IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/quantf/v14y2014i4p737-748.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is momentum a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Author

Listed:
  • Steven J. Jordan

Abstract

The author shows in a simple framework that momentum trading can exist in equilibrium and that momentum trading is profitable. A property of the model is that the relation between risk, reward, and the intensity of momentum trading provides a natural limit to the amount of momentum trading that will exist in equilibrium. Properties of the model fit the empirics well. First, the model captures in a parsimonious manner both short-term overreaction and long-term reversals. Second, it predicts that momentum and long-term reversals should be observed in any market where there is noise. Thus, the model gives theoretical support to the empirical evidence that these anomalies are not artifacts of data snooping and to the extant empirical evidence that these anomalies are pervasive. Momentum traders observe noise shocks and trade on it as information. This trading incorporates a predictive role to the noise. That is, if agents believe a past price change to be informative of future price changes and act on this belief, it will be true and trading on this belief will be profitable. Thus, momentum trading is a self-fulfilling action.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven J. Jordan, 2014. "Is momentum a self-fulfilling prophecy?," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 737-748, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:quantf:v:14:y:2014:i:4:p:737-748
    DOI: 10.1080/14697688.2012.738928
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14697688.2012.738928
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14697688.2012.738928?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Joana Almeida & Raquel M. Gaspar, 2021. "Accuracy of European Stock Target Prices," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-27, September.
    2. Joana Almeida & Raquel M. Gaspar, 2023. "Portfolio Performance of European Target Prices," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-28, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:quantf:v:14:y:2014:i:4:p:737-748. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RQUF20 .

    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.