Leveraged trading, irrational sentiment and sustainability in the stock market: Evidence from China

Abstract

Leveraged trading exhibits the characteristics of "strong margin trading and weak short selling" in the Chinese stock market. On the basis of monthly data on leveraged trading in the Chinese stock market from January 2014 to December 2016, we aim to empirically examine the relationship between leveraged trading and investor sentiment, and analyze the characteristics of investor sentiment contained in the leverage ratio. The results show that (1) as the leverage ratio increases, the pattern of investor trading changes from the positive feedback trading of "chasing up and down" to the negative feedback trading of "selling high and buying low"; (2) leveraged trading has the typical characteristics of irrational sentiment; (3) inverse arbitrage strategies based on leverage ratios is effective in one month in the Chinese market. The findings in this paper provide empirical support for clarifying the influence mechanism between leveraged trading and investor sentiment, and can serve as a useful reference for reducing the impact of leveraged trading on volatility and maintaining the sustainability of the stock market.