Financial performance rankings as trading organizing devices: The case of chilean pension funds

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe some of the mechanisms that connect financial performance rankings with crowd thought and herd trading behaviour. The paper aims to analyse these complex phenomena using data produced by traders and some regulators from the Chilean capital market. The data emerges from a two-year ongoing Chilean nationwide research project [3]. Using a qualitative content analysis based on interviews, and triangulated with observations in the field, the paper reads from literature inspired by Science and Technology Studies - in particular, sociology of rankings and social studies of finance and markets - and second-order observation approaches of financial markets. Some preliminary results callfor a more agential and material approach in order to understand the nuances of the relationships between rankings, trading activities and financial markets organisation. Furthermore, some of these qualitative results allow anticipating some elements about the performativity of rankings on financial market through the construction of herding on the Chilean case.