IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjapxx/v19y2014i4p527-538.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Superstitions and stock trading: some new evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Chung
  • Ali F. Darrat
  • Bin Li

Abstract

We examine the potential effect of superstitious beliefs on stock trading in four Asian-Pacific countries with deep Chinese cultural heritage (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan). We focus on market responses to days that are superstitiously deemed in the Chinese cultural as either lucky or unlucky. Our regression results from daily data over 2 January 1991 to 30 December 2011 suggest that unlucky days (particularly day 4 and Friday the 13th) generally exhibit higher stock returns. However, our results remain generally consistent with market efficiency since a trading rule based on this numbering pattern fails to produce any significant abnormal profits after taking into account transaction costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Chung & Ali F. Darrat & Bin Li, 2014. "Superstitions and stock trading: some new evidence," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 527-538, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjapxx:v:19:y:2014:i:4:p:527-538
    DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2014.920589
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13547860.2014.920589
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13547860.2014.920589?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    2. Sun, Qian & Tong, Wilson H.S., 2010. "Risk and the January effect," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 965-974, May.
    3. Mark J. Kamstra & Lisa A. Kramer & Maurice D. Levi, 2003. "Winter Blues: A SAD Stock Market Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 324-343, March.
    4. Jorge Brusa & Pu Liu, 2004. "The Day-of-the-Week and the Week-of-the-Month Effects: An Analysis of Investors' Trading Activities," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 19-30, July.
    5. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:5:p:1285-86 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Brown, Philip & Chua, Angeline & Mitchell, Jason, 2002. "The influence of cultural factors on price clustering: Evidence from Asia-Pacific stock markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 307-332, June.
    7. Yuan, Kathy & Zheng, Lu & Zhu, Qiaoqiao, 2006. "Are investors moonstruck? Lunar phases and stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Brown, Philip & Mitchell, Jason, 2008. "Culture and stock price clustering: Evidence from The Peoples' Republic of China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-2), pages 95-120, January.
    9. Kolb, Robert W & Rodriguez, Ricardo J, 1987. "Friday the Thirteenth: 'Part VII'--A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(5), pages 1385-1387, December.
    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. Jan Fidrmuc & J. D. Tena, 2015. "Friday the 13th: The Empirics of Bad Luck," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 317-334, August.
    2. Krzysztof Borowski, 2019. "Should Investors on Equity Markets Be Superstitious? (Example of 7 World Stock Indexes Components)," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(1), pages 151-174, January.

    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. Qadan, Mahmoud & Kliger, Doron, 2016. "The short trading day anomaly," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 62-80.
    2. Utpal Bhattacharya & Wei-Yu Kuo & Tse-Chun Lin & Jing Zhao, 2018. "Do Superstitious Traders Lose Money?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3772-3791, August.
    3. Dimitrios Kourtidis & Željko Šević & Prodromos Chatzoglou, 2016. "Mood and stock returns: evidence from Greece," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(2), pages 242-258, May.
    4. Kliger, Doron & Qadan, Mahmoud, 2019. "The High Holidays: Psychological mechanisms of honesty in real-life financial decisions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 121-137.
    5. Lepori, Gabriele M., 2015. "Investor mood and demand for stocks: Evidence from popular TV series finales," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 33-47.
    6. Kim, Jae H., 2017. "Stock returns and investors' mood: Good day sunshine or spurious correlation?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 94-103.
    7. Massimiliano Castellani & Pierpaolo Pattitoni & Roberto Patuelli, 2015. "Abnormal Returns of Soccer Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(7), pages 735-759, October.
    8. Levy, Tamir & Yagil, Joseph, 2011. "Air pollution and stock returns in the US," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 374-383, June.
    9. Kliger, Doron & Kudryavtsev, Andrey, 2013. "Volatility expectations and the reaction to analyst recommendations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-6.
    10. Qadan, Mahmoud & Aharon, David Y. & Cohen, Gil, 2020. "Everybody likes shopping, including the US capital market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 551(C).
    11. Theresa Treffers & Philipp D. Koellinger & Arnold Picot, 2016. "Do Affective States Influence Risk Preferences?," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 17(3), pages 309-335, December.
    12. Shu, Hui-Chu, 2010. "Investor mood and financial markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 267-282, November.
    13. Dowling, Michael & Lucey, Brian M., 2008. "Robust global mood influences in equity pricing," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 145-164, April.
    14. Terence Tai-Leung Chong & Siqi Hou, 2021. "Will stock rise on Valentine’s Day?," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(5), pages 646-667, May.
    15. Christos Floros, 2011. "On the relationship between weather and stock market returns," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(1), pages 5-13, March.
    16. Brian Lucey, 2010. "Lunar seasonality in precious metal returns?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(9), pages 835-838.
    17. Qadan, Mahmoud & Aharon, David Y. & Eichel, Ron, 2022. "Seasonal and Calendar Effects and the Price Efficiency of Cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    18. Mamatzakis, E, 2013. "Does weather affect US bank loan efficiency?," MPRA Paper 51616, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. CURATOLA, Giuliano & DONADELLI, Michael & KIZYS, Renatas & RIEDEL, Max, 2016. "Investor Sentiment and Sectoral Stock Returns: Evidence from World Cup Games," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 267-274.
    20. Lepori, Gabriele M., 2015. "Positive mood and investment decisions: Evidence from comedy movie attendance in the U.S," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 142-163.

    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:rjapxx:v:19:y:2014:i:4:p:527-538. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjap .

    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.