The impact of different sentiment in investment decisions: evidence from China’s stock markets IPOs

In this study, we used data on China’s initial public offerings (IPOs), market volatility and macro environment before and after two stock crashes during 2006–2016 to investigate how different investor sentiment affects IPO first-day flipping. The empirical results show that the expected returns of allocated investors are affected by sentiment, with allocated investors having higher psychological expectations of future returns during an optimistic bull market and their optimism discouraging first-day flipping, while higher risk-free interest rate levels and rising broad market indices also discourage first-day flipping and tend to sell in the future. The pessimistic bear market during which allocated investors have lower psychological expectations of future returns, their pessimism will promote first-day flipping, and the increase in the risk-free rate level will also promote first-day flipping, which is the opposite of the optimistic bull market, indicating that their risk aversion has increased and they tend to sell on the same day. We also found an anomaly that the greater the decline in the broad market index during a pessimistic bear market, the more inclined the allocated investors are to sell in the future when the broad market index rises in an attempt to gain higher returns. These findings help explain and understand the impact of market and macro index fluctuations on investor behavior under different investor sentiments.