IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/brd/wpaper/02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overconfidence in Currency Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Oberlechner

    (Webster University Vienna)

  • Carol Osler

    (International Business School, Brandeis University)

Abstract

This paper tests the influential hypothesis, typically attributed to Friedman (1953), that irrational traders will be driven out of financial markets by trading losses. The paper’s main finding is that overconfident currency dealers are not driven out of the market. Traders with extensive experience are neither more nor less overconfident than their inexperienced colleagues. We first provide evidence that currency dealers are indeed overconfident, which is notable since they get daily trading practice and face intense financial incentives to accuracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Oberlechner & Carol Osler, 2009. "Overconfidence in Currency Markets," Working Papers 02, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:brd:wpaper:02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.brandeis.edu/economics/RePEc/brd/doc/Brandeis_WP02.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levich, Richard M. & Thomas, Lee III, 1993. "The significance of technical trading-rule profits in the foreign exchange market: a bootstrap approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 451-474, October.
    2. De Long, J Bradford, et al, 1990. "Positive Feedback Investment Strategies and Destabilizing Rational Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 379-395, June.
    3. Flood, Robert P. & Rose, Andrew K., 1995. "Fixing exchange rates A virtual quest for fundamentals," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 3-37, August.
    4. Yin-Wong Cheung & Menzie D. Chinn & Ian W. Marsh, 2004. "How do UK-based foreign exchange dealers think their market operates?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 289-306.
    5. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel & Lasse H. Pedersen, 2009. "Carry Trades and Currency Crashes," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 313-347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    7. Kirchler, Erich & Maciejovsky, Boris, 2002. "Simultaneous Over- and Underconfidence: Evidence from Experimental Asset Markets," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 65-85, July.
    8. Meir Statman & Steven Thorley & Keith Vorkink, 2006. "Investor Overconfidence and Trading Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(4), pages 1531-1565.
    9. Dueker, Michael & Neely, Christopher J., 2007. "Can Markov switching models predict excess foreign exchange returns?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 279-296, February.
    10. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," 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 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    11. Ronald MacDonald, 2000. "Expectations Formation and Risk in Three Financial Markets: Surveying What the Surveys Say," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 69-100, February.
    12. Kyle, Albert S & Wang, F Albert, 1997. "Speculation Duopoly with Agreement to Disagree: Can Overconfidence Survive the Market Test?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 2073-2090, December.
    13. Menkhoff, Lukas, 2001. "Short-Term Horizons in Foreign Exchange? Survey Evidence from Dealers and Fund Managers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 27-47.
    14. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2005. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects: New Data without Order Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 902-912, June.
    15. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie David, 2001. "Currency traders and exchange rate dynamics: a survey of the US market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 439-471, August.
    16. Oberlechner, Thomas & Hocking, Sam, 2004. "Information sources, news, and rumors in financial markets: Insights into the foreign exchange market," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 407-424, June.
    17. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    18. Richard Deaves & Erik Lüders & Guo Ying Luo, 2009. "An Experimental Test of the Impact of Overconfidence and Gender on Trading Activity," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 13(3), pages 555-575.
    19. Goodman, Stephen H, 1979. "Foreign Exchange Rate Forecasting Techniques: Implications for Business and Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(2), pages 415-427, May.
    20. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 1998. "Investor Psychology and Security Market Under- and Overreactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 1839-1885, December.
    21. Taylor, Mark P. & Allen, Helen, 1992. "The use of technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 304-314, June.
    22. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    23. Shleifer, Andrei, 2000. "Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292272.
    24. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Giampaolo Galli & Alberto Giovannini, 1996. "The Microstructure of Foreign Exchange Markets," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fran96-1, July.
    25. Gerhard van de Venter & David Michayluk, 2008. "An Insight into Overconfidence in the Forecasting Abilities of Financial Advisors," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 32(3), pages 545-557, March.
    26. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    27. Oberlechner, Thomas, 2001. "Importance of Technical and Fundamental Analysis in the European Foreign Exchange Market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 81-93, January.
    28. Wang, F. Albert, 2001. "Overconfidence, Investor Sentiment, and Evolution," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 138-170, April.
    29. Dewachter, Hans, 2001. "Can Markov switching models replicate chartist profits in the foreign exchange market?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 25-41, February.
    30. Lukas Menkhoff, 2001. "Short‐Term Horizons in Foreign Exchange? Survey Evidence from dealers and Fund Managers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 27-48, February.
    31. Smith, Vernon L & Suchanek, Gerry L & Williams, Arlington W, 1988. "Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(5), pages 1119-1151, September.
    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. Luís Santos-Pinto, 2008. "Positive Self-image and Incentives in Organisations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1315-1332, August.
    2. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 26384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    4. Fabrice Rousseau & Laurent Germain & Fabrice Rousseau & Anne Vanhems, 2008. "Irrational Financial Markets," Economics Department Working Paper Series n1870108.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    5. Ben-David, Itzhak & Birru, Justin & Prokopenya, Viktor, 2015. "Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading," Working Paper Series 2014-17, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    6. Helen X. H. Bao & Steven Haotong Li, 2016. "Overconfidence And Real Estate Research: A Survey Of The Literature," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(04), pages 1-24, September.
    7. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich & Brozynski, Torsten, 2006. "The impact of experience on risk taking, overconfidence, and herding of fund managers: Complementary survey evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1753-1766, October.
    8. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Karantounias, Anastasios G., 2019. "Overconfidence, subjective perception and pricing behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 107-132.
    9. Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David & Wang, Tracy Yue, 2005. "Investor Overconfidence and the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Paper Series 2005-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    10. Menkhoff, Lukas, 2010. "The use of technical analysis by fund managers: International evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2573-2586, November.
    11. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    12. Oliver Gloede & Lukas Menkhoff, 2014. "Financial Professionals' Overconfidence: Is It Experience, Function, or Attitude?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(2), pages 236-269, March.
    13. Luís Santos-Pinto, 2010. "Positive Self-Image In Tournaments," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(2), pages 475-496, May.
    14. Daniela Beckmann & Lukas Menkhoff, 2008. "Will Women Be Women? Analyzing the Gender Difference among Financial Experts," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 364-384, August.
    15. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 26384, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Michał Krawczyk, 2011. "Overconfident for real? Proper scoring for confidence intervals," Working Papers 2011-15, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

    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. 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.
    2. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    4. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    5. Stephan Schulmeister, 2007. "The Interaction Between the Aggregate Behaviour of Technical Trading Systems and Stock Price Dynamics," WIFO Working Papers 290, WIFO.
    6. Schulmeister, Stephan, 2006. "The interaction between technical currency trading and exchange rate fluctuations," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 212-233, September.
    7. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Development of the overconfidence measurement instrument for the economic experiment," MPRA Paper 34799, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    9. Christopher J. Neely & Paul A. Weller, 2011. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market," Working Papers 2011-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Glaser, Markus & Nöth, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2003. "Behavioral finance," Papers 03-14, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    11. Stephan Schulmeister, 2009. "Technical Trading and Trends in the Dollar-Euro Exchange Rate," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 37582, February.
    12. Cars Hommes & Florian Wagener, 2008. "Complex Evolutionary Systems in Behavioral Finance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-054/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Chan, Wesley S. & Frankel, Richard & Kothari, S.P., 2004. "Testing behavioral finance theories using trends and consistency in financial performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 3-50, December.
    14. Dick, Christian D. & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2013. "Exchange rate expectations of chartists and fundamentalists," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1362-1383.
    15. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    16. Michailova, Julija, 2010. "Overconfidence and bubbles in experimental asset markets," MPRA Paper 26388, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Audretsch, David B. & Stadtmann, Georg, 2005. "Biases in FX-forecasts: Evidence from panel data," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 99-111, August.
    18. King, Michael R. & Osler, Carol L. & Rime, Dagfinn, 2013. "The market microstructure approach to foreign exchange: Looking back and looking forward," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 95-119.
    19. Wan, Jer-Yuh & Kao, Chung-Wei, 2009. "Evidence on the contrarian trading in foreign exchange markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1420-1431, November.
    20. Pierdzioch, Christian & Schäfer, Dirk & Stadtmann, Georg, 2010. "Fly with the eagles or scratch with the chickens? Zum Herdenverhalten von Wechselkursprognostikern," Discussion Papers 287, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overconfidence; imperfect rationality; currency dealers; survival of imperfect rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

    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:brd:wpaper:02. 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: Andrea Luna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsbraus.html .

    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.