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A threshold model of investor psychology

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  • Cross, Rod
  • Grinfeld, Michael
  • Lamba, Harbir
  • Seaman, Tim

Abstract

We introduce a class of agent-based market models founded upon simple descriptions of investor psychology. Agents are subject to various psychological tensions induced by market conditions and endowed with a minimal ‘personality’. This personality consists of a threshold level for each of the tensions being modeled, and the agent reacts whenever a tension threshold is reached. This paper considers an elementary model including just two such tensions. The first is ‘cowardice’, which is the stress caused by remaining in a minority position with respect to overall market sentiment and leads to herding-type behavior. The second is ‘inaction’, which is the increasing desire to act or re-evaluate one's investment position. There is no inductive learning by agents and they are only coupled via the global market price and overall market sentiment. Even incorporating just these two psychological tensions, important stylized facts of real market data, including fat-tails, excess kurtosis, uncorrelated price returns and clustered volatility over the timescale of a few days are reproduced. By then introducing an additional parameter that amplifies the effect of externally generated market noise during times of extreme market sentiment, long-time volatility correlations can also be recovered.

Suggested Citation

  • Cross, Rod & Grinfeld, Michael & Lamba, Harbir & Seaman, Tim, 2005. "A threshold model of investor psychology," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 354(C), pages 463-478.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:354:y:2005:i:c:p:463-478
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2005.02.029
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    7. Jiahua Wang & Hongliang Zhu & Dongxin Li, 2018. "Price Dynamics in an Order-Driven Market with Bayesian Learning," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-15, November.
    8. Grazzini Jakob, 2011. "Estimating Micromotives from Macrobehavior," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201111, University of Turin.
    9. Ahmed El OUBANI & Mostafa LEKHAL, 2022. "Conception d’un modèle microscopique adapté aux marchés financiers émergents," Journal of Academic Finance, RED research unit, university of Gabes, Tunisia, vol. 13(1), pages 17-30, June.
    10. Maximilian Beikirch & Simon Cramer & Martin Frank & Philipp Otte & Emma Pabich & Torsten Trimborn, 2018. "Simulation of Stylized Facts in Agent-Based Computational Economic Market Models," Papers 1812.02726, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2019.
    11. Wei, J.R. & Huang, J.P. & Hui, P.M., 2013. "An agent-based model of stock markets incorporating momentum investors," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(12), pages 2728-2735.
    12. Goulding, Christian L. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Mazzoleni, Michele G., 2023. "Momentum turning points," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(3), pages 378-406.
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    15. Torsten Trimborn & Philipp Otte & Simon Cramer & Maximilian Beikirch & Emma Pabich & Martin Frank, 2020. "SABCEMM: A Simulator for Agent-Based Computational Economic Market Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 707-744, February.
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