We present a simple overlapping generations model of an asset market in which irrational noise traders with erroneous stochastic beliefs both affect prices and earn higher expected returns. The unpredictability of noise traders’ beliefs creates a risk in the price of the asset that deters rational arbitrageurs from aggressively betting against them. As a result, prices can diverge significantly...

There are numerous examples of assets with identical payout streams being priced differently. These violations of the law of one price result from two factors. First, investors have heterogeneous asset valuations so that if two groups of investors trade in segmented markets they are likely to set different prices because they have different expectations as to the value of the identical assets. ...

Using a new data set on investor sentiment, we show that institutional and individual sentiment seem to proxy for smart money and noise trader risk, respectively. First, using bias-adjusted long-horizon regressions, we show that institutional sentiment forecasts stock market returns at intermediate horizons correctly, whereas individuals consistently get the direction wrong. Second, even the si...

economic stabilization is one of the main government objectives in the economy. one of the most destructive and devastating factors that could damage financial markets, are price bubble formations. thus, bubble creation in stock markets can be considered as a result of investor behaviors, because the market prices mainly reflect investor expectations from firm’s future perspectives. the aim of ...

If arbitrage is costly and noise traders are active, asset prices may deviate from fundamental values for long periods of time. We use a sample of 158 closed-end funds to show that noise-trader sentiment, as proxied by retail-investor flows, leads to fluctuations in the discount. Nevertheless, we reject the hypothesis that noise-trader risk is the cause of the long-run discount. Instead we find...

The ‘noise trader’ model of De Long et al. provides a plausible account of the determination of the equity premium. Extension of the model to allow for privatization of publicly-owned assets yields insights into the positive political economy of privatization and into the normative question of how policies should be evaluated in the presence of mistaken beliefs. JEL Classification: E62

If arbitrage is costly and noise traders are active, asset prices may deviate from fundamental values for long periods of time. We use a sample of 158 closed-end funds to show that noise-trader sentiment, as proxied by retail-investor flows, leads to fluctuations in the discount. Nevertheless, we reject the hypothesis that noise-trader risk is the cause of the long-run discount. Instead we find...