24th December 2011: Journal of Financial Markets: Observations

Last night, I read articles from the 2007-2012 issues of the Journal of Financial Markets (Elsevier). I check-in with this academic research to keep abreast of developments in market microstructure, trading mechanisms, and institutional trading strategies.

Some of the academic research findings I noted:

 

• Growth managers are momentum traders.

• Style neutral and value managers are contrarian traders.

• Trades with high price impact – medium sized orders, large trading volume, trade early in morning.

• Limited capital – traders tend to use momentum and value strategies.

• Morning losses for day-traders – afternoon selling trades – attempt to meet daily price targets.

• Psychological biases lead to correlated trading of individual investors – buy stocks with strong recent performance (momentum); refrain from selling stocks held for a loss; and net buyers of stocks with highly unusual trading volumes.