higher tendency to keep the assets whose prices decreased since they were purchased in the portfolio rather than the stocks which, when sold, would generate capital gains.
In particular, aversion to realize losses may result in periodical limitation of supply and cause the fundamentally bad information to be reflected relatively slowly and gradually in the asset prices.
Under normal circumstances in a relatively stable market, investors whose stocks went down would usually hope for the prices to go back up and are willing to wait rather than immediately sell the loss-incurring items.
As a consequence, the market’s reaction to bad news is often spread over time, and the price drops are gentler.
However, it seems that during the 2008 financial crisis, the disposition effect gave way to a panic driven sellout.
Investors’ emotions were dominated by fear and higher risk aversion which prompted them to sell value-losing securities as fast as possible; and that phenomenon added impetus to the drop spiral.
The panic phase was followed by the phase of stagnation, during which fear prevented investors from returning to the stock market even though valuations of numerous corporations had depreciated and could seem attractive.
The second phase of a bear market typically witnesses not so much rapid price drops as, rather, the gradual further decline of stock prices, interrupted from time to time by timid attempts at bouncing back. The characteristic feature of this phase is the relatively low volume of trading.
Those investors who have managed to wait through the panic period and do not have to liquidate particular items for liquidity reasons are definitely less prone to sell stocks at very low prices. Hence, during the second phase of a bear market, the disposition effect comes to prominence again.
However, demand is also still missing, as those investors who managed to save some cash have a high degree of risk aversion and fear to invest even if stock prices may look relatively