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Institutional investors have a better understanding of corporate performance than non-institutional investors, and their presence tends to improve the overall governance mechanism of a company and discipline top management against taking self-serving or myopic decisions. In this study, we examine shareholder voting patterns on auditor reappointments in Indian companies and examine whether institutional shareholder dissent on auditor reappointment acts as a disciplining mechanism on subsequent auditor actions and leads to improvement in audit quality. Our results indicate that institutional shareholder dissent on auditor reappointment is positively related to relative magnitude of non-audit services (NAS) fees in the previous year. More importantly, we observe that auditors are sensitive to institutional dissent and respond by charging a lower amount of NAS fees and providing superior audit quality in the subsequent year to signal increased independence and objectivity. Similar results are not observed in the case of retail shareholders. Our findings reinforce the role of institutional shareholders as important monitors in the corporate governance process and call for regulation to mandate the participation of shareholders in the auditor appointment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retail order imbalance positively predicts returns, but on average retail investor trades lose money. Why? Order imbalance tests equal-weighted stocks, but retail purchases concentrate on attention-grabbing stocks that subsequently underperform. Long–short strategies based on extreme quintiles of retail order imbalance earn dismal annualized returns of −14.8% among stocks with heavy retail trading but earn 6.6% among other stocks. Our results reconcile the literatures on the performance of retail investors, the predictive content of retail order imbalance, and attention-induced trading and returns. Smaller retail trades concentrate more on attention-grabbing stocks and perform worse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collecting large asset managers' capital market assumptions, we revisit the relationships between subjective equity premium expectations, equity valuations, and financial portfolios. In contrast to the well-documented extrapolative expectations of retail investors, asset managers' equity premium expectations are countercyclical: they are high (low) when valuations are low (high). We find that asset managers' portfolios reflect their heterogeneous expectations: allocation funds of asset managers with larger U.S. equity premium expectations invest significantly more in U.S. equities. The sensitivity of portfolios to expectations seems to be muted by investment mandates and is smaller than the one predicted by a standard portfolio choice model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Global Settlement, analysts extensively use a top pick designation allowing for greater granularity of information among buy recommended stocks, but conflicts of interest can potentially influence this designation. Examining a novel sample of top picks, we find that a calendar-time portfolio of top picks generates an abnormal performance of 17.6% per year. Top picks have greater investment value than do buy recommendations and alternative analyst investment strategies. Both institutional and retail investors trade in response to top picks. However, only institutional investors appear to identify top picks that have greater investment value when they are announced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the value of due diligence recommendations on Reddit's Wallstreetbets (WSB) platform. Before the Gamestop (GME) short squeeze, recommendations are significant predictors of returns and cash-flow news. This predictability is eliminated post-GME. Post-GME, the fraction of reports emphasizing price-pressure or attention-grabbing stocks dramatically increases, and the decline in informativeness is concentrated in these reports. Similarly, retail trade informativeness is particularly strong following DD reports in the pre-GME period, but not post-GME. Our findings are consistent with the view that the Gamestop event altered the culture of WSB , leading to a deterioration in investment quality that adversely affected smaller investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document fragile demand for socially responsible investments (SRIs) by retail mutual fund investors. Using COVID-19 as an economic shock, we show funds with higher sustainability ratings experienced sharper declines in retail flows during the pandemic, controlling for fund characteristics. The decline in retail SRI fund flows is sharper than that of institutional flows, more pronounced when economies are hit harder by COVID-19, and unlikely to be driven by fund performance, past flows and size, or shifting investor attention. Corroborated by out-of-sample survey evidence, our findings highlight the high sensitivity of SRI demand by retail investors with respect to income shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze how individual investors respond to inflation. We introduce a unique data set containing information on local inflation and security portfolios of more than 2,000 clients of a German bank between 1920 and 1924, covering the German hyperinflation. We find that individual investors buy fewer (sell more) stocks when facing higher local inflation. This effect is more pronounced for less sophisticated investors. Moreover, we document a positive relation between local inflation and forgone returns following stock sales. Our findings are consistent with individual investors suffering from money illusion. Alternative explanations, such as consumption needs, are unlikely to drive our results. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uncovers how household investors intensify the effect of the 52-week high (52WH): increased volume and momentum-like returns at the 52WH price. Using daily household and institutional trading data, we find that households sharply increase their selling, particularly with limit orders at the 52WH price. This behavior is indicative of anchoring, as it is robust to past returns and intensified by proximity, market uncertainty, and salience of the 52WH. This uninformed limit order selling at and prior to the 52WH leads to a doubling of unconditional 52WH anomaly returns. Post-event returns benefit institutions, which act as counterparties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mutual funds often invest in other funds. In this paper, we analyze the economics behind such cross-fund investments and investigate their financial stability implications. Using granular data for the German fund sector, our main findings are that cross-fund investments (a) are becoming increasingly important over time, (b) were heavily liquidated during March 2020, and (c) display measurable contagion effects. Overall, cross-fund investments can elevate structural fund sector vulnerabilities. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to demonstrate the impact of Sharia-compliance (SC) on attracting various types of investment, including foreign, family, institutional, royal, government and large individual investments. Design/methodology/approach: The sample comprises 168 nonfinancial companies listed in the financial markets of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 2009 to 2019, totaling 1,848 observations. The researchers used the ordinary least squares panel data method, with additional tests conducted using the two-stage least squares method. Findings: The results indicate a negative relationship between SC and both foreign and institutional investments. Conversely, there is a positive relationship between SC and both family investment and large individual investor investment. Furthermore, the study found no significant relationship between SC and both government and royal investments (RIs). Practical implications: The study enhances understanding of the role of Sharia-compliant companies in attracting investment. For managers of such companies, there is a need to make their firms more appealing to diverse investor types. Current and potential investors in Sharia-compliant companies should be aware of the investor nature controlling these companies. This study is beneficial for policymakers and regulators to assess the impact of Islamic Sharia-imposed restrictions on financial decision-making in companies. Policymakers should develop and monitor indicators of companies' adherence to SC law in the six GCC countries and should also issue rules to enhance Sharia-compliant companies' commitment to governance and transparency. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to address the impact of SC on attracting different investment types. It includes six distinct investment types, notably RI, a significant variable in GCC countries' business environment due to the considerable wealth and influence of royal family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Millennials are a vital generational cohort of the Indian population, and understanding their motivation to participate in the stock market is crucial. This study aims to understand the investment decision-making behavior among millennials in the Indian Stock Market. Design/methodology/approach: Using a cross-sectional research design that entails in-depth personal interviews, this study aims to understand the equity investment behavior of millennials. Verbatim texts from interview transcripts were used to analyze the content and arrive at themes. Findings: The study investigated the motivation to enter the stock market and gained insights into how individuals make equity investment decisions considering economic and behavioral dimensions. The basis for stock selection was predominantly on the self-analysis of investors. Multiple stock selection priorities are also discussed. In addition, informants ensured asset diversification and exercised various strategies to overcome emotions. Furthermore, they suffered from various behavioral biases. Practical implications: Individual investors are the least informed and most impacted stakeholders in the stock markets; therefore, this study contributes fresh insights to enhance their financial security. The paper also examines some noticeable behavioral tendencies retail investors exhibit and gathers helpful strategies for mitigating behavioral biases. Originality/value: The uniqueness of the research lies in its adoption of a qualitative methodology that uses the investment experience of millennial investors to reveal the components of decision-making behavior and investor psychology. The findings are thereby unique and have significant managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governing greenwashing in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure is an important issue, but relevant literature is scant. Based on the data on Chinese A‐share listed firms from 2012 to 2021, we investigate the governance role of corporate digital transformation (DT) in ESG greenwashing and its influencing mechanism. We find that DT significantly inhibits ESG greenwashing. Moreover, DT mitigates ESG greenwashing by enhancing corporate green technology innovation (i.e., innovation channel), reducing information asymmetry (i.e., information channel), and increasing trade credit (i.e., resource channel). From the perspective of investor attention, we find that both retail investors' online opinions and institutional investors' site visits strengthen the inhibitory effect of DT on ESG greenwashing. Furthermore, such an inhibitory effect is more pronounced in large firms, industries with high competition, and regions with strong intellectual property protection. This research provides new insights and policy suggestions for governing corporate ESG greenwashing behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Inspired by the groundbreaking novel European regulations on financial investors' profiling (MiFID II regulation and the ESMA 2022 Guidelines), this paper aims to establish which distinctive socio-demographic traits distinguish investors who declare a generalized interest in all three environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G) pillars and investors who express interest in just one individual pillar or a combination of two pillars. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a unique dataset of 190 real-world retail investors, this paper aims to create a profile of three types of investor: those whose interest lies in just the environmental pillar, those interested in a combination of the environmental and social pillars, and those interested in all three E, S, and G pillars jointly. Moreover, we try to ascertain whether it is possible to observe statistically significant differences between the different types of investors. Findings: The results obtained indicate that it is possible to profile investors who are environmentally-oriented and investors who are ESG-oriented. Notably, levels of financial literacy do not influence investor ESG attitudes. Practical implications: The results obtained may have multifaceted implications for financial advisors, the banking and financial institution industry, and marketing strategists, as well as for further research. Originality/value: The originality of this paper derives from the responses used in the analysis, which were collected from a sample of real-world retail investors who completed a mandatory MiFID-questionnaire, validated by the Italian Securities and Markets Supervisory Authority. Our paper thus represents a bridge between a theoretical approach and real-world practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We analyze the role of trust as a driver of speculative investment decisions in technology firms. Design/methodology/approach: Structural Equation Modeling analysis in the context of blockchain technology supports our hypotheses. Findings: Our findings indicate that a general propensity to trust technology leads to trusting beliefs in a service based on technology and that trusting beliefs in a technological service leads to a higher propensity to invest in any firm associated with that service. In addition, we show that in a non-technological context, there is no evidence for such an effect of trusting beliefs in a service on investment decisions. These results support the notion that trusting beliefs are facilitators of speculative investment in technology firms. Research limitations/implications: The research advances knowledge about the influence of trust in technology on investment decisions; its findings can help build new theoretical models regarding investment decisions using Fintech. Practical implications: For investors, it is important to realize the potential bias identified in this study, so they can actively avoid adhering to it, thus avoiding exposure to unnecessary risk. Further, beyond individual investors, investment firms take active measures to avoid biases in their own decision-making. Banks and investment firms can help guide their clients about trust-based bias when building their investment portfolio. Originality/value: Although trust in information systems has been studied extensively, research on the relationship between trust in technology and decisions to invest in technology-related firms is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aims to examine the dividend omissions and dividend cuts behaviour of manufacturing and non-financial services firms to identify the determinants of dividend omissions and dividend cuts. Design/methodology/approach: The study analyses the financial data of 3,546 firms from 2011 to 2020 (35,460 firm-year observations) using a dynamic random-effect probit panel regression model. Findings: The results suggest that profitability, growth opportunity, leverage, liquidity, risk, extraordinary income, shareholding pattern and buyback are major determinants of dividend omissions. Similarly, dividend cut in the previous year, profitability, operating cash flow, risk and extraordinary income are major factors leading to dividend cuts. Research limitations/implications: Firms which omit the dividend are less likely to start paying dividend in subsequent years, whereas firms which cut the dividend may increase dividend in later years. Also, profitability decreases for a significant number of firms post dividend omission and cut. This indicates that dividend omission is a more prominent signal than a dividend cut for the financial health of a firm. Practical implications: The determinants identified in the study enable analysts and portfolio managers to decide the propensity of dividend omission and cut even before actual announcements and can alleviate the significant loss in the portfolio. Also, managers and the board of directors would be able to monitor the firm's financial performance to avoid the situation leading to dividend omissions and cuts. Social implications: The study strongly recommends that firms should voluntarily pay dividends to shareholders to encourage the healthy participation of retail shareholders in the equity market and create a long-term win–win situation for all stakeholders in society. If a large number of firms continue not to pay the dividend, the study appeals to the regulators to intervene to protect shareholders' interests for the greater good of society. Originality/value: To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study to empirically identify the determinants of dividend omission and cut in the unique setting like India where dividend taxation had undergone a significant change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a measure of public gambling sentiment using the Baidu index and empirically examine the influence of temporal fluctuations in gambling sentiment on the performance of lottery‐type stocks. The empirical findings reveal that heightened gambling sentiment correlates with increased selling volume, short‐term order imbalances and liquidity in the lottery‐type stock market, while diminishing abnormal returns, including the initial returns of IPOs. We attribute this to investors' gambling mentality stemming from the accumulation of wealth rather than the pursuit of excitement, as they view lotteries and lottery‐related stocks as interchangeable investment options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examined the effects of Turkish banking risks on investor behavior. This context, the period of nine deposit banks covering the period between 2008Q3-2019Q3 was analyzed using panel regression estimators. Researchers found that systemic and systematic risks negatively affected investor sentiment in the real sector. The rise in systemic and market risks of banks has led to an increase in investor pessimism. The findings showed that the real sector confidence index can be used as an effective early warning system for financial instability. It has shown that banking sector risks have the potential to spread to the entire economy through real sector investment behavior. The results revealed that stock returns positively affect real-sector investment behavior. Accordingly, positive developments in the stock markets encouraged the real-sector to invest. In the research, the effects of selected macro variables on investor sentiment were analyzed. The forecast results documented that inflation rates, the current account balance, and the VIX uncertainty index negatively affected real-sector investor behavior. On the contrary, it was determined that the effect of the MSCI Europe index on investor sentiment was positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the crucial realm of stock price prediction, highly coveted by individual investors and institutions for its substantial economic implications. The inherent non-stationary and intricate nature of stock market fluctuations, coupled with real-time transactions, poses a formidable challenge for accurate and swift prediction. Unlike prevailing research that predominantly focuses on forecasting methods, our novel approach places a paramount emphasis on processing original data, introducing 57 technical indicators to better represent economic aspects for stock price prediction. Signifying the importance of each feature, we employ the LASSO algorithm to derive an optimal feature combination. Additionally, our methodology utilizes the Ca-LSTM (cascade long short-term memory) technique, enhancing information extraction from individual features. Experimental results, gauged by mean error, underscore the superiority of the Ca-LSTM model over other time series prediction models and conventional long short-term memory approaches. Notably, our model's integration with the accumulation-based VMD-LSTM model demonstrates enhanced forecasting accuracy. This proposed method holds considerable potential to refine stock price prediction, thereby delivering heightened value to investors in the dynamic financial landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1893 and 1908, at least six private consortia and the municipality of Baghdad were denied permission to operate steamships on the Tigris and Euphrates on the grounds that a navigation concession had already been granted to the Privy Purse (hazine-i hassa). The Privy Purse justified its insistence on monopoly with reference to the emerging ideology of development (nafia), though its ideas about the role of steam technology in nafia stood in contrast to those of private investors and other Ottoman bureaucrats. Working from the hazine-i hassa 's planning memos and contracts, I show that the private treasury envisioned a primarily agrarian future for Iraq, with steamships serving agricultural aims. As such, it focused on envisioning future steamships rather than managing its existing fleet, while still acquiring dominance over land and transport in the region. However, private companies and officials contested this vision, emphasizing the materiality of existing steamships, their roles in trade, and the potential for commercial competition as a means of resisting British imperial encroachment. After the Committee of Union and Progress came to power in 1908, the Privy Purse was disestablished and its properties reverted to the Finance Ministry, opening a brief window during which steamship companies were encouraged to proliferate. Quickly, however, new comprehensive schemes were proposed, though with railways replacing steamships as the corollary to Iraq's imagined riches. Engaging questions about the futurity of both infrastructure and capital, as well as those posed by the technology-in-use paradigm, this article suggests that the hazine-i hassa is a rich starting point for analysis because the scalar and ontological tensions it embodied highlight how different kinds of futures interact in development planning to affect the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how uncertainty in climate and global economic policies affects private investment in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). Using panel data from 41 countries over the period 2000–2022, the study employs a dynamic panel model to estimate the effects of these two types of uncertainty on the private investment‐to‐gross domestic product ratio. The study finds that both global economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and climate policy uncertainty have a negative and significant influence on private investment, implying that higher levels of uncertainty discourage private investors from undertaking long‐term projects in the sub‐region. The study also finds that the effect of uncertainty on climate policy is stronger than that of EPU, suggesting that private investors are more sensitive to the lack of clarity and coherence in the global climate policy framework. The findings are robust to different estimation techniques. The study concludes that reducing policy uncertainty, especially in the area of climate change, is crucial for enhancing private investment and promoting sustainable development in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How much can we learn finance directly from text data? This paper presents a new framework for learning textual data based on the factor augmentation model and sparsity regularization, called the factor-augmented regularized model for prediction (FarmPredict), to let machines learn financial returns directly from news. FarmPredict allows the model itself to extract information directly from articles without predefined information, such as dictionaries or pretrained models as in most studies. Using unsupervised learned factors to augment the predictors would benefit our method with a "double-robust" feature: that the machine would learn to balance between individual words or text factors/topics. It also avoids the information loss of factor regression in dimensionality reduction. We apply our model to the Chinese stock market with a large proportion of retail investors by using Chinese news data to predict financial returns. We show that positive sentiments scored by our FarmPredict approach from news generate on average 83 basic points (bps) stock daily excess returns, and negative news has an adverse impact of 26 bps on the days of news announcements, where both effects can last for a few days. This asymmetric effect aligns well with the short-sale constraints in the Chinese equity market. The result shows that the machine-learned prediction does provide sizeable predictive power with an annualized return of 54% at most with a simple investment strategy. Compared with other statistical and machine learning methods, FarmPredict significantly outperforms them on model prediction and portfolio performance. Our study demonstrates the far-reaching potential of using machines to learn text data. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance. Funding: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71991471, 71991470, and 72204049], the National Key Research and Development Program [Grant 2020YFA0608604], the Shanghai Pujiang Scholar Project [Grant 21PJC010], the Shanghai Science Project [Grant 23692119300], and the China Postdoctoral Science Project [Grants 2019M650076 and 2020T130107]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01468. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the incorporation of Unit Trust of India in 1964, the mutual fund industry has developed quickly and gained a lot of recognition. In all of the world's capital markets, mutual funds have developed as a significant avenue of investment. Mutual funds have played, and therefore will continue to play, a critical part in India's capital market development. A few of the grounds for mutual funds' rapid popularity is that they combine low risk with income security, making them perfect for median and smaller investors who would otherwise be unable to participate in the stock market. The investors are finding it as a proper field to invest and earn, amidst the risk involved in it. Thereby, the determinants for an investor that influences him to make investment will vary between them and further, investing in mutual funds over other financial products may appeal to investors for a variety of reasons. This research may look into the elements that influence investors' decisions to invest in mutual funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SYNOPSIS: Prior studies on readability suggest that lengthy corporate reports are difficult to process and may discourage investors' capital market participation. However, longer reports that contain additional information may actually benefit individual investors, who typically rely on public information. Using a regulatory change that requires firms to disclose additional items in the IPO prospectus, we find that the new regulation increased individual investors' demand for IPO stocks with longer prospectuses. These results suggest that lengthy reports do not always reduce investor demand, highlighting a potential trade-off between the costs and benefits of longer corporate reports. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from the sources identified in the text. JEL Classification: G18; M41; M48. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent history, institutional investors have increased allocations to alternative assets in an effort to boost portfolio returns. The attention is now turning to individual investors. Significant partnerships, private platforms, and organizations have emerged to democratize access to alternative investments. In 2021, the US Department of Labor also took a position, suggesting that it might be prudent to include private equity in individual retirement accounts, such as in 401(k) and 403(b) plans. While institutional investors have decades of experience investing in alternative assets, the vast majority of individual investors do not. Consequently, relatively little is known about optimal alternative asset allocations for individual investors. This article presents historical risk and return characteristics from private investments including venture capital, private equity, private credit, and real estate, and constructs portfolios building on a traditional 60/40 (public equity/public debt) allocation, with varying levels of a private markets index, to examine portfolio risk and return trade-offs. Findings reveal that there are portfolio benefits to both returns and risk from adding a significant allocation to alternative investments and that wealth impacts can be sizable over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a dynamic contribution game where investors seek private benefits offered in exchange for contributions, and a single, publicly minded donor values project success. We show that donor contributions serve as costly signals that encourage socially productive contributions by investors who face a coordination problem. Investors and the donor prefer different equilibria, but all benefit in expectation from the donor's ability to dynamically signal his valuation. We explore various contexts in which our model can be applied and delve empirically into the case of Kickstarter. We calibrate our model and quantify the coordination benefits of dynamic signaling in counterfactuals. (JEL C73, D26, D82, G32, L26, M13) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of retail investor attention on market reaction following analysts' recommendation revisions in the Chinese stock market. The results suggest that the impact of retail attention on post-recommendation revision drift is asymmetric. Specifically, retail attention mitigates post-upgrade announcement drift, whereas it aggravates post-downgrade drift. After a series of arrangements to address the potential endogeneity concerns and ensure robustness, the results still hold. Moreover, we reveal retail attention facilitates the absorption of individual firms' information and increases liquidity to attenuate post-upgrade drift, whereas retail attention induces underreaction due to short-sale restrictions and disposition effects regarding stronger post-downgrade drifts. The results of the additional heterogeneity test provide further evidence of channel tests and reveal that prior positive sentiment can accelerate the integration of good news into stock prices. These findings enrich the existing literature on retail investors' role in the price discovery process following the release of fundamental information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines links between automated advisory services and irrational individual investors' behaviour based on dual-process theory. The study contributes to the literature on active vs. passive digital nudges in robo-advisors and the disposition effect. Self-reporting online experiment revealed that robo-advisors help investors to resolve cognitive dissonance, with passive robo-advisors being more efficient. We contribute by introducing and indicating the moderating role of financial literacy. Though moderating feminine gender role was not supported, the need for customized automated advisory services is highlighted. The results are important for individual welfare, as demographic shifts and evolving retirement systems transfer investment decisions to individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research used the SWARA approach to analyze risk assessment criteria for public–private partnership (PPP) projects in Iran's water and sewage sectors to identify and prioritize the most significant elements influencing project success from public and private viewpoints. Key results show that the public sector considers "risk probability" to be the most important aspect, highlighting the requirement for stability and predictability in project outcomes. In contrast, the private sector prioritizes the "ability to predict and discover risk", emphasizing efficiently anticipating and managing uncertainty. Furthermore, this study revealed five common major risk characteristics, including "risk manageability" and "uncertainty of risk"; however, their rankings differ per industry, demonstrating various risk prioritizing methodologies. This study is unique in that it focuses only on Iran's water and sewage infrastructure, an area historically neglected in PPP research, providing a rare investigation of sector-specific hazards as well as the interaction between public and private interests in a developing country environment. The paper makes specific suggestions, calling for more openness, improved communication, and the use of sophisticated risk management techniques to bridge the gap across sectors. These findings not only add to the scholarly knowledge of PPP dynamics in emerging countries but also provide practical recommendations for governments and private investors navigating Iran's infrastructure issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retail investors are known to favor stocks with lottery‐like features and trade too much. Less is known about their intertemporal demand and risk‐taking behavior in lottery‐type stocks. We use intraday transaction data between September 2019 and June 2020 from the Stock Exchange of Thailand to test how individual's risk attitude changes with respect to decline in their wealth prospects during the COVID‐19 lockdown. The behavior of the investors supports a reference dependent preference. Confronted with lowered wealth prospects, retail investors substantially reduce their underweighting in nonlottery stocks while increasing overweighting and turnover frequency in lottery stocks resulting in deteriorating portfolio performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional asset pricing models face challenges from financial anomalies, prompting exploration through behavioural finance theory. This study analyses the nuanced relationship between individual investor sentiment and key stock market variables. To assess the impact of individual investor sentiment on stock returns, volatilities, and trading volumes using the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) sentiment index. Using regression models, we examine the relationship between individual investor sentiment and various stock characteristics across 480 components of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. We find a positive relationship between the AAII sentiment index and stock returns and a negative relationship with volatility and trading volume. Our study contributes to understanding the intricate role of individual investor sentiment in financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retail investors' gambling preferences can affect the performance and turnover of IPO firms. Research on the relationship between IPO underperformance and turnover from the gambling preference perspective is very limited. Empirical results on gambling preferences show that it leads to the underperformance of IPO firms. IPO underperformance disappears after controlling for gambling preferences or turnover. For stocks with low gambling preferences, IPO underperformance and the turnover effect are almost negligible. They become significantly stronger as gambling preferences increase. It illustrates that turnover's impact on IPO underperformance essentially comes from gambling preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology sector serves as a fundamental pillar for all industry sectors in the economy, playing a central role in driving worldwide economic growth. It particularly distinguishes itself in the U.S., representing approximately one-third of the global technology market. However, the technology sector is not a homogenous group of similarly focused companies, its industries vary significantly in their characteristics. This paper analyzes the relationships among U.S. technology industries defined by the Global Industry Classification Standard using Vine copulas and transfer entropy. It spans 1 January 2010–31 January 2024, to clarify intra-sectoral heterogeneity and identify key industries predicting the performance of others. Our findings highlight the predictive power of the semiconductor industry, with significant information transmission to all other industries. Contrarily, the flow in the opposite direction is significant in only 3 of 5 cases. The identification of semiconductors’ central role is particularly valuable for both retail and institutional investors concentrating on technology stocks, as it may indicate future developments in the entire sector. Moreover, due to the industry’s global importance, shocks in the semiconductor industry could propagate across the entire technology sector, leading to broader economic instability. Therefore, the semiconductor industry should be closely monitored by the policymakers too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: A public–private partnership (PPP) is an agreement between the government and private investors to deliver long-term public services. The efficiency of PPP projects depends on PPP contracts stipulating contractual parties' corresponding responsibilities and rights to deal with relational and performance risks. Although more complex contracts provide more remedies for mitigating ex-post transaction costs, they also result in the increased ex ante transaction costs associated with contract writing. Thus, contractual complexity is a design choice that can reduce the overall contract transaction costs. Design/methodology/approach: Using 365 transportation PPP projects in China from 2010 to 2019, this study applies the Poisson regression model to examine the effects of payment mechanisms, ownership by investors and equity structure on contractual complexity. Findings: PPP contracts have control and coordination functions with unique determinants. Parties in the government-pay mechanism are more likely to negotiate coordination provisions, which results in greater contractual complexity. PPP projects with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have less contractual complexity in terms of both two functions of provisions, whereas the equity structure has no impact on contractual complexity. Originality/value: These findings provide a nuanced understanding of how various contractual provisions are combined to perform control or coordination functions and make managerial recommendations to parties involved in PPP projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is in the midst of a critical transition to a carbon-neutral economy, with various policies and regulations being introduced to facilitate this shift. This study focuses on the open-end funds market in China, a significant component of the country's capital market, to explore how it is adapting during this period of economic transformation. Specifically, we investigate the influence of carbon and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risks on the flow of open-end funds. Our findings indicate that sustainability factors are considered in the investment decision-making process by investors. Notably, there exists a negative relationship between sustainable risk factors and fund flows. This observation is particularly pronounced for funds that are designated as low carbon, have a high sustainability rating, or are primarily held by retail investors, underscoring the growing importance of sustainability considerations in the investment landscape of China's capital market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to determine experimentally factors affecting the satisfaction of retail stock investors with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by the Government of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Also, an effort has been made to gauge the level of satisfaction of retail equities investors with the laws and guidelines developed by the Indian Government and SEBI for their invested funds. Design/methodology/approach: To accomplish the study's goals, a well-structured questionnaire was created with the help of a literature review, and copies of it were filled by Punjabi retail equities investors with the aid of stockbrokers, i.e. intermediaries. Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali-area intermediaries were chosen using a random selection procedure. Xerox copies of the questionnaire were given to the intermediaries, who were then asked to collect responses from their clients. Some intermediaries requested the researcher to sit in their offices to collect responses from their clients. Only 373 questionnaires out of 1,000 questionnaires that were provided had been received back. Only 328 copies were correctly filled by the equity investors. To conduct the analysis, 328 copies, which were fully completed, were used as data. The appropriate approaches, such as descriptives, factor analysis and ordinal regression analysis, were used to study the data. Findings: With the aid of factor analysis, four factors have been identified that influence investors' satisfaction with various investor protection regulatory measures implemented by government and SEBI regulations, including regulations addressing primary and secondary market dealings, rules for investor awareness and protection, rules to prevent company malpractices and laws for corporate governance and investor protection. The impact of these four components on investor satisfaction has been investigated using ordinal regression analysis. The pseudo-R-square statistics for the ordinal regression model demonstrated the model's capacity for the explanation. The findings suggested that a significant amount of the overall satisfaction score about the various investor protection measures implemented by the government/SEBI has been explained by the regression model. Research limitations/implications: A study could be conducted to analyse the perspective of various stakeholders towards the disclosures made and norms followed by corporate houses. The current study may be expanded to cover the entire nation because it is only at the state level currently. It might be conceivable to examine how investments made in the retail capital market affect investors in rural areas. The influence of reforms on the functioning of stock markets could potentially be examined through another study. It could be possible to undertake a study on female investors' knowledge about retail investment trends. The effect of digital stock trading could be examined in India. The effect of technological innovations on capital markets can be studied. Practical implications: This research would be extremely useful to regulators in developing policies to protect retail equities investors. Investors are required to be safeguarded and protected to deal freely in the securities market, so they should be given more freedom in terms of investor protection measures. Stock exchanges should have the potential to bring about technological advancements in trading to protect investors from any kind of financial loss. Since the government has the power to create rules and regulations to strengthen investor protection. So, this research will be extremely useful to the government. Social implications: This work has societal ramifications. Because when adequate rules and regulations are in place to safeguard investors, they will be able to invest freely. Companies will use capital wisely and profitably. Companies should undertake tasks towards corporate social responsibility out of profits because corporate houses are part and parcel of society only. Originality/value: Many investors may lack the necessary expertise to make sound financial judgments. They might not be aware of the entire risk-reward profile of various investment options. However, they must know various investor protection measures taken by the Government of India & Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to safeguard their interests. Investors must be well-informed on the precautions to take while dealing with market intermediaries, as well as in the stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The present study delves into the causes of relatively lower retail participation in the Indian REIT market. Specifically, it investigates investors' attitudes and perceptions towards REITs as a unique asset class. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the perception and factors influencing Indian retail investors' reluctance to participate in the REIT market. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews to gather insights from non-investors in REITs. The data were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis techniques. Finally, coding techniques were used to identify broad study themes. Findings: According to the study results, many retail investors are unfamiliar with REITs. Even among those knowledgeable about REITs and with a favorable view, it is not commonly seen as a feasible investment option due to its early stage, unattractive returns and limited number of REITs. Practical implications: Developed countries have established REIT markets, while it is still in its infancy in developing countries such as India. Financial advisors, fund houses and the media should focus on educating investors to increase awareness. Originality/value: The study is the first qualitative investigation into the perception of retail investors to understand the reasons for lower retail engagement in the Indian REIT market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of stock market access, and in particular trading hours, on retail investment performance. Using discontinuities around time zone borders, we find that plausibly exogenous decreases in waking trading hours are associated with meaningful increases in retail investors' capital gains, as reported on tax returns for the U.S. population. Our results indicate that limiting trading hours curbs active retail trading, leading to improvements in portfolio performance. Our findings identify one negative effect of decreasing barriers to entry for retail investors in trading markets. JEL Classifications: M41; M48; G40; G51. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores backtesting Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) considering ten standard and extended tests in the context of non-technical individual investors trading equities of twenty selected commercial banks listed at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) using their daily share prices for 11 years (from 2010 to 2020). Following a significant gap in the literature on investigating the efficacy of user-friendly models in quantifying the market risk of banks in emerging economies, this paper adopted four user-friendly models that are relatively straightforward to understand and interpret and are considered representatives of zero, -one, -two, and -three parametric families of all risk models in the literature specifically for the emerging economy of Bangladesh. The popular RiskMetrics™ risk forecast model of JPMorgan, sweeping the world as the most user-friendly conditional alternative to unconditional Gaussian risk forecasts under the framework of VaR, is found not to be adequate under the framework of ES that was recently recommended by Basel-III. The joint score value-based comparison finds the historical simulation (HS) model as the most appropriate model in Bangladesh when models are assessed under a practical user-friendly implementation design. Under this design the Trust Bank Ltd. (TBL), the bank managed and operated by Bangladesh Military, qualifies as the most investor-friendly bank in terms of causing the least frustration to its equity investors over 2010–2020. Overall, augmenting earlier studies in the literature that are mostly for developed markets and are mostly without any ES back-test, we find that the user-friendly model HS is still successful in quantifying market risk over the globe since its relative usefulness gets well established through recent back-tests of VaR and ES in emerging market too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how investors incorporate unrealized gains or losses reported in Other Comprehensive Income (OCI) into their investment judgments. Since unrealized gains or losses can be presented in either OCI or net income—gains from trading securities are included in net income, while those from available-for-sale securities are reported in OCI (ASC 320 and ASC 851)—it raises the question of whether OCI items are perceived as equally significant as net income items. To explore this, we conducted a 2 × 2 experiment with 240 individual investors, manipulating the presentation of unrealized gains or losses in either net income or OCI. Our findings reveal that unrealized gains are valued significantly lower when presented in OCI compared to net income, indicating that investors see OCI-reported gains as less relevant. However, for unrealized losses, the incorporation degree remained consistent across both presentations, reflecting a general aversion to unrealized losses regardless of how they are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike institutional investors, who have expertise in collecting and analyzing firm information to predict firms' future performance, individual investors have a limited ability to conduct this task. Therefore, individual investors are known to commonly rely on financial analysts' earnings forecasts, which are freely available to them. However, as demonstrated by numerous studies, financial analysts' forecasts are not always accurate and free from bias. Drawing on screening theory and the innate financial and structural differences between highly franchised restaurants and their less franchised peers, the current study showed that analysts provide more accurate and less optimistically biased forecasts for the former than the latter. However, the positive impact of an additional number of analysts on the accuracy of forecasts was weaker for the former than the latter. The current study can help individual investors in the restaurant industry improve their understanding of financial analysts' earnings forecasts and make better-informed investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenwashing is a fraudulent environmental, social and governance (ESG) behavior. Previous literature has explored the impact of unidirectional disclosure on greenwashing. However, how interactive disclosures affect greenwashing has not been fully explored. Given the background of the regulatory transformation of China's capital market, we use data from the Q&A boards of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) "Interactive Easy" and Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) "SSE e‐Interactive" online platforms to investigate the impact of interactive disclosure between firms and retail investors on greenwashing. We find that online platform interactions (OPIs) inhibit greenwashing. Moreover, such negative effects are more pronounced for firms with high‐quality internal controls, high executive shareholding, high analyst coverage, low financing constraints, and executives with overseas backgrounds. Overall, our research provides empirical evidence that OPIs improve capital market efficiency by inhibiting greenwashing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental research investigates the effect of different types of environmental information on investor judgment. By examining three experimental cases varying the level of environmental disclosure, we evaluate the investment judgments of professional (Study 1) and private German investors (Study 2). Primarily, we investigate whether traditional, commonly disclosed environmental information affects investor judgments. Furthermore, we explore the effects of linking non-financial reporting elements to quantitative financial measures through the EU taxonomy by adding taxonomy indicators. Specifically, we operationalized the case where companies fall into a category of poor environmental performance by taxonomy classification. We find that only traditional environmental disclosure in combination with standardized taxonomy-aligned information (below average), influences the investment judgment. However, professional investors exhibit a significantly negative response, while private investors show a significantly positive reaction when constraining reporting flexibility through the inclusion of standardized taxonomy measures with poor performance. Consequently, we conclude that the connection between non-financial reporting elements and quantitative standardized financial measures enhances transparency for professional investors. Private investors, on the other hand, reward additional taxonomy-aligned environmental information irrespective of its content. This implies that environmental information generally conveys positive signals to private investors, but uncertainty in investment judgment can be assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of shared decision-making on investor overconfidence. Data from 2,000 investors, 6,394 consumers, and 657 experimental participants shed light on whether consumers who engage in joint financial decision-making are less affected by investor overconfidence than those who decide on their own. The findings show that investors who jointly decide are substantially less overconfident. However, family- or friend-inclined interactions are more effective in reducing overconfidence than relying on a financial advisor. The current research theoretically argues and empirically shows that shared metaknowledge drives this diminishing effect by highlighting unknown aspects of a financial decision. Compared to providing investors with solutions, problem reformulation, validation, or legitimation, only metaknowledge consistently decreases overconfidence in joint financial decision-making. It is argued that the process of highlighting unknowns can explain why interactions with family and friends have a more pronounced impact on investor overconfidence than consulting a professional advisor. The study provides a feasible debiasing tool to consumers, financial institutions, and other financial service providers to decrease overconfidence by emphasizing unknown aspects of an investment toward improving the quality of a consumer's financial decisions under uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the inconsistency in the literature on crowdinvestment motivations and the uniqueness of football club investors, the purpose of this study is to identify the motivation to invest in football clubs through equity crowdfunding. Following Churchill's scale development procedure, it is found that those who crowdinvest in football clubs are fans who highly identify with these teams. The fans' motivations include supporting the cause of the campaign, acquiring the status of a football club owner, and gaining rewards. These findings show the dominance of intrinsic motivations among crowdinvestors of European football clubs, providing evidence for compensatory activities assumed in self-determination theory, which is the theoretical framework for this research. Moreover, we devise a motivation scale that can be adopted in future research on equity crowdfunding for football clubs. For sports managers, the results offer practical recommendations for marketing communication and relationship marketing of equity crowdfunding campaigns by football clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]