Individual investors' responses to mutual fund fire sales and sell-side analysts' price-correcting revisions

PurposeThis paper investigates individual investors' responses to stock underpricing and how their trading decisions are affected by analysts' forecasts and recommendations.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study uses mutual fund fire sales as an exogenous source that causes stock underpricing and analysts' forecasts and recommendations as price-correcting information. The study further uses regression analysis to examine individual investors' responses to fire sales and how their responses vary with price-correcting information.FindingsThe authors first show that individual investors respond to mutual fund fire sales by significantly decreasing net buys, and this effect appears to be prolonged. Next, the authors find that the decrease of net buys diminishes following analysts' price-correcting earnings forecast revisions and stock recommendation changes. Hence, the authors suggest that individual investors are not “wise” enough to recognize flow-driven underpricing; however, this response is weakened by analysts' price-correcting information.Originality/valueThere is an ongoing debate in the literature about whether individual investors should be portrayed as unsophisticated traders or informed traders who can predict future returns. The authors study a unique information event and provide new evidence related to both perspectives. Overall, our evidence suggests that the “unsophisticated traders” perspective is predominant, whereas a better information environment significantly reduces individual investors' information disadvantage. This finding could be of interest to both academic researchers and regulators.

The Economics of Central Clearing

Central clearing counterparties (CCPs) have a variety of economic rationales. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 led regulators to mandate CCPs for most interest-rate and credit derivatives, markets in which large amounts of risks are transferred across agents. This change led to a large increase in CCP studies, which along with classical studies are surveyed in this article. For example, multilateral netting, the insurance against counterparty risk, the effect of CCPs on asset prices and fire sales, margins setting, the default waterfall, and CCP governance are discussed here. We review both CCP theory and empirical work and conclude by discussing regulatory issues. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Systemic Risk in Financial Networks: A Survey

We provide an overview of the relationship between financial networks and systemic risk. We present a taxonomy of different types of systemic risk, differentiating between direct externalities between financial organizations (e.g., defaults, correlated portfolios, fire sales), and perceptions and feedback effects (e.g., bank runs, credit freezes). We also discuss optimal regulation and bailouts, measurements of systemic risk and financial centrality, choices by banks regarding their portfolios and partnerships, and the changing nature of financial networks. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Economics, Volume 13 is August 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Collateralized Networks

This paper studies the spread of losses and defaults in financial networks with two interrelated features: collateral requirements and alternative contract termination rules. When collateral is committed to a firm’s counterparties, a solvent firm may default if it lacks sufficient liquid assets to meet its payment obligations. Collateral requirements can, thus, increase defaults and payment shortfalls. Moreover, one firm may benefit from the failure of another if the failure frees collateral committed by the surviving firm, giving it additional resources to make other payments. Contract termination at default may also improve the ability of other firms to meet their obligations through access to collateral. As a consequence of these features, the timing of payments and collateral liquidation must be carefully specified to establish the existence of payments that clear the network. Using this framework, we show that dedicated collateral may lead to more defaults than pooled collateral, we study the consequences of illiquid collateral for the spread of losses through fire sales, we compare networks with and without selective contract termination, and we analyze the impact of alternative resolution and bankruptcy stay rules that limit the seizure of collateral at default. Under an upper bound on derivatives leverage, full termination reduces payment shortfalls compared with selective termination. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance.

Information Contagion and Stock Price Crash Risk

We introduce continuity and temporariness into the independent cascade model to depict information diffusion in a social network. Investor behavior changes are determined according to the process of information diffusion, and the investment portfolio model consisting of sentiments is proposed to reveal the fire sales of stocks and the resulting stock price crash risk. Therefore, the relationship between information diffusion and stock price crash risk is established, and the contagion of stock price crash risk is analyzed from the perspective of information diffusion. Furthermore, some immunization strategies of networks are compared to prevent stock price crash risk. The results show that the tendency of stock price crash risk is consistent with that of information diffusion, which indicates that information diffusion before the fire sales is the key to triggering stock price crash risk. Moreover, investors with many ties contribute more to information diffusion than others; hence, immunization strategies of networks based on global information are more effective in preventing stock price crash risk than that based on local information. This study provides a new perspective for the study of contagion risk in the stock market, and it hints at the possibility of regulatory intervention to prevent stock price crash risk.