of investor sentiment on crude oil market risks: evidence from the wavelet approach

Investor sentiment has become an important factor affecting oil price volatility and extreme risk. Therefore, we utilise a VaR-GARCH model to detect the extreme risk of the crude oil market during 2007–2017, and then explore the causality between investor sentiment and extreme risk in the crude oil market, and their lead-lag and co-movement relationships in the time-frequency domain. The empirical results show that: firstly, investor sentiment leads downside risk but lags the upside risk in the crude oil market; secondly, in the time domain, there is a co-movement between investor sentiment and extreme risk in the crude oil market, in particular, investor sentiment may Granger cause extreme risk in the crude oil market at the 1% significance level but not vice versa; thirdly, in the frequency domain, weak coherence can be found in high-frequency bands but increases in low-frequency bands during the whole sample period, which indicates that the impact of investor sentiment on extreme risk in the crude oil market will last for a long time, although the affected period tends to decrease.     

Sentiment and stock returns: The SAD anomaly revisited

Widely-cited research by Kamstra et al. (2003) argues that changes in mood resulting from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) drive changes in investor risk aversion and cause seasonal patterns in aggregate stock returns around the world. In this paper we reexamine the so-called SAD effect by replicating and extending Kamstra et al. (2003). We study the psychological underpinnings of the SAD hypothesis and show that the time-series predictions of the SAD model do not correspond to the seasonal patterns in depression found in the general population. We also investigate the cross-sectional prediction that SAD has a greater effect on stock markets in countries where SAD is more prevalent and find no relation between the prevalence of SAD and stock returns. Finally, we document that the SAD effect is mechanically driven by an overlapping dummy-variable specification and higher returns around the turn of the year.     

Canadian Investors and the Discount on Closed-End Funds

We explore the role of the discount on closed-end funds (CEFD) in asset pricing and test its validity as a proxy for investor sentiment in the Canadian stock market. Results show that CEFD is not a priced factor. Both cross-sectional and time-series tests confirm that stocks with different exposures to CEFD do not have significantly different average returns. CEFD does not even provide incremental explanatory power after controlling for firm characteristics and risk factors. Furthermore, CEFD fails to be a proxy for investor sentiment with no correlation to either the consumer confidence index or flows to open-ended funds.     

Chinese institutional investors’ sentiment

We use daily survey data on Chinese institutional investors’ forecasts to measure investors’ sentiment. Our empirical model uncovers that share prices and investor sentiment do not have a long-run relation; however, in the short-run, the mood of investors follows a positive-feedback process. Hence, institutional investors are optimistic when previous market returns were positive. Contrarily, negative returns trigger a decline in sentiment, which reacts more sensitively to negative than positive returns. Investor sentiment does not predict future market movements—but a drop in confidence increases market volatility and destabilizes exchanges. EGARCH models reveal asymmetric responses in the volatility of investor sentiment; however, Granger causality tests reject volatility-spillovers between returns and sentiment.     

KNOW YOUR CLIENT! INVESTOR PROFILE AND TAILOR‐MADE ASSET ALLOCATION RECOMMENDATIONS

We study how the investor profile influences the asset allocation recommendations of professional advisors. We find the investor's perceived risk attitude influences more the mix of risky assets, whereas the socioeconomic variables influence more the cash percentage. The recommendations are consistent with a diversification behavior driven by actual asset correlations. These findings support the utility of investor advisory that may help enhance the risk and return trade‐off. The main drawback of the recommendations may consist in the degree of customization that is limited by the small number of investor characteristics actually influencing the asset allocation.     

Have European Stocks become More Volatile? An Empirical Investigation of Idiosyncratic and Market Risk in the Euro Area

We examine the dynamics of idiosyncratic risk, market risk and return correlations in European equity markets using weekly observations from 3515 stocks listed in the 12 euro area stock markets over the period 1974–2004. Similarly to Campbell et al. (2001) , we find a rise in idiosyncratic volatility, implying that it now takes more stocks to diversify away idiosyncratic risk. Contrary to the US, however, market risk is trended upwards in Europe and correlations are not trended downwards. Both the volatility and correlation measures are pro‐cyclical, and they rise during times of low market returns. Market and average idiosyncratic volatility jointly predict market wide returns, and the latter impact upon both market and idiosyncratic volatility. This has asset pricing and risk management implications.