Lecture 1 Introduction Flashcards
Behavioural Finance
The study of how psychological phenomena impact financial behaviour and markets
Real Estate
the study of the many aspects of land and the buildings on it
What are standard assumptions of Traditional Finance Theory?
- Investors and Managers resemble the Homo Economicus
- Markets are perfect and informationally efficient
What are the three views on Market efficiency?
- Efficient Market Fanatic
- Behavioral Finance Fanatic
- Sensible middle ground
What are the two characteristics of the Efficient Market Fanatic?
- Securities prices are always equal to intrinsic value
- It is impossible to accurately predict (risk-adjusted returns)
What are the two characteristics of the Behavioral Finance Fanatic
- Stock prices only depend on market psychology
- it is easy to predict stock price movements
What are the two characteristics of the Sensible middle ground
- Security prices are highly correlated with intrinsic value, but sometimes diverge to a significant degree
- It is possible to predict (risk-adjusted) returns, but not with great precision
The Homo Economicus
Self-regarding maximizer with unlimited and costless information processing capacity and unbreakable willpower
What are important building blocks of decisions?
Beliefs (outcomes, probabilities, alternatives)
Preferences
What are the assumptions of the traditional approach of building blocks of decisions?
Beliefs are “rational”
Preferences are “normatively acceptable”
What is the problem with the traditional approach of building blocks of decisions?
People deviate systematically from rational norms!
Heuristic
experience-based rule of thumb or “mental short-cut”
Why do we use heuristics?
- Limited information
- Limited memory
- Limited information processing ability
- Limited time
What are the two destinctions between two types of thinking?
- System1: intuitive and automatic
- System 2: reflective and deliberate
What are the 6 characteristics of the intuitive system 1?
Uncontrolled
Effortless
Associative
Fast
Unconscious
Skilled