IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dpr/wpaper/1156r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Financial Forecasting in the Lab and the Field: Qualified Professionals vs. Smart Students

Author

Listed:
  • Te Bao
  • Brice Corgnet
  • Nobuyuki Hanaki
  • Katsuhiko Okada
  • Yohanes E. Riyanto
  • Jiahua Zhu

Abstract

We compare the performance of financial professionals (CFAs) with university students in four financial forecasting tasks ranging from simple lab prediction tasks to longitudinal field prediction tasks. Although students and professionals performed similarly in the most artificial forecasting tasks, CFAs outperformed students in the field predictions. Differences in forecasting performance between finance professionals and students were explained by financial literacy, not cognitive ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Te Bao & Brice Corgnet & Nobuyuki Hanaki & Katsuhiko Okada & Yohanes E. Riyanto & Jiahua Zhu, 2022. "Financial Forecasting in the Lab and the Field: Qualified Professionals vs. Smart Students," ISER Discussion Paper 1156r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University, revised Sep 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1156r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2022/DP1156R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    2. Lindner, Florian & Kirchler, Michael & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Weitzel, Utz, 2021. "Social Motives and Risk-Taking in Investment Decisions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Daniel Fernandes & John G. Lynch & Richard G. Netemeyer, 2014. "Financial Literacy, Financial Education, and Downstream Financial Behaviors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1861-1883, August.
    4. Carlé, Tim A. & Lahav, Yaron & Neugebauer, Tibor & Noussair, Charles N., 2019. "Heterogeneity of Beliefs and Trade in Experimental Asset Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(1), pages 215-245, February.
    5. Brice Corgnet & Cary Deck & Mark DeSantis & David Porter, 2022. "Forecasting Skills in Experimental Markets: Illusion or Reality?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5216-5232, July.
    6. John Beshears & James J. Choi & Andreas Fuster & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2013. "What Goes Up Must Come Down? Experimental Evidence on Intuitive Forecasting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 570-574, May.
    7. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    8. John R. Graham, 2022. "Presidential Address: Corporate Finance and Reality," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 1975-2049, August.
    9. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2005. "Herd Behavior in a Laboratory Financial Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1427-1443, December.
    10. Markus Glaser & Thomas Langer & Martin Weber, 2007. "On the Trend Recognition and Forecasting Ability of Professional Traders," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 176-193, December.
    11. Marco Cipriani & Antonio Guarino, 2009. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets: An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 206-233, March.
    12. Schwaiger, Rene & Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Determinants of investor expectations and satisfaction. A study with financial professionals," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    13. Pierdzioch, Christian & Rülke, Jan-Christoph, 2012. "Forecasting stock prices: Do forecasters herd?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 326-329.
    14. Deaves, Richard & Lüders, Erik & Schröder, Michael, 2010. "The dynamics of overconfidence: Evidence from stock market forecasters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 402-412, September.
    15. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-47, April.
    17. David S. Lee, 2009. "Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1071-1102.
    18. Felix Holzmeister & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Utz Weitzel & Stefan Zeisberger, 2020. "What Drives Risk Perception? A Global Survey with Financial Professionals and Laypeople," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3977-4002, September.
    19. Brice Corgnet & Mark Desantis & David Porter, 2018. "What Makes a Good Trader? On the Role of Intuition and Reflection on Trader Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(3), pages 1113-1137, June.
    20. Brown, Bryan W & Maital, Shlomo, 1981. "What Do Economists Know? An Empirical Study of Experts' Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 491-504, March.
    21. Locke, Peter R. & Mann, Steven C., 2005. "Professional trader discipline and trade disposition," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 401-444, May.
    22. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    23. Hanaki, Nobuyuki, 2022. "Risk misperceptions of structured financial products with worst-of payout characteristics revisited," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    24. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    25. Utz Weitzel & Christoph Huber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Julia Rose & Lauren Cohen, 2020. "Bubbles and Financial Professionals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2659-2696.
    26. Michael B. Clement & Senyo Y. Tse, 2005. "Financial Analyst Characteristics and Herding Behavior in Forecasting," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 307-341, February.
    27. Andrew W. Lo & Harry Mamaysky & Jiang Wang, 2000. "Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1705-1765, August.
    28. Klaus Abbink & Bettina Rockenbach, 2006. "Option pricing by students and professional traders: a behavioural investigation," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 497-510.
    29. Joseph Engelberg & Caroline Sasseville & Jared Williams, 2012. "Market Madness? The Case of Mad Money," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 351-364, February.
    30. John A. List & Azeem M. Shaikh & Yang Xu, 2019. "Multiple hypothesis testing in experimental economics," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 773-793, December.
    31. John Graham, 2022. "Presidential Address: Corporate Finance and Reality," NBER Working Papers 29841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Elena Asparouhova & Michael Hertzel & Michael Lemmon, 2009. "Inference from Streaks in Random Outcomes: Experimental Evidence on Beliefs in Regime Shifting and the Law of Small Numbers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1766-1782, November.
    33. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik, 2003. "Analyzing the Analysts: Career Concerns and Biased Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 313-351, February.
    34. John C. Easterwood & Stacey R. Nutt, 1999. "Inefficiency in Analysts' Earnings Forecasts: Systematic Misreaction or Systematic Optimism?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1777-1797, October.
    35. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    36. John A. List, 2004. "Neoclassical Theory Versus Prospect Theory: Evidence from the Marketplace," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 615-625, March.
    37. Ackert, LF & Church, BK & Shehata, M, 1997. "An experimental examination of the effects of forecast bias on individuals' use of forecasted information," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 25-42.
    38. Kriti Jain & Kanchan Mukherjee & J. Neil Bearden & Anil Gaba, 2013. "Unpacking the Future: A Nudge Toward Wider Subjective Confidence Intervals," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 1970-1987, September.
    39. John A. List, 2020. "Non est Disputandum de Generalizability? A Glimpse into The External Validity Trial," NBER Working Papers 27535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Adrian Fernandez-Perez, Alexandre Garel, and Ivan Indriawan, 2020. "Natural Gas Storage Forecasts: Is the Crowd Wiser?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 5), pages 213-238.
    41. Markku Kaustia & Eeva Alho & Vesa Puttonen, 2008. "How Much Does Expertise Reduce Behavioral Biases? The Case of Anchoring Effects in Stock Return Estimates," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 391-412, September.
    42. David Laster & Paul Bennett & In Sun Geoum, 1999. "Rational Bias in Macroeconomic Forecasts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 293-318.
    43. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    44. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    45. Brice Corgnet & Mark Desantis & David Porter, 2018. "What Makes a Good Trader? On the Role of Reflection and Intuition on Trader Performance," Post-Print hal-02312062, HAL.
    46. Zhi Da & Xing Huang, 2020. "Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1847-1867, May.
    47. Gerald D. Gay & Betty J. Simkins & Marian Turac, 2009. "Analyst forecasts and price discovery in futures markets: The case of natural gas storage," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 451-477, May.
    48. Timm O. Sprenger & Andranik Tumasjan & Philipp G. Sandner & Isabell M. Welpe, 2014. "Tweets and Trades: the Information Content of Stock Microblogs," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(5), pages 926-957, November.
    49. 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.
    50. Chen, Zhi & Gaba, Anil & Tsetlin, Ilia & Winkler, Robert L., 2022. "Evaluating quantile forecasts in the M5 uncertainty competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1531-1545.
    51. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    52. Markus Glaser & Zwetelina Iliewa & Martin Weber, 2019. "Thinking about Prices versus Thinking about Returns in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(6), pages 2997-3039, December.
    53. Razen, Michael & Kirchler, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Domain-specific risk-taking among finance professionals," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    54. Lakonishok, Josef, 1980. "Stock Market Return Expectations: Some General Properties," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(4), pages 921-931, September.
    55. Pearce, Douglas K, 1984. "An Empirical Analysis of Expected Stock Price Movements," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(3), pages 317-327, August.
    56. Dokko, Yoon & Edelstein, Robert H, 1989. "How Well Do Economists Forecast Stock Market Prices? A Study of the Livingston Surveys," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 865-871, September.
    57. John R. Graham, 1999. "Herding among Investment Newsletters: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(1), pages 237-268, February.
    58. Pierdzioch, Christian & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Stadtmann, Georg, 2013. "Forecasting metal prices: Do forecasters herd?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 150-158.
    59. Erik Snowberg & Leeat Yariv, 2021. "Testing the Waters: Behavior across Participant Pools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 687-719, February.
    60. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:1:p:25-47 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. repec:dpr:wpaper:1156 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Schwaiger, Rene & Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Determinants of investor expectations and satisfaction. A study with financial professionals," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    3. Bottasso, Anna & Duchêne, Sébastien & Guerci, Eric & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Noussair, Charles N., 2022. "Higher order risk attitudes of financial experts," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    4. Razen, Michael & Kirchler, Michael & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Domain-specific risk-taking among finance professionals," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    5. Christoph Huber & Christian König-Kersting & Matteo M. Marini, 2022. "Experimenting with Financial Professionals," Working Papers 2022-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Jun 2024.
    6. Michael Razen & Michael Kirchler & Utz Weitzel, 2019. "Determinants Of Prepaid Systems Of Healthcare Financing - A Worldwide Country-Level Perspective," Working Papers 2019-12, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2021. "Crises, market shocks, and herding behavior in stock price forecasts," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 919-945, August.
    8. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2022. "Risk-return trade-offs in the context of environmental impact: a lab-in-the-field experiment with finance professionals," CEE-M Working Papers hal-03883121, CEE-M, Universtiy of Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro.
    9. Felix Holzmeister & Martin Holmén & Michael Kirchler & Matthias Stefan & Erik Wengström, 2023. "Delegation Decisions in Finance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4828-4844, August.
    10. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2013. "Overconfidence, experience, and professionalism: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 92-101.
    11. Lorenzo Esposito & Lorenzo Marrese, 2021. "The impact of cognitive skills on investment decisions. An empirical assessment and policy suggestions," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0019, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    12. Marinovic, Iván & Ottaviani, Marco & Sorensen, Peter, 2013. "Forecasters’ Objectives and Strategies," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 690-720, Elsevier.
    13. Bao, Te & Corgnet, Brice & Hanaki, Nobuyuki & Riyanto, Yohanes E. & Zhu, Jiahua, 2023. "Predicting the unpredictable: New experimental evidence on forecasting random walks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    14. Adam Farago & Martin Holmén & Felix Holzmeister & Michael Kirchler & Michael Razen, 2019. "Cognitive Skills and Economic Preferences in the Fund Industry," Working Papers 2019-16, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    15. Pierdzioch, Christian & Rülke, Jan-Christoph, 2012. "Forecasting stock prices: Do forecasters herd?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 326-329.
    16. Rangvid, Jesper & Schmeling, Maik & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2013. "What do professional forecasters' stock market expectations tell us about herding, information extraction and beauty contests?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 109-129.
    17. Holzmeister, Felix & Holmén, Martin & Kirchler, Michael & Stefan, Matthias & Wengström, Erik, 2019. "Delegated Decision-Making in Finance," OSF Preprints 3umdf, Center for Open Science.
    18. Itzhak Venezia, 2018. "Lecture Notes in Behavioral Finance," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10751, December.
    19. Marco Cipriani & Roberta De Filippis & Antonio Guarino & Ryan Kendall, 2020. "Trading by Professional Traders: An Experiment," Staff Reports 939, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian & Weitzel, Utz, 2020. "Delegated investment decisions and rankings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    21. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.

    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:dpr:wpaper:1156r. 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: Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isosujp.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.