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1 – 10 of over 108000Gregor Dorfleitner and Isabel Scheckenbach
Social trading platforms are considered to be amongst the major innovations in online trading. The purpose of this article is to analyze the trading activity of traders on social…
Abstract
Purpose
Social trading platforms are considered to be amongst the major innovations in online trading. The purpose of this article is to analyze the trading activity of traders on social trading networks by taking a behavioral approach. Additionally, the authors investigate the factors that influence the irrational part of trading activity derived from the key characteristics of these platforms, i.e. those dealing with social interaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation utilizes an extensive set of trading data from two major platforms in Germany to study the trading behavior. The authors apply a fixed effects two-stage least squares (2SLS) approach to quantify the relationship between trading activity and performance and define overconfidence as the part of trading activity that is irrationally motivated and results in negative returns.
Findings
The results provide evidence for the negative relationship between overconfidence and return on social trading platforms. The authors find that the number of followers and some platform-specific features significantly affect the trading behavior of the traders.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to the existing literature by exploring how the novel social interaction characteristics of online trading impact trading activity by giving rise to a new dimension of overconfidence. In addition, the authors evidence that the different frameworks of the platforms motivate heterogenous behavioral responses by the signalers. Finally, the authors refine existing studies by applying a distinct methodology for modeling overconfidence.
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David Pickernell, Paul Jones, Gary Packham, Brychan Thomas, Gareth White and Robert Willis
This study aims to examine e-commerce within UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, it seeks to explore associations between e-commerce and internal and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine e-commerce within UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, it seeks to explore associations between e-commerce and internal and external antecedents including trading behaviour, owner/manager characteristics, innovation, public sector involvement, business advice and finance sources.
Design/methodology/approach
An 8,500+ sample derived from the 2008 UK Federation of Small Businesses survey was utilised. An OLS regression equation was generated where the percentage of sales made using e-commerce constituted the dependent variable. Independent variables were constructed for several sets of factors including innovation, business advice and sources of finance, as well as a range of owner and SME typology variables.
Findings
The results suggest that e-commerce is more strongly apparent in SMEs started from scratch and where they were involved in basic or high knowledge services or the tourist trade. SMEs undertaking e-commerce were also associated with innovation in the form of copyright, as well as public procurement with local authorities and the university sector. Specific business advice in the form of capacity, family and suppliers was also associated with e-commerce trading.
Research limitations/implications
These results have implications for SMEs and public sector stakeholders. SMEs must recognise the importance of several potential antecedents such as intellectual property rights, specific business advice and finance to encourage e-commerce. Moreover, it was apparent that certain SME characteristics, namely locality and trading behaviour, were associated with effective e-commerce.
Originality/value
This study will be of value to academia, SMEs and key public sector stakeholders in the formulation of policy for ICT development.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of mobile phones on the micro‐trading activities of traders in Ghana. The study aims to develop a conceptual model analyzing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of mobile phones on the micro‐trading activities of traders in Ghana. The study aims to develop a conceptual model analyzing the impact of mobile phones on pre‐trade, during‐trade and post‐trade activities.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methods approach consisting of a descriptive survey of 136 traders and a case study of two traders was adopted.
Findings
The findings suggest that traders primarily use mobile phones to monitor goods and pricing strategies, scheduling deliveries, and addressing inquiries and complaints in during‐trade activities. Traders, including those with no formal education, also use mobile phones as calculators in post‐trade activities. This innovative use of mobile phones is a function of their pre‐knowledge which may have been developed through formal education and/or social networks. Improving information management through mobile phones directly or indirectly contributes to the economic empowerment of the trader.
Research limitations/implications
The paper proposes a conceptual framework that extends the transaction cost theory to consider transaction benefits and effects in micro‐trading. The study develops four propositions which can guide future research.
Practical implications
The study provides practitioners with a “theoretically‐inspired” framework which goes beyond examining design and adoption to identify needs and assess impact in mobiles for development initiatives.
Originality/value
The conceptual framework extends the work on transaction cost theory in information systems and may inform future research in mobile phones and micro‐trading activities.
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Dinesh Kumar Sharma and Meenakshi Malhotra
Guar Seed crop is ruling the Indian International business mainly due to its application as a drilling fluid in shale energy industry concentrated in the USA. One of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Guar Seed crop is ruling the Indian International business mainly due to its application as a drilling fluid in shale energy industry concentrated in the USA. One of the allegations against futures market is its possible role in increasing the volatility of underlying physical market prices. Suspension of guar seed futures contract in 2012 at National Commodity Derivatives Exchange of India (NCDEX)-India, has reignited the controversy and raised an alarm bell to peek into obscure world of Indian commodity derivatives market. Against the backdrop of fiasco in guar futures trading, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether sudden surge in futures trading volume leads to increase in the volatility of spot market prices.
Design/methodology/approach
Guar seed spot returns volatility is modeled as a GARCH (1, 1) process. Futures trading volume and open interest are segregated into expected and unexpected components. The data are analyzed from 2004 to 2011 using Augmented GARCH model to study the contemporaneous relationship between spot volatility and unexpected futures trading activity and Granger Causality test for examining the dynamic relationship between them and ascertaining causality.
Findings
Augmented GARCH model reports positive relationship between unexpected futures trading volume (UTV) and spot returns volatility, and, Granger Causality flows from UTV to spot volatility. Therefore, when the level of futures trading volume increases unexpectedly, the volatility of spot prices increases pointing toward the destabilizing impact of futures trading. However, hedger’s activity, represented by open interest is not seen to have any causal/destabilizing impact on spot price volatility of guar seed.
Practical implications
The study provides empirical evidence to support the concern of regulators, genuine hedgers and other traders about the presence of excessive speculation and market manipulations perpetrated through futures market that is disturbing the underlying physical market instead of strengthening it by aiding in price discovery and risk mitigation.
Originality/value
There are very few studies which have empirically investigated the temporal relation between volume and volatility in Indian agricultural commodity markets. With guar seed as a special case the present study investigates statistically the impact of futures trading on spot price volatility. In light of the findings of the study, the curb imposed on guar seed futures trading in 2012 was justified.
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Mohammad Tariqul Islam Khan, Siow-Hooi Tan and Lee-Lee Chong
The purpose of this paper is to test the competing explanations of stated preferences for firm characteristics, optimism and overconfidence for trading activities in a single…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the competing explanations of stated preferences for firm characteristics, optimism and overconfidence for trading activities in a single framework.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey methodology is followed to collect the data among retail investors in Malaysia using simple random sampling.
Findings
The findings show simultaneous identification of stated preferences for firm characteristics, optimism and overconfidence as determinants of trading activities. Preferences for firm’s profitability characteristics, management and product-related attributes and risky characteristics are likely to decrease investors’ trading activities. On the other hand, preferences for firm’s liquidity and trading volume characteristics with relative financial-domain optimism, personal investment optimism and better-than-average aspect of overconfidence are likely to increase investors’ trading activities.
Practical implications
This finding implies that investors should be careful not only in assessing firm’s characteristics but also need to understand the effects of optimism and overconfidence in trading decisions.
Originality/value
The study considers various aspects of optimism and overconfidence, and the stated preferences for firm characteristics, unlike one aspect of these behavioral biases and indirect observation of preferences for firm characteristics. Furthermore, the study considers trading frequency, annual portfolio turnover and trading intention, whereas earlier studies considered only one or two of these trading decisions.
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William M. Cready and Abdullah Kumas
This analysis is the first to explore the overall roles of the offsetting attraction and distraction influences of earnings news in shaping the level of attention given to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This analysis is the first to explore the overall roles of the offsetting attraction and distraction influences of earnings news in shaping the level of attention given to the equity market by market participants.
Design/methodology/approach
We use multivariate regression approach and examine how trading activity levels within the set of non-announcing firms varies with respect to collective measures of contemporaneous earnings announcement visibility. We employ attention and information transfer theories in our hypothesis development.
Findings
This analysis is the first to explore the overall roles of the offsetting attraction and distraction influences of earnings news in shaping the level of attention given to the equity market by market participants. Specifically, we examine how the number of earnings announcement activity affects investor attention as measured by trading volume given to the set of non-announcing firms. We find that while earnings announcement numbers lower trading volume responses to earnings news among announcing firms (consistent with Hirshleifer et al., 2009), their distractive influence does not carry over into the market as a whole. More importantly, investor attention to both the overall market and the larger subset of non-announcing firms increase in response to earnings news activity levels. However, after decomposing the announcers as same-industry and different-industry announcers, we find that investor attention to the non-announcing segment of the market increases with the number of same-industry announcers, but actually seems to decrease (i.e. they distract attention) with the number of different-industry announcers. We also find that the associated earnings surprise brings attention to non-announcing firms (consistent with earnings news is relevant to overall market price movements). Finally, we find that distraction effects are attenuated in the financial crisis period.
Research limitations/implications
A promising area of future research is to examine the relation between market pricing efficiency and aggregate earnings activity for the set of non-announcing firms. Although it will be a challenging task to measure pricing efficiency for the non-announcers, this will complement the prior literature only focusing on the announcing segment of the market.
Practical implications
First, instead of assessing the impact of number of earnings announcements on the subset of announcing firms, which is a micro-level perspective, we identify the impact of news arrivals on all firms in the market including the vastly larger set of non-announcing firms. Second, by decomposing the number of announcements into industry-related and -unrelated news we show that different types of news arrivals spark investor attention differently, suggesting the importance of categorizing the news into related and unrelated industries.
Social implications
A potential future area of research identified by our analysis is to investigate what type of investors' attention is distracted or attracted during the earnings announcements. A promising area of future research is to examine the relation between market pricing efficiency and aggregate earnings activity for the set of non-announcing firms.
Originality/value
This paper is the first one exploring the overall roles of the offsetting attraction and distraction influences of earnings announcements in shaping the level of investor attention given to the equity market by market participants. Our findings should be of interest to investors, analysts, security market regulators and researchers.
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Leo H. Chan, Chi M. Nguyen and Kam C. Chan
In this chapter, we apply the new measure of speculative activities (hereafter, named the speculative ratio) in Chan, Nguyen, and Chan (2013) to study the relationship between…
Abstract
In this chapter, we apply the new measure of speculative activities (hereafter, named the speculative ratio) in Chan, Nguyen, and Chan (2013) to study the relationship between those activities and volatility in the oil futures market. We document that the speculative ratio (trading volume divided by open interest) can isolate speculative elements from total trading activities. Using the oil futures data and dividing the data into two subperiods surrounding Hurricane Katrina, we find an increased speculative trades in the post-Hurricane Katrina period. Our results show that speculative activities create a more volatile oil futures market and they lower the information flow between volatility and speculative activities in the post-Hurricane Katrina period.
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Diego A. Agudelo, Ángelo Gutiérrez Daza and Nazly J. Múnera Montoya
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of X‐Stream, the new trading platform of the Colombian Stock Exchange since February 2009, on the market quality.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of X‐Stream, the new trading platform of the Colombian Stock Exchange since February 2009, on the market quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test the effect of X‐Stream on market quality variables, such as liquidity (bid‐ask spread and price impact), daily and intraday volatility and trading activity, using mean tests, panel data and conditional variance models. The authors use a proprietary database of transactions and orders from the exchange.
Findings
The evidence suggests that X‐Stream improved the liquidity and trading activity and reduced the volatility of the overall market, especially of the most liquid stocks.
Practical implications
These results support the investment on more sophisticated trading systems in emerging markets.
Originality/value
Contributing to the literature on market quality, this paper provides novel evidence of the effect of reforms on market design, trading rules and operational capabilities on a small and low‐liquidity emerging stock market.
Resumen
Se investiga el efecto de la plataforma de transacción de acciones de BVC, X‐Stream, en la calidad del mercado accionario a partir de su lanzamiento en Febrero del 2009. Partiendo de una base de datos transaccional de BVC, se emplean varios modelos econométricos para medir el efecto de la nueva plataforma en las volatilidades diaria e intradiaria, la liquidez (margen proporcional de oferta y demanda e impacto en el precio) y la actividad bursátil. La evidencia demuestra que X‐Stream mejoró la liquidez y redujo la volatilidad del mercado accionario como un todo, pero especialmente en las acciones más líquidas. Esta investigación contribuye a la literatura en calidad de mercado al aportar nueva evidencia sobre el efecto de los cambios de diseño, reglas de transacción y capacidades operacionales en un mercado accionario de reducidos tamaño y liquidez. De esta manera, sirve como argumento para justificar inversiones en sistemas avanzados de transacción en mercados emergentes.
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This paper aims to present a simple behavioural explanation of the prohibition of speculation in Islamic finance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a simple behavioural explanation of the prohibition of speculation in Islamic finance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a theoretical model that describes how investors from low income strata of the society may be prone to make sub-optimal decisions when they compare their outcome from a speculative trading activity to that of the counterparty to the trade and perceive inequity to exist.
Findings
When individuals from low income strata of the society compare their current situation with the average income of the society, they perceive themselves to be in a loss. This creates a loss frame within which they then evaluate all future outcomes. When such individuals invest in speculative trading activities and incur a loss, they compare their outcome from the trade to that of the counterparty to the trade. As speculative trades are a zero sum game, the counterparty makes an equivalent gain from the trade. Thus, the comparison leads to a perception of inequity. This perception of inequity is aggravated by the loss frame within which the investor is operating. The aggravated inequity aversion may then motivate the investor to make further sub-optimal decisions like repeated speculative trading activities. The Islamic prohibition on speculative trading activities may serve to protect low income investors from entering into such cycles of sub-optimal decisions.
Originality/value
This paper offers a unique explanation of why day trading and short selling may be prohibited in Islamic capital markets.
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