Senior Lecturer
BA , MS , PhD (Poltava National Technical University)
Office OBS 4.08
Tel +64 3 479 8110
Email olena.onishchenko@otago.ac.nz
Dr Onishchenko is a senior lecturer in finance at the University of Otago (New Zealand). She holds a PhD in economics from Poltava National Technical University (Ukraine). She joined the department in 2014. Dr Onishchenko's research interests lie in empirical capital markets, with a particular focus on retail and institutional investors' trading behavior. She has published in peer-reviewed finance and economics journals such as Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Journal of Behavioural Finance, Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Finance and Journal of Forecasting. In recent years, she has also developed research interests in short selling. Dr Onishchenko formed a successful research partnership with New Zealand Stock Exchange ( NZX ) and S3 Partners (New York-based financial start-up).
Dr Onishchenko has been the recipient of numerous AFAANZ and internal research grants.
Teaching
- FINC 202 Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (semester 1)
- FINC 503 Studies in Capital Markets
Bloomberg Trading Challenge (Faculty Advisor):
2025: Mingxuan Yu (Captain), Shenjian Li, Ryan Teo. Global Ranking: #878 out of 2394 teams (top 36.7%). Asia & Oceania Ranking: #281 out of 594 teams. New Zealand & Australia Ranking: #2 out of 4 teams.
2024: Shenjian Li (Captain), Mingxuan Yu, Junxiu Lyu. Global Ranking: #262 out of 2174 teams (top 12.05%). Asia & Oceania Ranking: #49 out of 540 teams. New Zealand & Australia Ranking: #1 out of 5 teams.
Research interests
- Empirical capital markets
- Short selling, securities lending
- Market Microstructure
- Machine learning (ML) in finance
Supervision
PhD completed
- Sandun Fernando: Essays in Short Selling
- Sampath Kongahawatte: Essays in Investors' Trading Behaviour
PhD current
- Mingxuan (Steven) Yu: Machine Learning Applications for Financial Risk Management
- Shenjian Li: Geopolitical Risk and Cross-Section of Stock Returns: A Machine Learning Approach
FINC 580 completed
- Scott Clark: Investor’s Trading Behaviours: Evidence from the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings
- Felicia Marston: Short Sellers’ Mood-Induced Trading and Stock Returns
- Finn Wilkinson: COVID-19 and Investors’ Trading Behavior: Evidence from the New Zealand Equity Market
Media coverage
- Ungor, M. and Onishchenko, O. Digital 'tokenisation' is reshaping the global financial industry. Is NZ ready?
The Conversation, 23 January 2026 - Explainer: How to invest in Bitcoin
Newsroom, 5 January 2026 - A global tax crackdown is coming for crypto – including NZ trades worth billions
The Conversation, 1 December 2025 - How Kiwi finance students made $100k on the stock market in five weeks
NZ Herald, 15 January 2025 - Otago team top in Australasia in global trading challenge
13 January 2025 - Why share market retail investors are their own worst enemy
NZ Herald, 13 December 2021
Publications
Onishchenko, O. (2026). Betting against Bitcoin: Evidence from spot Bitcoin ETFs. Journal of Behavioral & Experimental Finance, 50, 101191. doi: 10.1016/j.jbef.2026.101191 Journal - Research Article
Onishchenko, O., & Ungor, M. (2026). Betting on war: What prediction markets tell us about Iran crisis. Newsroom, (6 May). Retrieved from https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/06/betting-on-war-what-prediction-markets-tell-us-about-iran-crisis/ Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles
Ungor, M., & Onishchenko, O. (2026). Digital ‘tokenisation’ is reshaping the global financial industry: Is NZ ready? The Conversation. doi: 10.64628/AA.mgd773xcp Journal - Research Other
Wilkinson, F. W., Finta, M. A., & Onishchenko, O. (2025). COVID-19 and investors' trading behavior: Evidence from the New Zealand equity market. Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 90, 102634. doi: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102634 Journal - Research Article
Fernando, S., Onishchenko, O., & Kuruppuarachchi, D. (2024). Do short sellers amplify extreme market declines? Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 87, 102498. doi: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102498 Journal - Research Article