IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v32y2011i3p384-390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial forecasts during the crisis: Were experts more accurate than laypeople?

Author

Listed:
  • Zaleskiewicz, Tomasz

Abstract

The main goal of this paper was to examine the accuracy and confidence of financial forecasts during the 2009/2010 crisis. The study was carried out in February 2009 in Poland. The participants represented two groups: financial analysts and laypeople (people without knowledge or skills in finance). All participants were asked to forecast future stock market performance and foreign exchange rates. Additionally, they marked their confidence on a 100-point scale. The results showed that the forecasts significantly differed from the real values. In forecasting both the stock market and the currency exchange market, the prediction error significantly differed from zero. Even if the participants were optimistic in making the directional stock market forecasts, they were pessimistic when making point index predictions, which suggests a judgmental paradox. The experts were slightly better than the non-experts in predicting the stock market. However, their accuracy was generally not better in the exchange market forecasts. The next step of the analysis focused on the confidence factor. The results of this part of the research showed that the laypeople were less confident than the experts in all the judgments.

Suggested Citation

  • Zaleskiewicz, Tomasz, 2011. "Financial forecasts during the crisis: Were experts more accurate than laypeople?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 384-390, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:3:p:384-390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487011000183
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shanteau, James, 1992. "Competence in experts: The role of task characteristics," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 252-266, November.
    2. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2005. "September 11 and Stock Return Expectations of Individual Investors," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(2), pages 243-279.
    3. Klayman, Joshua & Soll, Jack B. & Gonzalez-Vallejo, Claudia & Barlas, Sema, 1999. "Overconfidence: It Depends on How, What, and Whom You Ask, , , , , , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 216-247, September.
    4. Onkal, Dilek & Muradoglu, Gulnur, 1994. "Evaluating probabilistic forecasts of stock prices in a developing stock market," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 350-358, April.
    5. Keren, Gideon, 1987. "Facing uncertainty in the game of bridge: A calibration study," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 98-114, February.
    6. Sundali, James A. & Atkins, Allen B., 1994. "Expertise in Investment Analysis: Fact or Fiction," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 223-241, August.
    7. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    8. Yates, J. Frank & McDaniel, Linda S. & Brown, Eric S., 1991. "Probabilistic forecasts of stock prices and earnings: The hazards of nascent expertise," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 60-79, June.
    9. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    10. Andersson, Patric & Edman, Jan & Ekman, Mattias, 2005. "Predicting the World Cup 2002 in soccer: Performance and confidence of experts and non-experts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 565-576.
    11. Mills, Terence C. & Pepper, Gordon T., 1999. "Assessing the forecasters: an analysis of the forecasting records of the Treasury, the London Business School and the National Institute," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 247-257, July.
    12. Onkal, Dilek & Yates, J. Frank & Simga-Mugan, Can & Oztin, Sule, 2003. "Professional vs. amateur judgment accuracy: The case of foreign exchange rates," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 169-185, July.
    13. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. "Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-1617, December.
    14. Aukutsionek, Sergei P. & Belianin, Alexis V., 2001. "Quality of forecasts and business performance: A survey study of Russian managers," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 661-692, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huber, Christoph & Huber, Jürgen & Hueber, Laura, 2019. "The effect of experts’ and laypeople’s forecasts on others’ stock market forecasts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    2. Daphne Sobolev & Bryan Chan & Nigel Harvey, 2017. "Buy, sell, or hold? A sense-making account of factors influencing trading decisions," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1295618-129, January.
    3. Sobolev, Daphne, 2017. "The effect of price volatility on judgmental forecasts: The correlated response model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 605-617.
    4. Smita Roy Trivedi, 2022. "The Janus view: Do market participants looking into the past impact foreign exchange volatility?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 3990-4001, October.
    5. Christoph Huber & Christian König-Kersting & Matteo M. Marini, 2022. "Experimenting with Financial Professionals," Working Papers 2022-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Jun 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andersson, Patric & Edman, Jan & Ekman, Mattias, 2005. "Predicting the World Cup 2002 in soccer: Performance and confidence of experts and non-experts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 565-576.
    2. Lawrence, Michael & Goodwin, Paul & O'Connor, Marcus & Onkal, Dilek, 2006. "Judgmental forecasting: A review of progress over the last 25 years," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 493-518.
    3. Lambert, Jérôme & Bessière, Véronique & N’Goala, Gilles, 2012. "Does expertise influence the impact of overconfidence on judgment, valuation and investment decision?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1115-1128.
    4. Thomson, Mary E. & Pollock, Andrew C. & Gönül, M. Sinan & Önkal, Dilek, 2013. "Effects of trend strength and direction on performance and consistency in judgmental exchange rate forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 337-353.
    5. Onkal, Dilek & Muradoglu, Gulnur, 1996. "Effects of task format on probabilistic forecasting of stock prices," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 9-24, March.
    6. McKenzie, Craig R.M. & Liersch, Michael J. & Yaniv, Ilan, 2008. "Overconfidence in interval estimates: What does expertise buy you?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 179-191, November.
    7. Markus Glaser & Thomas Langer & Martin Weber, 2007. "On the Trend Recognition and Forecasting Ability of Professional Traders," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 176-193, December.
    8. Dennis Dittrich & Werner Guth & Boris Maciejovsky, 2005. "Overconfidence in investment decisions: An experimental approach," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(6), pages 471-491.
    9. Martin Spann & Bernd Skiera, 2009. "Sports forecasting: a comparison of the forecast accuracy of prediction markets, betting odds and tipsters," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 55-72.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:29-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Mary Kynn, 2008. "The ‘heuristics and biases’ bias in expert elicitation," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(1), pages 239-264, January.
    12. Julia P. Prims & Don A. Moore, 2017. "Overconfidence over the lifespan," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 12(1), pages 29-41, January.
    13. Jain, Kriti & Bearden, J. Neil & Filipowicz, Allan, 2013. "Depression and forecast accuracy: Evidence from the 2010 FIFA World Cup," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 69-79.
    14. Brenner, Lyle & Griffin, Dale & Koehler, Derek J., 2005. "Modeling patterns of probability calibration with random support theory: Diagnosing case-based judgment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 64-81, May.
    15. Michael Demmler & Amilcar Orlian Fernández Domínguez, 2021. "Bitcoin and the South Sea Company: A comparative analysis," Revista Finanzas y Politica Economica, Universidad Católica de Colombia, vol. 13(1), pages 197-224, March.
    16. Kausel, Edgar E. & Culbertson, Satoris S. & Madrid, Hector P., 2016. "Overconfidence in personnel selection: When and why unstructured interview information can hurt hiring decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 27-44.
    17. Brice Corgnet & Cary Deck & Mark DeSantis & David Porter, 2022. "Forecasting Skills in Experimental Markets: Illusion or Reality?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5216-5232, July.
    18. Schwert, G. William, 2003. "Anomalies and market efficiency," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 939-974, Elsevier.
    19. Rzeszutek Marcin, 2015. "Personality Traits and Susceptibility to Behavioral Biases among a Sample of Polish Stock Market Investors," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 47(1), pages 71-81, September.
    20. Oberlechner, Thomas & Osler, Carol, 2012. "Survival of Overconfidence in Currency Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 91-113, February.
    21. Andersson, Patric, 2005. "Overconfident but yet well-calibrated and underconfident : a research not on judgmental miscalibration and flawed self-assessment," Papers 05-37, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:3:p:384-390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.