Herding behavior and stock market conditions

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether market conditions have an effect on investors’ propensity to herd in an emerging economy’s stock market. Additionally, given the lack of research on Islamic behavioral finance, the authors further investigate if the herding phenomenon is distinct in Islamic versus conventional stocks. Design/methodology/approach The authors used daily data for the period of 1995–2016 according to the herding behavior model of Chang et al. (2000), which relies on cross-sectional absolute deviation of returns. Findings Findings reveal the herding behavior of investors among Shariah-compliant during up and down market exits with non-linear relationship to the market return, while for conventional stocks herding behavior does not exist with linear nor nonlinear relationships during the up and down market. Furthermore, for the whole market, herding behavior only exists during upmarket with a nonlinear relationship to the market return. However, this relationship is not significant. Moreover, the results of this study are robust with respect to the effect of the Asian and global financial crisis. Practical implications The findings are useful for investors to identify which market conditions are associated with rational and irrational behavior of investors. Originality/value Most of the theoretical and empirical studies on herding behavior have focused on developed countries. Only a few studies have paid attention to the herding behavior in Islamic financial markets, particularly in the context of an emerging market such as Malaysia. This study fills this void.