Despite momentum's strong historical performance, its returns have large negative skewness and occasionally experiences persistent strings of sharp negative returns, referred as "momentum crashes" in the recent literature. I argue that momentum crashes are due to crowded trades which push prices...

This study examines the impact of investors' buy and sell trades on Korean stock market volatility across two crisis events, the Asian crisis of 1997 and the 2008 global financial crash. We investigate the trading behaviour of domestic vs. foreign and institutional vs. individual investors. Our...

Assessments of investors’ risk appetite/aversion stance via indicators often yields results which seem unsatisfactory (see e.g. Illing and Aaron (2005)). Understanding how such indicators work therefore seems essential for further improvements. The present paper seeks to contribute to this...

According to the financial press, firms with low leverage have lower distress risk due to their reduced exposure to the credit market, especially during credit crises. Compared to their conventional and socially responsible (SRI) counterparts, sharia compliant (SC) stocks are low-leverage...

An emerging stream of research documents that experience of traumatic events early in a CEO's life influences the firm's investment and financing choices. We extend this research by examining the impact of CEO early-life natural disaster experience on stock price crash risk. Using a longitudinal...

The booms and busts in U.S. stock prices over the post-war period can to a large extent be explained by fluctuations in investors' subjective capital gains expectations. Survey measures of these expectations display excessive optimism at market peaks and excessive pessimism at market throughs....

The booms and busts in U.S. stock prices over the post-war period can to a large extent be explained by fluctuations in investors' subjective capital gains expectations. Survey measures of these expectations display excessive optimism at market peaks and excessive pessimism at market troughs....

Momentum strategies suffer from occasional large drawdowns referred to as momentum crashes when the market rebounds. This paper documents that stocks far from peaks outperform stocks near peaks, and momentum crashes are attributable to such outperformance. Market rebounds triggers increase in...

The principles of behavioral psychology can explain how crashes occur. In particular, the concept of "stimulus generalization" tells us that organisms tend to respond in the same way to similar stimuli. In a crash, or pre-crash, context, several stimuli - including rising prices, above-average...