Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia

We investigate herding in the Saudi stock market, where more than 95% of the total trading is initiatedby the individual investors. Based on readily available stock data, we find evidence of pervasive herdingamong the market participants. Although herding is prevalent irrespective of market conditio...

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Main Authors: Rahman, A., Chowdhury, H., Sadique, Shibley
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43749
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author Rahman, A.
Chowdhury, H.
Sadique, Shibley
author_facet Rahman, A.
Chowdhury, H.
Sadique, Shibley
author_sort Rahman, A.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description We investigate herding in the Saudi stock market, where more than 95% of the total trading is initiatedby the individual investors. Based on readily available stock data, we find evidence of pervasive herdingamong the market participants. Although herding is prevalent irrespective of market conditions, it tendsto get stronger in periods when the market rises and the trading activity intensifies. Traders are foundto be indifferent to important stock categories in their herd behavior. Further analysis suggests that thecorrelated behavior of Saudi traders is unlikely to be induced by the common movements in fundamentals.Considering the unique composition of the market clientele, we interpret these findings as constitutingmarket level evidence supporting a commonly held belief in the literature that the individual investorsare more likely to be noise traders.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:17:52Z
publishDate 2015
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-437492017-09-13T13:41:45Z Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia Rahman, A. Chowdhury, H. Sadique, Shibley Dispersion of return Retail investors Dispersion of beta Market-wide herding Saudi stock marketa We investigate herding in the Saudi stock market, where more than 95% of the total trading is initiatedby the individual investors. Based on readily available stock data, we find evidence of pervasive herdingamong the market participants. Although herding is prevalent irrespective of market conditions, it tendsto get stronger in periods when the market rises and the trading activity intensifies. Traders are foundto be indifferent to important stock categories in their herd behavior. Further analysis suggests that thecorrelated behavior of Saudi traders is unlikely to be induced by the common movements in fundamentals.Considering the unique composition of the market clientele, we interpret these findings as constitutingmarket level evidence supporting a commonly held belief in the literature that the individual investorsare more likely to be noise traders. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43749 10.1016/j.qref.2015.01.002 Elsevier restricted
spellingShingle Dispersion of return
Retail investors
Dispersion of beta
Market-wide herding
Saudi stock marketa
Rahman, A.
Chowdhury, H.
Sadique, Shibley
Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title_full Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title_short Herding where retail investors dominate trading: The case of Saudi Arabia
title_sort herding where retail investors dominate trading: the case of saudi arabia
topic Dispersion of return
Retail investors
Dispersion of beta
Market-wide herding
Saudi stock marketa
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43749