Retail Investor Sentiment and Behavior

This citation by Robert Neal and Simon Wheatley from their 1998 article about investor sentiment offers several insights and paves the way for this first chapter by making the following statements: First, the opinion of individual investors on the market is important.Second, they are often wrong. Third, individual investor sentiment may support market timing decisions. Fourth, none of the above is scientifically proven.

In this chapter, research about retail investor sentiment in general and the research questions addressed in this thesis in particular are motivated. In addition, the structure of the work as well as the main contributions and related publications are presented.