Herding Behavior among Institutional Investors in Tehran Stock Exchange

Abstract

this paper following Lakonishok (1992) and Sias (2004), we examine the presence of herding behavior among active institutional investors, test the presence of momentum strategy (as a determiner of herding behavior) and the correlation between herding behavior and weekly, monthly and quarterly stock return, using time series data (2006 – 2008) in the Tehran Stock Exchange. Our findings confirm the presence of herding behavior among the institutional investors and show that its intensity is higher than the developed countries, but they reject the presence of momentum strategy and its role as a determiner of herding behavior. Furthermore, the results show that the herding behavior of institutional investors does not affect the market return and has no correlation with the past and future returns.

Keywords

• herding behavior
• institutional investors
• stock market
• momentum strategy