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This study examines the role of behavioural factors, such as confidence, optimism, pessimism and rational expectation, in affecting investment decisions in the Pakistani stock market.

Using daily trading data of Karachi Stock Exchange-100 index from January 2012 to December 2015, different regression models, including descriptive statistics and stationarity tests, are performed.

Results indicate that stock market trading has suffered from pessimistic behaviour of investors. In the first model, the authors find a positive sign of confidence and negative sign of optimism with the trading volume. The second model shows a positive role of confidence and rational expectations in affecting the trading volume in daily, Monday and Friday samples. The results of the third model show a negative sign of both optimism and rational expectation with the trading volume. Furthermore, the next model shows a negative sign of confidence combined with pessimism while testing their relationship with the trading volume. Finally, results of the final model suggest that optimism negatively affects the trading volume, and on the other hand, pessimism has a positive impact on the trading volume.

The method and empirical testing of behavioural biases and their relationship with economic variable used in this study seem to be a promising way to better understand the role of psychology in deriving financial decisions for academics and policymakers.

This study uses secondary data for measuring behavioural biases and decomposes the effect between rational expectation and behavioural biases.

This research mainly intends to ascertain the stimulus of investor investment tendencies on the amount of capital investment in the share market.

Utilizing a sample of 477 individual investors who actively trade on the Bangladesh capital market, this empirical study was conducted. The objective of this examination is to ascertain the investment trading behavior of retail investors in the Bangladesh capital market using multiple regression, hypothesis testing and correlation analysis.

The coefficients of market categories, preferred share price ranges and investment source reveal negative predictor correlations; all predictors are statistically significant, with the exception of investment source. Positive predictive correlations exist between investor category, financial literacy degree, investment duration, emotional tolerance level, risk consideration, investment monitoring activities, internal sentiment and correct investment selection. Except for risk consideration and investment monitoring activities, all components have statistically significant predictions. The quantity of capital invested in the stock market is heavily influenced by the investment duration, preferred share price ranges, investor type, emotional toleration level and decision-making accuracy level.

This investigation was conducted exclusively with Bangladeshi individual stockholders. Therefore, the existing study can be extended to institutional investors and conceivably to other divisions. It is possible to conduct this similar study internationally. And the query can enlarge with more sample size and use a more sophisticated econometric model. Despite that the outcomes of this study help the regulatory authorities to arrange more informative seminars and consciousness programs.

The conclusions have practical implications since they empower investors to modify their portfolios based on elements including share price ranges, investment horizons and emotional stability. To improve chances of success and reach financial objectives, they stress the significance of bettering financial understanding, active monitoring and risk analysis. Results can also be enhanced by distributing ownership over a number of market sectors and price points. The results highlight the value of patience and giving potential returns enough time.

This study on the trading behavior of investors in Bangladesh is unique and based on field study, and the findings of this study will deliver information to the stakeholders of the capital market regarding the investors’ trading behavior belonging to different categories, financial literacy level, investment duration, emotional tolerance level and internal feeling.

How did investors in the Swedish Premium Pension System (PPS) react to the stock market shock ignited by the COVID-19 pandemic?

The authors use fund-level data from the Swedish Pensions Agency on investment choices in the PPS. For each fund, the authors use monthly information on the number of investors and holdings' market value up to November 2020. The authors also use information on the total number of portfolio changes per day. For analyzing whether PPS investors reacted to the pandemic with claiming their pension, the authors use monthly data on the number of investors of a certain age group who initiate their public pension payment.

Trades more than doubled, and shifted capital from equity funds to low risk interest funds. In economic terms, however, trading stayed at low levels–less than two percent of investors traded in March 2020 and there was no effect on pension withdrawals. The increased trading during the market tumult was disproportionately concentrated among investors in the top of the pension capital distribution.

With fund-level data, the authors cannot investigate what in particular made retirement investors stay calm in the midst of a severe market decline. Either, those investors have a long-term investment horizon as they save for their pension or particular features of the system's choice architecture induce inertia and discourage from trading. The sub-group analyses are more consistent with the explanation that PPS-induced inertia is responsible for the relatively small increase in trading activity, but future research could exploit individual level data to explore this in more detail.

The often-criticized PPS choice architecture provided positive side effects in times of a severe market shock by shielding retail investors from committing trading mistakes when trying to outsmart the market.

The study complements previous evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on investor activity. The small response of PPS investors to COVID-19 is in line with earlier US findings on 401(k) accounts during the 2007 financial crisis (Tang et al., 2012) and industry reports about the COVID-19 period (see, e.g. Mitchell, 2020). The authors find no effects at all on public pension withdrawals in Sweden, while evidence from US 401(k) plans indicates a small share of workers taking COVID-related early withdrawals.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether heuristic and herding biases influence portfolio construction and performance in Greece. The current research determines the situation among investors in Greece, a country with several economic problems for the last decade.

A survey has been conducted covering a group of active private investors. The relationship between private investors' behavior and portfolio construction and performance was tested using a multiple regression.

The authors find that heuristic variable affects private investor's portfolio construction and performance satisfaction level positively. A robustness test on a second group, consisting of professional investors, reveals that heuristic and herding biases affect investment behavior when constructing a portfolio.

The authors recommend investors to select professional's investment portfolio tools in constructing investment portfolios and avoid excessive errors, which occur due to heuristic. The awareness and understanding of heuristic and herding could be helpful for professionals and decision-makers in financial institutions by improving their performance resulting in more efficient markets.

The main contribution of this paper lies in the fact that it is the first study on two major behavioral dimensions that affect the investor's portfolio construction and performance in Greece. The rationale of the current research is that the results are helpful for investors in order to take rational, reliable and profitable decisions.

In this study, we investigate what drives the MAX effect in the South Korean stock market. We find that the MAX effect is significant only for overpriced stocks categorized by the composite mispricing index. Our results suggest that investors' demand for the lottery and the arbitrage risk effect of MAX may overlap and negate each other. Furthermore, MAX itself has independent information apart from idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL), which assures that the high positive correlation between IVOL and MAX does not directly cause our empirical findings. Finally, by analyzing the direct trading behavior of investors, our results suggest that investors' buying pressure for lottery-like stocks is concentrated among overpriced stocks.

It is known that the National Pension Service (NPS) of Korea contributes to the market stability because it tends to pursue the negative feedback trading strategy in the Korean stock market. While many studies deal with institutional investors’ trading in the financial derivatives market, the NPS’s trading in the derivatives market is rarely studied. Using the NPS’s trading data for the period from January 2010 to March, 2020, the authors examine the transactions of the NPS in the KOSPI200 futures market. We find that the NPS’s net investment flow (NIF) in KOSPI200 futures is negatively associated with the past returns of KOSPI200 futures and the KOPI200 index. However, we also find that the NPS’s NIF of KOSPI200 futures is positively associated with its NIF in KOSPI200 stocks. Along with the legal restriction on the NPS’s trading in the derivatives market, the result suggests that the NPS uses KOSPI200 futures to deviate the problems related to non-synchronous trading in the spot market. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first study of the NPS’s transactions of KOSPI200 futures. The paper suggests that the NPS does not trade KOSPI200 futures for hedging or arbitrage profit but for complementing its transactions in the spot market of KOSPI200 stocks.

For Chinese companies that cross-list in Chinese A share and Hong Kong (H share) markets, the H share price has been consistently lower than the A share price by an average of 85% in recent years. This is puzzling because most institutional differences between the two markets have been eliminated since 2007. The purpose of this study is to explain the puzzle of the price difference of A+H companies.

Using all A and H share Chinese firms in the period 2007–2013 and a simultaneous equations approach, this study identifies three new explanations for the recent price difference.

First, utilizing a unique earning quality measure that is directly related to non-persistent components of fair value accounting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), this study finds that the lower the earnings quality, the lower the H share price relative to the A share price, and hence the greater the price difference. Second, the higher the myopic investor ownership in A share firms, the larger the A share price relative to the H share price. Third, the short-selling mechanism introduced to the A share market since 2010 helps reduce the price difference.

First, this study identifies three new explanations for the puzzle of the AH price difference which remains substantial even after the institutional and accounting standards differences between the two markets were eliminated. Second, we examine the impact of the implementation of fair value accounting under IFRS in an emerging market on the pricing difference of cross-listed shares and reveal that it can induce an unintended negative consequence on the pricing difference of cross-listed shares. Third, this study contributes to the literature on short sales by providing its mitigating role in pricing differences across two different markets. Finally, this study makes improvements in research design, which utilizes a unique measure of earnings quality that is directly related to the implementation of IFRS and a simultaneous equations approach that minimizes endogeneity concern.

The authors examine the effect of split environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings on information asymmetry, corporate value and trading behavior. The authors test the risk-based hypothesis and the optimism-bias hypothesis on the relationship between diverging opinions and future stock prices. The authors results show that split ESG ratings is positively related to idiosyncratic volatility, an alternative measure for information asymmetry. Further, the negative effect of split ESG ratings on cumulative abnormal return under short-selling constraints is consistent with the optimism bias hypothesis. The authors find a negative relationship between split ESG ratings and the net purchase ratio (NPR) of pension funds. Considering that the NPR is a direct measure of net demand, ESG disagreement may hinder socially responsible investing (SRI) in a firm. This study directly demonstrates the negative effect of ESG disagreement on firm value and investment by Korea's National Pension Service (NPS). The results offer valuable insights into policymakers, as the wide divergence in ESG ratings requires urgent attention to expand SRI.

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of heuristic biases on investment decisions through multiple mediation mechanisms of risk tolerance and financial literacy in the Tanzanian stock market.

A sample of 316 individual investors in the Tanzanian stock market was obtained through questionnaires. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The findings show that financial literacy mediates insignificantly the effects of overconfidence, availability, anchoring and representativeness heuristics on investment decisions. Further, financial literacy does not influence the effect of risk tolerance and investment decisions. Risk tolerance is confirmed as a positive mediator of overconfidence, availability, anchoring and representativeness heuristics in investment decisions. Also, the study shows that overconfidence exerts a stronger influence on investment decisions, followed by availability, representativeness, risk tolerance, anchoring and financial literacy.

The study deals with real investors. Therefore, it uses fewer items to measure the constructs in order to avoid respondent bias. Further research could examine the effects of heuristic biases on investment decisions by adding or modifying the items of particular constructs and studying institutional investors.

The findings can help individual investors to analyze and evaluate their behavior toward stock selection. Securities institutions can use this research to understand investors' behavior, evaluate future market trends and provide advice to the investors.

Previous studies have examined the impact of heuristics on the investment decisions of individual investors. The unique empirical analysis developed in this paper is that it examines the multiple mediation mechanisms of risk tolerance and financial literacy with respect to heuristic biases and investment decisions in the Tanzanian stock market.

This study aims to examine that personality traits are associated with the investor’s ability to exhibit disposition effect, herding behavior and overconfidence. It also explores how risk-attitude can modify investor behavior by moderating the association between personality traits, disposition effect, herding and overconfidence.

Data were collected from 396 respondents by using personally administrated survey. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm the validity and reliability of data. Regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results supported the proposed hypotheses and showed that extravert investors were more likely to exhibit disposition effect, herding and overconfidence. The conscientiousness trait was associated with disposition effect and overconfidence, while neuroticism was associated with herding behavior. The results confirmed the moderating effect of risk aversion on the association between personality traits, disposition effect, herding and overconfidence.

This study demonstrates how risk aversion modes the strength of association between psychological characteristics (represented by personality traits) and cognitive biases (disposition effect, herding and overconfidence). The results support the “auction” interpretation of investors' behavior by suggesting that personality traits are associated with investment decision-making and that investors are marginal price setters.