I explore cross-sectional portfolio performance in a sample containing 324,736 transactions conducted by 16,831 investors at an Internet discount brokerage firm during the period May 1999 to March 2002. On average, investors hold undiversified portfolios, show a strong preference for risk, and trade aggressively. I measure performance using a panel data model, and explain the cross-sectional va...

We document a previously unknown source of information exploited by sophisticated institutional investors: the Freedom of Information Act, a law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. Through our own FOIA requests, we uncover the identities of several large institutional investors, chiefly hed...

This paper investigates overconfidence among individual stock investors. We focus on Turkey in order to use a unique nationwide dataset and study how common overconfidence is, what factors affect overconfidence and how overconfidence relates to investor return performance. Our findings show that overconfident behavior is common among individual stock investors. Male, younger investors, investor...

This article formalizes investor rationality and irrationality, exuberance and apprehension, to consider the implications of belief formation for the fragility of an economy’s financial structure. The model presented generates a financial structure with portfolio linkages that make it susceptible to contagious financial crises, despite the absence of coordination failures. Investors forecast th...

After analyzing retail investors’ stock trades for potential learning behavior, we present evidence that individual investors learn from their trading experience. Initially, we question whether investors’ previous forecasting ability (inferred from prior purchases’ subsequent risk-adjusted performance) affects their future trade profitability and activity. Indeed, as an investor’s inferred abil...

Foreign investors generally underperform domestic investors in trading activities. This study shows that their inferior performance is attributable to non-initiated orders. Foreign investors actually perform better than domestic investors in initiated orders. In addition, their performance is also mixed when trades are classified depending on who the counterparties are. These mixed performances...

We analyze the impact of price trends on trading decisions of more than 40, 000 households with accounts at a major discount brokerage house. Buying and selling decisions of investors in our sample are influenced by short-term (less than 3 months) price trends. By comparing the observed distributions of average trend before buys and average trend before sells with the average trend distribution...

Using an agent-based multi-asset artificial stock market, we simulate the survival dynamics of investors with different risk preferences. It is found that the survivability of investors is closely related to their risk preferences. Among the eight types of investors considered in this paper, only the CRRA investors with RRA coefficients close to one can survive in the long run. Other types of a...

We experimentally explore how investor decision horizons influence the formation of stock prices. We find that in long-horizon sessions, where investors collect dividends till maturity, prices converge to the fundamental levels derived from dividends through backward induction. In short-horizon sessions, where investors exit the market by receiving the price (not dividends), price levels and pa...

This research extends agency theory by exploring the influence of varied, competing, principal interests on executive actions. Findings reveal that ownership of a firm by dedicated institutional investors, who hold concentrated portfolios over time, is positively associated with firm use of strategic competitive actions. Ownership by transient institutional investors, who hold broad portfolios ...