We show that geographical variation in the level of investor sophistication influences local asset prices. Investors in less sophisticated regions exhibit stronger trading correlations, and correspondingly, the returns of firms headquartered in less sophisticated areas are more strongly...

Motivated by the observation that elderly liquidate their mutual fund holdings regularly, we examine whether mortality patterns have a predictable impact on aggregate mutual fund flows and asset prices. Our key conjecture is that periods with high mortality rates would be associated with higher...

Using data from a new field experiment in South Korea, we study how information from virtual communities such as stock message boards influences investors' trading decisions and investment performance. Motivated by recent studies in psychology, we conjecture that investors would use message...

This study shows that weather-based indicators of mood impact perceptions of mispricing and trading decisions of institutional investors. Using survey and disaggregated trade data, we show that relatively cloudier days increase perceived overpricing in individual stocks and the Dow Jones...

We examine the impact of culture on portfolio decisions and asset returns, focusing on the large and growing Hispanic population in the United States. We find that both retail and institutional investors in high Hispanic neighborhoods overweight local, lottery-type, and high-momentum stocks and...

We demonstrate that fund investors employ a heuristic benchmark model to estimate alphas and allocate capital. This can result in observational equivalence to CAPM driven investment decisions. The benchmark estimator trades off bias against precision, accommodating finite sample constraints. The...

The ability to make predictions based on online searches in various contexts is gaining substantial interest in both research and practice. This study investigates a novel application of correlated online searches in predicting stock performance across supply chain partners. If two firms are...