Investor sentiment and calendar anomaly effects: A case study of the impact of Ramadan on Islamic Middle Eastern markets

The holy month of Ramadan is usually a time of celebration and renewal in Muslim countries. This paper examines whether or not this is reflected in positive calendar anomalies effects in Islamic Middle Eastern stock markets during the period 1992-2007. Strong evidence is found of significant and positive calendar effects in respect to the whole period of Ramadan in most countries and it is argued that this can be attributed to the generally positive investor mood, or sentiment. Although Ramadan is a time of celebration for Muslims it also can be a time of uncertainty and this appears to result in the impact of the festival not being uniformly positive throughout Ramadan. It is found that market returns in the first and last days of Ramadan show high levels of statistically significant year-on-year variation. It is argued that this can possibly be attributed to synchronization-related herding effects amplifying the impact of the mood swings associated with this period. The paper also finds that although the overall Ramadan effect is both positive and statistically significant for most countries, the associated gains were only large enough to outweigh transactions costs and provide the basis of a profitable trading strategy in one market.     

Investor confusion and similarly identified securities

This paper extends the analysis of Rashes (2001) to examine the co‐movement of prices for a sample of UK equity securities with similar ticker symbols and names. In contrast to Rashes (2001), we find only limited evidence of price changes that could be attributed to ticker symbol or name confusion. Our results suggest that any such confusion, if it exists at all, is most likely confined to very short time horizons and is not a systematic occurrence for similarly identified securities.     

The short of it: Investor sentiment and anomalies

This study explores the role of investor sentiment in a broad set of anomalies in cross-sectional stock returns. We consider a setting in which the presence of market-wide sentiment is combined with the argument that overpricing should be more prevalent than underpricing, due to short-sale impediments. Long-short strategies that exploit the anomalies exhibit profits consistent with this setting. First, each anomaly is stronger (its long-short strategy is more profitable) following high levels of sentiment. Second, the short leg of each strategy is more profitable following high sentiment. Finally, sentiment exhibits no relation to returns on the long legs of the strategies.     

Firm life cycle,corporate risk‐taking and investor sentiment

This study investigates the corporate risk‐taking and the performance consequences at different stages of the firm life cycle. We find that risk‐taking is higher in the introduction and decline stages of the life cycle, but lower in the growth and mature stages. We also find that risk‐taking during introduction and decline stage (growth and maturity stage) affects future performance adversely (positively). We also document that managerial risk‐taking propensities increase during periods of high investor sentiment and firms in different life cycle stages respond to sentiment differently. Collectively, these results suggest that the firm life cycle has explanatory power for corporate risk‐taking behaviour.     

Explaining bank stock performance with crisis sentiment

Using search volume data on crisis-related queries from Google Trends, we estimate three different measures of market-level and individual crisis sentiment. We find that the stock performance of international banks during the period Q1 2004 to Q4 2012 was significantly driven by investors’ irrational market-wide crisis sentiment. Our empirical analysis shows that irrational market-wide crisis sentiment leads investors to devalue bank stocks irrespective of idiosyncratic or macroeconomic fundamentals. Comparing this finding with results for a sample of non-financial companies, we find evidence in support of the notion that the effect of crisis sentiment on stock returns is strongest in the absence of implicit bailout guarantees.     

全球宏观策略的回归与中国机构投资者的实践

全球实体经济的运行趋势和国际货币体系已经并将发生重大变化,全球宏观策略在客观的环境改变和机构投资者主观应对上都引起极大关注。中国机构投资者学习和实践全球宏观投资策略的精神和行为,具有重大的现实意义。     

投资者情绪、经理激励契约与企业投资

本文基于中国上市公司经理激励契约安排的制度背景,把经理激励契约纳入投资者非理性分析框架,就投资者情绪与经理激励契约如何相互作用影响企业投资进行了理论分析,并进行了实证检验。结果发现,高管持股会诱发高管利用投机的股市进行过度投资,而与股价弱相关的货币薪酬没有这种作用,而且经理薪酬的这种作用因企业实际控制人性质不同而有所差异。本研究表明高管持股在企业投资决策中具有负面的公司治理效应。     

媒体语气、投资者情绪与IPO定价

本文利用IPO公司在上市前不同时间段内主流财经媒体报道中的正负面词汇数据,构建了媒体语气这一度量公司层面投资者情绪的代理变量,从个股层面检验投资者情绪对IPO抑价率的影响。本文研究结果表明,相比正面媒体语气,负面媒体语气能够更好地解释IPO抑价率、首日换手率以及超募比例。具体而言,我们发现负面媒体语气与IPO抑价率、IPO超募资金比例以及承销商费用占比均显著负相关:负面语气每下降1%,IPO抑价率上升0.22%,超募资金比例提高0.13%,承销商费用占比上升1.44%。我们进一步发现发行公司和承销商有动机和激励通过媒体推介IPO公司,引导、煽动投资者情绪,从而厘清投资者情绪的影响因素以及其作用于资产价格的渠道。本文最后验证了媒体语气作为投资者情绪代理变量的可靠性。