A longstanding controversy in economics and finance is whether financial markets are governed by rational forces or by emotional responses. We study the importance of emotion in the decisionmaking process of professional securities traders by measuring their physiological characteristics, e.g., skin conductance, blood volume pulse, etc., during live trading sessions while simultaneously capturing real-time prices from which market events can be defined. In a sample of 10 traders, we find significant correlation between electrodermal responses and transient market events, and between changes in cardiovascular variables and market volatility. We also observe differences in these correlations among the 10 traders which may be systematically related to the traders' levels of experience.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
8508.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 2001 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8508
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data) G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies
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Lucy F. Ackert & Bryan K. Church & Richard Deaves, 2003.
"Emotion and financial markets,"
Economic Review,
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Q2, pages 33-41.
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