This paper studies the behaviour of retail investors, that tend to be unwilling to make fi nancial decisions on their own and therefore follow other investors' strategies on online trading platforms, in particular with respect to their proneness towards the disposition effect. Therefore, we...

We link a seemingly biased trading behavior to equilibrium asset prices. U.S. equity mutual fund managers tend to sell both their big winners and big losers. This selling pressure pushes down current prices and leads to higher future returns; aggregating across funds, we nd that securities for...

We analyze the investment menus offered within 401(k) pension plans to the employees of the largest finance and non-finance firms. Within the sample of finance firms, we distinguish between finance firms that hire an external independent trustee and finance firms that serve also as a trustee of...

We theoretically show that there is a fundamental disconnect between the disposition effect, i.e., investors’ tendency to sell winning assets too early and losing assets too late, and its common empirical measure, namely a positive difference between the proportion of gains and losses...

Using case studies of two investment companies, this paper highlights that organizations may have “investment tribes,” i.e., groups of individuals who appear to exhibit similar risk tendencies for gambles involving gains or losses, possibly with a wide spread of risk preferences. Tribes and...

We highlight herding of investors as one major risk factor that is typically ignored in statistical approaches to portfolio modelling and risk management. Our survey focuses on smart-beta investing where such methods and investor herding seem particularly relevant but its negative effects have...

This study shows how correlated information consumption (CIC) of retail investors relates to comovement in stock market outcomes. We construct clusters of stocks with CIC by employing network analysis on Google co-search data. We predict significant comovement in returns and liquidity of stocks...

We investigate two alternative explanations why men may hold more stocks than women. Apart from a gender difference in risk aversion, gender differences in either optimism or in perceived risk of financial markets might cause men to hold more risky assets. Our results show that men tend to be...