IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bamber/151.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trend followers, contrarians and fundamentalists: Explaining the dynamics of financial markets

Author

Listed:
  • Schmitt, Noemi
  • Westerhoff, Frank H.

Abstract

We propose an empirically motivated financial market model in which speculators rely on trend-following, contrarian and fundamental trading rules to determine their orders. Speculators' probabilistic rule-selection behavior - the only type of randomness in our model - depends on past and future performance indicators. For a large number of speculators, the model's intrinsic noise vanishes and its dynamics is driven by an analytically tractable nonlinear map. An in-depth investigation into this map provides the key to understanding how the model functions. Since our model is able to match a number of important stylized facts concerning financial markets, it may be regarded as validated.

Suggested Citation

  • Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank H., 2019. "Trend followers, contrarians and fundamentalists: Explaining the dynamics of financial markets," BERG Working Paper Series 151, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bamber:151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/200125/1/1667401602.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barde, Sylvain, 2016. "Direct comparison of agent-based models of herding in financial markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 329-353.
    2. Robert J. Shiller, 2015. "Irrational Exuberance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 3, number 10421.
    3. Day, Richard H. & Huang, Weihong, 1990. "Bulls, bears and market sheep," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 299-329, December.
    4. Roberto Dieci & Xue-Zhong He, 2018. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Finance," Research Paper Series 389, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.
    5. Michel Beine & Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2014. "The Impact of FX Central Bank Intervention in a Noise Trading Framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and Global Financial Policies, chapter 6, pages 189-216, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Noemi Schmitt & Frank Westerhoff, 2017. "Heterogeneity, spontaneous coordination and extreme events within large-scale and small-scale agent-based financial market models," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 1041-1070, November.
    7. Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2017. "On the bimodality of the distribution of the S&P 500's distortion: Empirical evidence and theoretical explanations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 34-53.
    8. Chiarella, Carl & Ladley, Daniel, 2016. "Chasing trends at the micro-level: The effect of technical trading on order book dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(S), pages 119-131.
    9. Neely, Christopher & Weller, Paul & Dittmar, Rob, 1997. "Is Technical Analysis in the Foreign Exchange Market Profitable? A Genetic Programming Approach," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 405-426, December.
    10. 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 1705-1770, August.
    11. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation and American History," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 1-42, May.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7kr9gv74ut9ngo58gia97t83i7 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Paul De Grauwe & Marianna Grimaldi, 2014. "Exchange Rate Puzzles: A Tale of Switching Attractors," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and Global Financial Policies, chapter 3, pages 71-117, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong & Hommes, Cars, 2006. "A dynamic analysis of moving average rules," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(9-10), pages 1729-1753.
    15. Nils Bertschinger & Iurii Mozzhorin, 2021. "Bayesian estimation and likelihood-based comparison of agent-based volatility models," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(1), pages 173-210, January.
    16. 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.
    17. Andrea Gaunersdorfer & Cars Hommes, 2007. "A Nonlinear Structural Model for Volatility Clustering," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 265-288, Springer.
    18. Boswijk, H. Peter & Hommes, Cars H. & Manzan, Sebastiano, 2007. "Behavioral heterogeneity in stock prices," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1938-1970, June.
    19. Hommes,Cars, 2015. "Behavioral Rationality and Heterogeneous Expectations in Complex Economic Systems," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107564978, October.
    20. David M. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Speculative Dynamics," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 529-546.
    21. Westerhoff, Frank H. & Dieci, Roberto, 2006. "The effectiveness of Keynes-Tobin transaction taxes when heterogeneous agents can trade in different markets: A behavioral finance approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 293-322, February.
    22. Te Bao & Cars Hommes & Tomasz Makarewicz, 2017. "Bubble Formation and (In)Efficient Markets in Learning‐to‐forecast and optimise Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 581-609, October.
    23. Franke, Reiner, 2009. "A prototype model of speculative dynamics with position-based trading," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1134-1158, May.
    24. Barberis, Nicholas & Greenwood, Robin & Jin, Lawrence & Shleifer, Andrei, 2018. "Extrapolation and bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 203-227.
    25. Platt, Donovan, 2020. "A comparison of economic agent-based model calibration methods," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    26. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2014. "Heterogeneous expectations in asset pricing: Empirical evidence from the S&P500," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-16.
    27. Shiller, Robert J, 1990. "Market Volatility and Investor Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 58-62, May.
    28. Thomas Lux & Michele Marchesi, 1999. "Scaling and criticality in a stochastic multi-agent model of a financial market," Nature, Nature, vol. 397(6719), pages 498-500, February.
    29. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 1997. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1059-1096, September.
    30. Cars Hommes & Joep Sonnemans & Jan Tuinstra & Henk van de Velden, 2005. "Coordination of Expectations in Asset Pricing Experiments," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 955-980.
    31. Thomas Lux, 2021. "Can heterogeneous agent models explain the alleged mispricing of the S&P 500?," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(9), pages 1413-1433, September.
    32. LeBaron, Blake & Arthur, W. Brian & Palmer, Richard, 1999. "Time series properties of an artificial stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 1487-1516, September.
    33. Noemi Schmitt & Frank Westerhoff, 2017. "Herding behaviour and volatility clustering in financial markets," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(8), pages 1187-1203, August.
    34. Farmer, J. Doyne & Joshi, Shareen, 2002. "The price dynamics of common trading strategies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 149-171, October.
    35. Brock, William A. & Hommes, Cars H., 1998. "Heterogeneous beliefs and routes to chaos in a simple asset pricing model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1235-1274, August.
    36. Mikhail Anufriev & Cars Hommes, 2012. "Evolutionary Selection of Individual Expectations and Aggregate Outcomes in Asset Pricing Experiments," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 35-64, November.
    37. 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.
    38. Majewski, Adam A. & Ciliberti, Stefano & Bouchaud, Jean-Philippe, 2020. "Co-existence of trend and value in financial markets: Estimating an extended Chiarella model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    39. Anufriev, Mikhail & Panchenko, Valentyn, 2009. "Asset prices, traders' behavior and market design," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1073-1090, May.
    40. Egenter, E. & Lux, T. & Stauffer, D., 1999. "Finite-size effects in Monte Carlo simulations of two stock market models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 268(1), pages 250-256.
    41. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 2001. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Chapters, in: W. D. Dechert (ed.), Growth Theory, Nonlinear Dynamics and Economic Modelling, chapter 16, pages 402-438, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    42. Alan Kirman, 1993. "Ants, Rationality, and Recruitment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(1), pages 137-156.
    43. Poledna, Sebastian & Thurner, Stefan & Farmer, J. Doyne & Geanakoplos, John, 2014. "Leverage-induced systemic risk under Basle II and other credit risk policies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 199-212.
    44. 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.
    45. Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 714-746.
    46. R. Cont, 2001. "Empirical properties of asset returns: stylized facts and statistical issues," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 223-236.
    47. 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.
    48. Blake LeBaron, 2011. "Active and Passive Learning in Agent-based Financial Markets," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 35-43.
    49. Franke, Reiner & Westerhoff, Frank, 2012. "Structural stochastic volatility in asset pricing dynamics: Estimation and model contest," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1193-1211.
    50. Beja, Avraham & Goldman, M Barry, 1980. "On the Dynamic Behavior of Prices in Disequilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 235-248, May.
    51. LeBaron, Blake, 2012. "Heterogeneous gain learning and the dynamics of asset prices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 424-445.
    52. 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.
    53. Maarten P. Scholl & Anisoara Calinescu & J. Doyne Farmer, 2021. "How market ecology explains market malfunction," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(26), pages 2015574118-, June.
    54. Lux, Thomas, 1995. "Herd Behaviour, Bubbles and Crashes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 881-896, July.
    55. Brock, William & Lakonishok, Josef & LeBaron, Blake, 1992. "Simple Technical Trading Rules and the Stochastic Properties of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1731-1764, December.
    56. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation Of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation And American History," NBER Working Papers 18825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Christoph March & Marco Sahm, 2019. "The Perks of Being in the Smaller Team: Incentives in Overlapping Contests," CESifo Working Paper Series 7994, CESifo.
    2. Mignot, Sarah & Westerhoff, Frank H., 2023. "Explaining the stylized facts of foreign exchange markets with a simple agent-based version of Paul de Grauwe's chaotic exchange rate model," BERG Working Paper Series 189, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    3. Philipp Mundt & Simone Alfarano & Mishael Milaković, 2022. "Survival and the Ergodicity of Corporate Profitability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3726-3734, May.
    4. Federico Bassi & Raquel Ramos & Dany Lang, 2023. "Bet against the trend and cash in profits: An agent-based model of endogenous fluctuations of exchange rates," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 429-472, April.
    5. Schulz, Jan & Mayerhoffer, Daniel M., 2021. "A network approach to consumption," BERG Working Paper Series 173, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    6. Arata, Yoshiyuki & Mundt, Philipp, 2019. "Topology and formation of production input interlinkages: Evidence from Japanese microdata," BERG Working Paper Series 152, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    7. Perras, Patrizia & Wagner, Niklas, 2020. "Pricing equity-bond covariance risk: Between flight-to-quality and fear-of-missing-out," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Savin, Ivan & Mundt, Philipp, 2022. "Drivers of productivity change in global value chains: Reallocation vs. innovation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    9. Michael Heinrich Baumann & Michaela Baumann & Lars Grüne & Bernhard Herz, 2023. "Market Structure and Instability Artifacts in Heterogeneous Agent Models: Lessons from Implicit Discretizations of Stiff Equations," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 62(3), pages 855-890, October.
    10. Deborah Noguera & Gabriel Montes-Rojas, 2023. "Minskyan model with credit rationing in a network economy," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-26, March.
    11. Sahm, Marco, 2022. "Optimal accuracy of unbiased Tullock contests with two heterogeneous players," BERG Working Paper Series 175, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    12. Schmitt, Sefanie Y. & Bruckner, Dominik, 2022. "Unaware consumers and disclosure of deficiencies," BERG Working Paper Series 178, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    13. Gardini, L. & Radi, D. & Schmitt, N. & Sushko, I. & Westerhoff, F., 2022. "Causes of fragile stock market stability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 483-498.
    14. Mundt, Philipp & Cantner, Uwe & Inoue, Hiroyasu & Savin, Ivan & Vannuccini, Simone, 2021. "Market selection in global value chains," BERG Working Paper Series 170, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.

    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. Noemi Schmitt & Ivonne Schwartz & Frank Westerhoff, 2022. "Heterogeneous speculators and stock market dynamics: a simple agent-based computational model," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(13-15), pages 1263-1282, October.
    2. Schmitt, Noemi, 2018. "Heterogeneous expectations and asset price dynamics," BERG Working Paper Series 134, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    3. Hommes, Cars H., 2006. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1109-1186, Elsevier.
    4. Blaurock, Ivonne & Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2018. "Market entry waves and volatility outbursts in stock markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 19-37.
    5. Xue-Zhong He & Youwei Li, 2017. "The adaptiveness in stock markets: testing the stylized facts in the DAX 30," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 1071-1094, November.
    6. Dieci, Roberto & Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank H., 2022. "Boom-bust cycles and asset market participation waves: Momentum, value, risk and herding," BERG Working Paper Series 177, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    7. Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2017. "On the bimodality of the distribution of the S&P 500's distortion: Empirical evidence and theoretical explanations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 34-53.
    8. Dieci, Roberto & Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2018. "Interactions between stock, bond and housing markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 43-70.
    9. Frank H. Westerhoff, 2009. "Exchange Rate Dynamics: A Nonlinear Survey," Chapters, in: J. Barkley Rosser Jr. (ed.), Handbook of Research on Complexity, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Hommes, C.H., 2005. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance, In: Handbook of Computational Economics II: Agent-Based Computational Economics, edited by Leigh Tesfatsion and Ken Judd , Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006," CeNDEF Working Papers 05-03, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    11. Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), 2008. "Handbook on Information Technology in Finance," International Handbooks on Information Systems, Springer, number 978-3-540-49487-4, November.
    12. Kukacka, Jiri & Barunik, Jozef, 2017. "Estimation of financial agent-based models with simulated maximum likelihood," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 21-45.
    13. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Youwei & Zheng, Min, 2019. "Heterogeneous agent models in financial markets: A nonlinear dynamics approach," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 135-149.
    14. Cars Hommes & Florian Wagener, 2008. "Complex Evolutionary Systems in Behavioral Finance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-054/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Jörn Dermietzel, 2008. "The Heterogeneous Agents Approach to Financial Markets – Development and Milestones," International Handbooks on Information Systems, in: Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), Handbook on Information Technology in Finance, chapter 19, pages 443-464, Springer.
    16. Kai Li, 2014. "Asset Price Dynamics with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Time Delays," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2014.
    17. Zhao, Dongxu & Li, Kai, 2022. "Bounded rationality, adaptive behaviour, and asset prices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    18. Chiarella, Carl & He, Xue-Zhong & Zwinkels, Remco C.J., 2014. "Heterogeneous expectations in asset pricing: Empirical evidence from the S&P500," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-16.
    19. Mignot, Sarah & Westerhoff, Frank H., 2023. "Explaining the stylized facts of foreign exchange markets with a simple agent-based version of Paul de Grauwe's chaotic exchange rate model," BERG Working Paper Series 189, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    20. Roberto Dieci & Xue-Zhong He, 2018. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Finance," Research Paper Series 389, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    financial markets; stylized facts; technical and fundamental analysis; probabilistic rule-selection behavior; nonlinear dynamics; stability and bifurcation analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    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:zbw:bamber:151. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bebamde.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.