Investigative Study of Investor’s Herding Behavior During Bullish and Bearish Market: A Case of Pakistan Stock Exchange

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of herd behavior on the Pakistan stock exchange indexes KSE-100 and KSE-30 during bullish and bearish markets. Using the daily market return from 2007 to 2020. We implement the method of main herding measures, Cross-sectional absolute deviation, and Cross-sectional standard deviation, to explore the influence of herd behavior in the emerging market of Pakistan. The results indicate the presence of market-wide herd behavior: (a) along with the different direction of market positive and negative return, (b) when trading volume high, (c) when stock market highly volatile, and (d) during and the post-financial crisis. Moreover, Investors don’t herd when low trading volume and low volatility. Our study fills the gap in the literature and contributes to academic relevance by exploring the influence of herd behavior among both bull and bear periods in markets of Pakistan, it also examines the possible asymmetric effects of herding related to the market with high-low trading volume and market volatility.