Identifying financial market experts

Abstract

The objective of this contribution is to report on the progress concerning the identification of experts in the financial markets. This research was undertaken within the framework of a thesis whose objective was to analyze the knowledge mobilized by actors in the financial industry in order to understand their investment choices in a decision-making context. During this work, it appeared necessary to clarify a definition of the concept of expert of the financial markets. It was built up over time and following multiple meetings with financial players. Our questioning is based on the fact that an expert in the financial markets is a person who invests savings and must bear financial, psychological, or reputational consequences. Our reflection was based on the theoretical corpus developed by naturalistic decision-making. This allowed us both to identify criteria that aim to identify an expert via peer recognition and to better specify the characteristics of this expertise via the ability to distinguish typical situations, differentiate between scenarios, and create narratives to account for situations. In conclusion, we identify some particularities of the financial market expert in a context defined by a mixture of change, uncertainty, and risk.