On the trading floor, all action is based on news, therefore rumors in financial markets are an everyday phenomenon. Rumors are the oldest mass medium in the world and their nature is still difficult to grasp. Scientifically, not much is known about rumors, especially in the financial markets, where their consequences can have real money consequences. Rumors in Financial Markets provides a fresh insight to the topic, combining the theory of Behavioral Finance with that of Experimental Finance--a new and innovative scientific method which observes real decision makers in a controlled, clearly structured environment. Using the results from surveys and experiments, the author argues that rumors in the context of financial markets are built on three cornerstones: Finance, Psychology and Sociology. The book provides insights into how rumors evolve, spread and are traded on and provides explanations as to why volatility rockets, strong price movements, herding behavior for example, occur for apparently no good reason.

A well-known concept in modern capital market theory is that only systematic risk factors affect security prices. Macroeconomic announcements are among the most important news for financial markets because the state of the economy is a prime candidate for such a source of non-diversifiable risk. This book investigates the effects of US macroeconomic news on three financial markets that have received less attention in the literature so far. The markets of interest are the commodity futures market, the German stock index futures market, and the German bond futures market. I investigate not only price effects, but also liquidity effects as well as the channels of cross-border information flow. I find that commodity markets as well as international stock and bond markets are likewise affected by the release of US macroeconomic news. The strength of the commodity price response depends on the state of the economy and news about the US economy is more important for German stock markets than domestic economic news. For an investor in any of these markets, this book provides valuable information on how to adjust his trading strategies around the release of macroeconomic news. Moreover, my findings contribute to the understanding of cross-border information flow. First, I find that both domestic and foreign economic news induce significant price and liquidity effects. Second, I find that there are two important channels of information transmission for foreign news: the direct response to the news and the indirect response to the foreign response to the news.

The ways financial analysts, traders, and other specialists use information and learn from each other are of fundamental importance to understanding how markets work and prices are set. This graduate-level textbook analyzes how markets aggregate information and examines the impacts of specific market arrangements--or microstructure--on the aggregation process and overall performance of financial markets. Xavier Vives bridges the gap between the two primary views of markets--informational efficiency and herding--and uses a coherent game-theoretic framework to bring together the latest results from the rational expectations and herding literatures. Vives emphasizes the consequences of market interaction and social learning for informational and economic efficiency. He looks closely at information aggregation mechanisms, progressing from simple to complex environments: from static to dynamic models; from competitive to strategic agents; and from simple market strategies such as noncontingent orders or quantities to complex ones like price contingent orders or demand schedules. Vives finds that contending theories like informational efficiency and herding build on the same principles of Bayesian decision making and that "irrational" agents are not needed to explain herding behavior, booms, and crashes. As this book shows, the microstructure of a market is the crucial factor in the informational efficiency of prices. Provides the most complete analysis of the ways markets aggregate information Bridges the gap between the rational expectations and herding literatures Includes exercises with solutions Serves both as a graduate textbook and a resource for researchers, including financial analysts

This volume looks at financial prediction from a broad range of perspectives. It covers: - the economic arguments - the practicalities of the markets - how predictions are used - how predictions are made - how predictions are turned into something usable (asset locations) It combines a discussion of standard theory with state-of-the-art material on a wide range of information processing techniques as applied to cutting-edge financial problems. All the techniques are demonstrated with real examples using actual market data, and show that it is possible to extract information from very noisy, sparse data sets. Aimed primarily at researchers in financial prediction, time series analysis and information processing, this book will also be of interest to quantitative fund managers and other professionals involved in financial prediction.

The models of portfolio selection and asset price dynamics in this volume seek to explain the market dynamics of asset prices. Presenting a range of analytical, empirical, and numerical techniques as well as several different modeling approaches, the authors depict the state of debate on the market selection hypothesis. By explicitly assuming the heterogeneity of investors, they present models that are descriptive and normative as well, making the volume useful for both finance theorists and financial practitioners. - Explains the market dynamics of asset prices, offering insights about asset management approaches - Assumes a heterogeneity of investors that yields descriptive and normative models of portfolio selections and asset pricing dynamics

An informative guide to market microstructure and trading strategies Over the last decade, the financial landscape has undergone a significant transformation, shaped by the forces of technology, globalization, and market innovations to name a few. In order to operate effectively in today's markets, you need more than just the motivation to succeed, you need a firm understanding of how modern financial markets work and what professional trading is really about. Dr. Anatoly Schmidt, who has worked in the financial industry since 1997, and teaches in the Financial Engineering program of Stevens Institute of Technology, puts these topics in perspective with his new book. Divided into three comprehensive parts, this reliable resource offers a balance between the theoretical aspects of market microstructure and trading strategies that may be more relevant for practitioners. Along the way, it skillfully provides an informative overview of modern financial markets as well as an engaging assessment of the methods used in deriving and back-testing trading strategies. Details the modern financial markets for equities, foreign exchange, and fixed income Addresses the basics of market dynamics, including statistical distributions and volatility of returns Offers a summary of approaches used in technical analysis and statistical arbitrage as well as a more detailed description of trading performance criteria and back-testing strategies Includes two appendices that support the main material in the book If you're unprepared to enter today's markets you will underperform. But with Financial Markets and Trading as your guide, you'll quickly discover what it takes to make it in this competitive field.

This work, now in a thoroughly revised second edition, presents the economic foundations of financial markets theory from a mathematically rigorous standpoint and offers a self-contained critical discussion based on empirical results. It is the only textbook on the subject to include more than two hundred exercises, with detailed solutions to selected exercises. Financial Markets Theory covers classical asset pricing theory in great detail, including utility theory, equilibrium theory, portfolio selection, mean-variance portfolio theory, CAPM, CCAPM, APT, and the Modigliani-Miller theorem. Starting from an analysis of the empirical evidence on the theory, the authors provide a discussion of the relevant literature, pointing out the main advances in classical asset pricing theory and the new approaches designed to address asset pricing puzzles and open problems (e.g., behavioral finance). Later chapters in the book contain more advanced material, including on the role of information in financial markets, non-classical preferences, noise traders and market microstructure. This textbook is aimed at graduate students in mathematical finance and financial economics, but also serves as a useful reference for practitioners working in insurance, banking, investment funds and financial consultancy. Introducing necessary tools from microeconomic theory, this book is highly accessible and completely self-contained. Advance praise for the second edition: "Financial Markets Theory is comprehensive, rigorous, and yet highly accessible. With their second edition, Barucci and Fontana have set an even higher standard!"Darrell Duffie, Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University "This comprehensive book is a great self-contained source for studying most major theoretical aspects of financial economics. What makes the book particularly useful is that it provides a lot of intuition, detailed discussions of empirical implications, a very thorough survey of the related literature, and many completely solved exercises. The second edition covers more ground and provides many more proofs, and it will be a handy addition to the library of every student or researcher in the field."Jaksa Cvitanic, Richard N. Merkin Professor of Mathematical Finance, Caltech "The second edition of Financial Markets Theory by Barucci and Fontana is a superb achievement that knits together all aspects of modern finance theory, including financial markets microstructure, in a consistent and self-contained framework. Many exercises, together with their detailed solutions, make this book indispensable for serious students in finance."Michel Crouhy, Head of Research and Development, NATIXIS