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...

Currently the real, inflation-adjusted, price of gold is almost as high as it was in January 1980 and August 2011. Since 1975, periods of high real gold prices have occurred during periods of elevated concern about high future price inflation. Five years after the real price peaks in January...

Smart-beta (or factor) investing industry's assets under management have grown to over $1 trillion. We attempt to survey the merits and risks of this investment style from both professional investors' and academics' points of view. After reviewing academic papers, reports of practitioners in the...

This paper examines herd behaviour using aggregate market data for stocks, with a focus on the role of idiosyncratic participants with heterogeneous information. We look at herding asymmetry between up and down markets, taking into consideration the daily price limits and the impact of the...

This paper studies the effect of new fund flows on investment behavior and the resulting equilibrium price of risk. The Small Fund Industry model shows equilibria with overinvestment in unprofitable and underinvestment in profitable investment opportunities. The Large Fund Industry model derives...

The objective of this paper is to examine the absolute and risk-adjusted effects on distribution rates and total wealth created by adding loss-limiting trend following strategies to buy and hold portfolios. Using 150 years of equity and bond data, we found that applying trend following to...

We study the evolution of the behavioral component of the financial market by estimating a Bayesian mixture model in which two types of investors coexist: one rational, with standard subjective expected utility theory (SEUT) preferences, and one behavioral, endowed with an S-shaped utility...

I propose a new investor sentiment measurement for the private equity market based on over 12,000 private equity deals from 68 countries over 1992 to 2012. The data indicate that institutional environments and firm-specific characteristics are both strong determinants of the private equity...

A new economic revolution liberating financial markets? Seeks to answer some of the questions driving the existential crisis embroiling finance: What is currency? What is value? What is a business? What is a bank, even?This article discusses how regulatory reform, transformative technologies,...

In recent years, a new form of risk has been recognized. This risk is the risk of crowded spaces. That is, how the saturation of a particular trading strategy can lead to a mis-measurement of the future expected returns and risks of the trading strategy. The primary focus of this risk has to do...