The Long and Short of It: Why Are Stocks with Shorter Runs Preferred?
研究发现消费者通过图表中的局部极值点来估计股票风险，股票运行期越长（连续同向波动次数越多）越被认为风险高，且该效应在经验丰富的投资者中更显著。
This article examines how consumers process graphical financial information to estimate risk. We propose that consumers sample the local maxima and minima of a graph to infer the variation around a trend line, which is used to estimate risk. The local maxima and minima are more extreme the higher the run length of the stocks (the consecutive number of upward or downward movements of a price series with identical mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis). Three experiments show that this leads to stocks with higher run lengths being perceived as riskier: the run-length effect. Importantly, the run-length effect is greater for investors who are more educated, are employed full time, trade more frequently, have had longer experience trading, and trade a wider range of financial instruments. Implications for the communication of financial products, public policy, and consumer welfare are discussed, as are theoretical implications for the processing of visual and financial information and behavioral finance.