IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v96y2026ics0927538x25003373.html

Irrational cognition in the stock market

Author

Listed:
  • Xie, Jun
  • Shi, Shuoyue
  • Gao, Bin

Abstract

This study establishes irrational cognition (IC)—a novel composite index capturing representativeness, anchoring, availability, and framing biases by employing a bottom-up approach—as a robust predictor of cross-sectional stock returns in China. The findings demonstrate that higher IC stocks exhibit statistically significantly lower future returns, with this predictive power persisting over intermediate horizons and surviving rigorous controls for established firm characteristics and asset pricing factors. Decomposition analyses reveal that IC's predictive power stems primarily from historical persistence information (entrenched mispricing from cognitive bias recurrence) and unique information (cognitive distortion immediately triggered in noisy information environments). The IC index advances behavioral finance by providing an extensible, theory-grounded tool to quantify aggregate cognitive distortions as systematic drivers of exploitable anomalies orthogonal to classical risk factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Xie, Jun & Shi, Shuoyue & Gao, Bin, 2026. "Irrational cognition in the stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:96:y:2026:i:c:s0927538x25003373
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.103000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X25003373
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2025.103000?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atilgan, Yigit & Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Gunaydin, A. Doruk, 2020. "Left-tail momentum: Underreaction to bad news, costly arbitrage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 725-753.
    2. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein, 1999. "A Unified Theory of Underreaction, Momentum Trading, and Overreaction in Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2143-2184, December.
    3. Chang, Eric C. & Luo, Yan & Ren, Jinjuan, 2014. "Short-selling, margin-trading, and price efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 411-424.
    4. Marcin Kacperczyk & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2014. "Time-Varying Fund Manager Skill," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1455-1484, August.
    5. Assaf, Ata & Kristoufek, Ladislav & Demir, Ender & Kumar Mitra, Subrata, 2021. "Market efficiency in the art markets using a combination of long memory, fractal dimension, and approximate entropy measures," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:5:p:2145-2176 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Kewei Hou & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2015. "Editor's Choice Digesting Anomalies: An Investment Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 650-705.
    8. Eben Otuteye & Mohammad Siddiquee, 2015. "Overcoming Cognitive Biases: A Heuristic for Making Value Investing Decisions," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 140-149, April.
    9. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    10. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    11. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Folkes, Valerie S, 1988. "Recent Attribution Research in Consumer Behavior: A Review and New Directions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(4), pages 548-565, March.
    14. Chen, Yong & Da, Zhi & Huang, Dayong, 2022. "Short selling efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 387-408.
    15. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang & Xinran Zhang, 2021. "Tracking Retail Investor Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(5), pages 2249-2305, October.
    16. Huang, Shiyang & Lin, Tse-Chun & Xiang, Hong, 2021. "Psychological barrier and cross-firm return predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 338-356.
    17. Jun Xie & Nan Hu & Bin Gao & ChunZhi Tan, 2022. "Representativeness Heuristic in Stock Market: Measurement and Its Predictive Ability," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(5), pages 1276-1287, April.
    18. Grosshans, Daniel & Zeisberger, Stefan, 2018. "All’s well that ends well? On the importance of how returns are achieved," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 397-410.
    19. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Lin Sun, 2020. "Short- and Long-Horizon Behavioral Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 1673-1736.
    20. Klein, April, 1990. "A direct test of the cognitive bias theory of share price reversals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 155-166, July.
    21. Whitney Newey & Kenneth West, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    22. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    23. Xie, Jun & Fang, Yuying & Gao, Bin & Tan, Chunzhi, 2023. "Availability heuristic and expected returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    24. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 1985. "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 777-790, July.
    25. Lee, Eunju & Piqueira, Natalia, 2019. "Behavioral biases of informed traders: Evidence from insider trading on the 52-week high," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 56-75.
    26. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    27. Kristoufek, Ladislav & Vosvrda, Miloslav, 2013. "Measuring capital market efficiency: Global and local correlations structure," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(1), pages 184-193.
    28. Shin, Heejeong & Park, Sorah, 2018. "Do foreign investors mitigate anchoring bias in stock market? Evidence based on post-earnings announcement drift," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 224-240.
    29. Jun Xie & Baohua Zhang & Bin Gao, 2023. "Market framing bias and cross-sectional stock returns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(8), pages 1-19, August.
    30. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    31. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Lin Sun, 2020. "Short- and Long-Horizon Behavioral Factors," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1673-1736.
    32. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    33. Kariofyllas, Spyridon & Philippas, Dionisis & Siriopoulos, Costas, 2017. "Cognitive biases in investors' behaviour under stress: Evidence from the London Stock Exchange," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 54-62.
    34. Elena Asparouhova & Hendrik Bessembinder & Ivalina Kalcheva, 2013. "Noisy Prices and Inference Regarding Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(2), pages 665-714, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Xie, Jun & Fang, Yuying & Gao, Bin & Tan, Chunzhi, 2023. "Availability heuristic and expected returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    2. Fousseni Chabi-Yo & Andrei S. Gonçalves & Johnathan A. Loudis, 2025. "An Intertemporal Risk Factor Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(8), pages 6518-6544, August.
    3. Liu, Xufeng & Wan, Die, 2022. "Asymmetric positive feedback trading and stock pricing in China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Lin, Chaonan & Chen, Hong-Yi & Ko, Kuan-Cheng & Yang, Nien-Tzu, 2021. "Time-dependent lottery preference and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 272-294.
    5. Xin Chen & Wei He & Libin Tao & Jianfeng Yu, 2023. "Attention and Underreaction-Related Anomalies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 636-659, January.
    6. Poon, Percy & Yao, Tong & Zhang, Andrew (Jianzhong), 2022. "The alphas of beta and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    7. Doron Avramov & Xin He, 2026. "Stochastic Discount Factors with Cross-Asset Spillovers," Papers 2602.20856, arXiv.org.
    8. Chen, Chen & Stivers, Chris & Sun, Licheng, 2024. "Short-term momentum and reversals, turnover, and a stock’s price-to-52-week-high ratio," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Sun, Kaisi & Wang, Hui & Zhu, Yifeng, 2022. "How is the change in left-tail risk priced in China?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Doron Avramov & Guy Kaplanski & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2022. "Postfundamentals Price Drift in Capital Markets: A Regression Regularization Perspective," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7658-7681, October.
    11. Wang, Zijun, 2021. "The high volume return premium and economic fundamentals," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 325-345.
    12. Long, Huaigang & Chiah, Mardy & Zaremba, Adam & Umar, Zaghum, 2024. "Changes in shares outstanding and country stock returns around the world," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    13. Long, Huaigang & Zaremba, Adam & Zhou, Wenyu & Bouri, Elie, 2022. "Macroeconomics matter: Leading economic indicators and the cross-section of global stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    14. Chen, Zilin & Da, Zhi & Huang, Dashan & Wang, Liyao, 2023. "Presidential economic approval rating and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 106-131.
    15. Chen, Zilin & Chu, Liya & Liang, Dawei & Tu, Jun, 2022. "Far away from home: Investors’ underreaction to geographically dispersed information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    16. Azevedo, Vitor, 2023. "Analysts’ underreaction and momentum strategies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Atilgan, Yigit & Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Gunaydin, A. Doruk, 2020. "Left-tail momentum: Underreaction to bad news, costly arbitrage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(3), pages 725-753.
    18. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2021. "Horse race of weekly idiosyncratic momentum strategies with respect to various risk metrics: Evidence from the Chinese stock market," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    19. Khasawneh, Maher & McMillan, David G. & Kambouroudis, Dimos, 2024. "Left-tail risk and UK stock return predictability: Underreaction, overreaction, and arbitrage difficulties," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    20. Fabian Hollstein & Marcel Prokopczuk, 2023. "Managing the Market Portfolio," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3675-3696, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:pacfin:v:96:y:2026:i:c:s0927538x25003373. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/pacfin .

    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.