1st Liechtenstein Workshop on AI in Finance

Initiated, founded, and convened by Sebastian Stöckl at the Department of Finance & Economics, Liechtenstein Business School, University of Liechtenstein. Hosted at H6 Campus, University of Liechtenstein, Vaduz, May 6–7, 2026.

The Liechtenstein Workshop on AI in Finance (LW-AIF) was conceived by Sebastian as the academic companion to the practitioner conference organized annually by PLEXUS Investments, with the aim of creating synergies between rigorous academic research on AI in finance and the questions that matter most to sophisticated practitioners. From an open Call for Papers, the Organising Committee — chaired by Sebastian — received a substantial number of high-quality submissions and selected thirteen papers for presentation. Each paper is allotted a 45-minute slot (30 minutes presentation, 10 minutes discussion, 5 minutes Q&A).

Scientific Committee: Sebastian Stöckl (chair, University of Liechtenstein), Wolfgang Schadner (University of Liechtenstein). Organising Committee: Sebastian Stöckl (chair), Natalie Moosleithner (University of Liechtenstein). Workshop Partner: Günter Jäger, Founder & Managing Partner, PLEXUS Investments Ltd.

Programme

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Session 1 — ML and the Cross-Section of Returns

• 12:30 Investor Disagreement in the Options Market — Mathis Moerke (University of St. Gallen), with Turan G. Bali (Georgetown) and Bryan T. Kelly (Yale). Discussant: Sebastian Weibels.
• 13:15 Transaction Costs and the Stochastic Discount Factor — Daniele Bianchi (Queen Mary University of London), with Teng Jiao and Hao Ma (both Queen Mary). Discussant: Mathis Moerke.

14:00 — Coffee break

Session 2 — LLMs in Financial Analysis

• 14:15 Corporate Earnings Calls and Analyst Beliefs — Giuseppe Matera (EPFL / Swiss Finance Institute). Discussant: Swaminathan Balasubramaniam.
• 15:00 When LLMs Agree Too Much — Swaminathan Balasubramaniam (NEOMA Business School), with Jorge Sabat (Universidad Andrés Bello). Discussant: Giuseppe Matera.

15:45 — Coffee break

Session 3 — ML Frontiers in Asset Pricing

• 16:00 Reviving Anomalies — Jonas Wortmann (University of Münster), with Heiner Beckmeyer (Münster), Florian Berg (MIT), and Timo Wiedemann (Münster / Potsdam). Discussant: Daniele Bianchi.
• 16:45 Hard to Process: Atypical Firms and the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns — Sebastian Weibels (University of Cologne). Discussant: Christian Schlag.
• 17:30 Nonlinearities and Pricing Complexity in the Cross-Section of Stock Returns — Christian Schlag (Goethe University Frankfurt and Leibniz Institute SAFE), with Fabio Girardi (WU Vienna) and Lukas Koerber (Goethe Frankfurt). Discussant: Jonas Wortmann.

19:30 — Speakers’ dinner, Restaurant Lio, Vaduz

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Session 4 — AI in Practice

• 09:00 Machine Learning the Performance of Mutual Funds on a Global Scale — Manuel Mazidi (Université de Neuchâtel), with Christian Breitung, Sebastian Müller, and Florian Weigert (all TU Munich). Discussant: Richard Blades.
• 09:45 Analysts’ Response to ‘AI Washing’ in Earnings Conference Calls — Richard Blades (Bayes Business School, University of London), with Pawel Bilinski and Art Kraft (both City St. George’s, University of London). Discussant: Rubén Fernández-Fuertes.

10:30 — Coffee break

Session 5 — AI Applications: NLP, Corporate Disclosure & Credit

• 10:45 Monetary Policy Shocks: A New Hope — Large Language Models and Central Bank Communication — Rubén Fernández-Fuertes (Bocconi University). Discussant: Paulina M. Verhoff.
• 11:30 AI Errors — Wenqian Huang (Bank for International Settlements), with Albert J. Menkveld (VU Amsterdam) and Shihao Yu (Singapore Management University). Discussant: Manuel Mazidi.
• 12:15 Understanding Risk: Lessons from Mutual Fund Disclosures — Nikola Kiprijanovski (INSEAD). Discussant: Wenqian Huang.
• 13:00 Do Institutional Investors Trade on Covenant Violations? — Paulina M. Verhoff (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management), with Anthony Saunders (NYU Stern) and Sascha Steffen (Frankfurt School). Discussant: Nikola Kiprijanovski.

13:45 — End of workshop

After the workshop

The University of Liechtenstein’s post-event news report (published May 8, 2026) summarizes the workshop and quotes Sebastian on the inaugural edition:

“Die Qualität der Arbeiten und die Tiefe der Diskussionen haben unsere Erwartungen für eine erste Ausgabe übertroffen.” — Sebastian Stöckl, on the first edition of LW-AIF

The 2nd edition is planned for spring 2027 at the University of Liechtenstein.

On social media

Sebastian’s LinkedIn announcement of the workshop — #LWAIF2026 #AIinFinance #MachineLearning #AssetPricing #LLMs #LiechtensteinBusinessSchool #UniversityOfLiechtenstein.