Research seminar "Retail investors expectations and systematic investing performance. Evidence from the Telegram data"

We invite you to participate in the seminar "Retail investors expectations and systematic investing performance. Evidence from the Telegram data." The seminar will present preliminary results of research conducted as part of the Russian Science Foundation grant "Assessment of Russian private investors' investment preferences using machine learning methods.

Measuring the expectations of financial market participants plays a key role in contemporary research on asset pricing (Brunnermaier et al. 2021, RFS). Current research in the field of retail investor behavior analysis focuses primarily on analyzing market participant sentiment by dividing social media posts into three groups: good, bad, and neutral (Cookson et al., 2024. JFE). Or on analyzing the composition of market participants' portfolios (Balasubramaniam et al. 2023, JF). The seminar will present an alternative approach involving textual analysis of messages posted by Russian retail investors on Telegram. The text of the messages is categorized according to one of four investment approaches (value, growth, momentum, and reversal). Presumably, this approach will make it possible to measure investors' expectations rather than their reactions to past events.

The seminar will take place on March 12, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. at the HSE University campus at 11 Pokrovsky Boulevard, room S627.

Speaker:

- Tomtosov Alexander Fedorovich, Ph.D. in Economics, Senior Lecturer at the School of Finance