English

The value of information in financial markets: An agent-based simulation

Trading and Market Microstructure 2008-12-02 v1 Physics and Society

Abstract

We present results on simulations of a stock market with heterogeneous, cumulative information setup. We find a non-monotonic behaviour of traders' returns as a function of their information level. Particularly, the average informed agents underperform random traders; only the most informed agents are able to beat the market. We also study the effect of a strategy updating mechanism, when traders have the possibility of using other pieces of information than the fundamental value. These results corroborate the latter ones: it is only for the most informed player that it is rewarding to stay fundamentalist. The simulations reproduce some stylized facts of tick-by-tick stock-exchange data and globally show informational efficiency.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0712.2687,
  title  = {The value of information in financial markets: An agent-based simulation},
  author = {Bence Toth and Enrico Scalas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0712.2687},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

25 pages, 7 figures invited paper to "Information, Interaction, and (In)Efficiency in Financial Markets" edited by Juergen Huber and Michael Hanke

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:54:47.083Z