IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2601.11602.html

The Physics of Price Discovery: Deconvolving Information, Volatility, and the Critical Breakdown of Signal during Retail Herding

Author

Listed:
  • Sungwoo Kang

Abstract

How information transmits through prices -- and why this transmission breaks down -- remains poorly understood. We combine regularized deconvolution with Hawkes process analysis to study the impulse response structure of investor flows in the Korean equity market (January 2020 -- February 2025). Three findings emerge: foreign and institutional flows drive permanent price discovery while individual flows provide contrarian liquidity; individual investor surges are predominantly panic-driven and exhibit near-explosive self-excitation; and during herding episodes, institutional price impact deteriorates sharply in small-cap stocks while large-cap stocks maintain resilience. These results reframe market efficiency as a state variable -- conditional on both herding intensity and firm size -- rather than a structural constant.

Suggested Citation

  • Sungwoo Kang, 2026. "The Physics of Price Discovery: Deconvolving Information, Volatility, and the Critical Breakdown of Signal during Retail Herding," Papers 2601.11602, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2601.11602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.11602
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2008. "Liquidity and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 249-268, February.
    2. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1993. "Assessing the Quality of a Security Market: A New Approach to Transaction-Cost Measurement," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(1), pages 191-212.
    3. Hasbrouck, Joel, 1991. "Measuring the Information Content of Stock Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 179-207, March.
    4. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    5. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    6. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Order Flow and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 6, pages 247-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Marten Scheffer & Jordi Bascompte & William A. Brock & Victor Brovkin & Stephen R. Carpenter & Vasilis Dakos & Hermann Held & Egbert H. van Nes & Max Rietkerk & George Sugihara, 2009. "Early-warning signals for critical transitions," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7260), pages 53-59, September.
    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. Medina, Vicente & Pardo, Ángel & Pascual, Roberto, 2014. "The timeline of trading frictions in the European carbon market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 378-394.
    2. Thanh Huong Nguyen, 2019. "Information and Noise in Stock Markets: Evidence on the Determinants and Effects Using New Empirical Measures," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 7-2019, January-A.
    3. Rzayev, Khaladdin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2019. "A state-space modeling of the information content of trading volume," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    4. Kitamura, Yoshihiro, 2017. "Simple measures of market efficiency: A study in foreign exchange markets," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-16.
    5. Lilian de Menezes & Marianna Russo & Giovanni Urga, 2016. "Identifying Drivers of Liquidity in the NBP Month-ahead Market," EcoMod2016 9570, EcoMod.
    6. Albuquerque, Rui & Song, Shiyun & Yao, Chen, 2017. "The Price Effects of Liquidity Shocks: A Study of SEC’s Tick-Size Experiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 12486, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. V.K., Anand Krishnan & Chalissery, Meera Davi & Thomas, Sony, 2024. "A bibliometric review of Market Microstructure literature: Current status, development, and future directions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    8. Chen, Shikuan & Chien, Chih-Chung & Chang, Ming-Jen, 2012. "Order flow, bid–ask spread and trading density in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 597-612.
    9. Filippou, Ilias & Maurer, Thomas A. & Pezzo, Luca & Taylor, Mark P., 2024. "Importance of transaction costs for asset allocation in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Lauter, Tobias & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2022. "Measuring commodity market quality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    11. Priyanka Naik & B G Poornima & Y V Reddy, 2020. "Measuring liquidity in Indian stock market: A dimensional perspective," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Chaboud, Alain & Hjalmarsson, Erik & Zikes, Filip, 2021. "The evolution of price discovery in an electronic market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    13. Opschoor, Anne & Taylor, Nick & van der Wel, Michel & van Dijk, Dick, 2014. "Order flow and volatility: An empirical investigation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 185-201.
    14. Chen, Yu-Lun & Chang, Ya-Kai, 2015. "Investor structure and the informational efficiency of commodity futures prices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 358-367.
    15. Kim, Jinyong & Kim, Yongsik, 2019. "Transitory prices, resiliency, and the cross-section of stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 243-256.
    16. Sun, Yuxin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2017. "Informed trading and the price impact of block trades: A high frequency trading analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 114-129.
    17. Chang, Sanders S. & Wang, F. Albert, 2015. "Adverse selection and the presence of informed trading," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 19-33.
    18. AltInkIlIç, Oya & Hansen, Robert S., 2009. "On the information role of stock recommendation revisions," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 17-36, October.
    19. Xu, Liao & Xu, Lu & Zhao, Jing & Zhao, Yang, 2020. "Information-based trading and information propagation: Evidence from the exchange traded fund market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Elaut, Gert & Frömmel, Michael & Lampaert, Kevin, 2018. "Intraday momentum in FX markets: Disentangling informed trading from liquidity provision," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 35-51.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2601.11602. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.