In a recent article, F. Black introduces the concept of noise trading, defin ed as trading on noise as if it were information. He asserts that suc h trading must be a significant factor in securities markets, but doe s not explain why investors would rationally trade on noise. The goal of this...

After a string of years in which security analysts' top stock picks significantly outperformed their plans, the year 2000 was a disaster. During that year the stocks least favorably recommended by analysts earned an annualized market-adjusted return of 48.66 percent while the stocks most highly...