We analyse a long panel of households’ stock market beliefs to gain insights into the nature of the levels, dynamics, and informativeness of these expectations. In a first step, we classify respondents into one of five groups based on their beliefs data alone. In a second step, we estimate models of expectations at the group level so that belief levels, volatility, and response to information can vary freely across groups. At opposite extremes in terms of optimism we identify pessimists who expect substantially negative returns and financially sophisticated individuals whose expectations are close to the historical average. Two groups expect average returns around zero and differ only in how they respond to information: Extrapolators who become more optimistic following positive information and mean-reverters for whom the opposite is the case. The final group is characterised by its members being unable or unwilling to quantify their beliefs about future returns.

我们分析了一长串家庭的股市信念，以深入了解这些预期的水平、动态和信息量的性质。第一步，我们仅根据他们的信念数据将受访者分为五组之一。第二步，我们在群体层面估计期望模型，以便信念水平、波动性和对信息的反应可以在群体之间自由变化。在乐观情绪的相反极端情况下，我们识别出预期大幅负回报的悲观主义者和预期接近历史平均水平的财务老练的个人。两组人预计平均回报在零附近，不同之处仅在于他们对信息的反应方式：外推者在积极信息后变得更加乐观，而均值回复者则相反。