We survey retail investors at an online bank to study beliefs about the autocorrelation of aggregate stock returns, and how these beliefs shape investment decisions measured in administrative account data. Individuals' beliefs exhibit substantial heterogeneity and predict trading responses to...

We survey retail investors at an online bank to study beliefs about the autocorrelation of aggregate stock returns, and how these beliefs shape investment decisions measured in administrative account data. Individuals' beliefs exhibit substantial heterogeneity and predict trading responses to...

Individual investors' beliefs (return expectations and risk perceptions) drive investment decisions, with larger updates of beliefs leading to more active trading, hurting performance. We examine how framing of past performance information affects investors' belief formation. In particular, we...

The empirical asset pricing literature documents a myriad of anomalies. Accounting for the correlated and mean-reverting nature of these anomalies, I provide an explicit solution to the optimal dynamic investment problem of a risk-averse investor who trades in an arbitrary number of potentially...

We propose an extension of the class of rational expectations bubbles (REBs) to the more general rational beliefs setting of Kurz (1994a,b). In a potentially non-stationary but stationarizable environment, it is possible to hold more than one (small-r) “rational” expectation. When rational...

We propose and test a framework of private information acquisition and decision timing for asset allocators hiring outside investment managers. Using unique data on due diligence interactions between an allocator and 860 hedge funds, we find that the production of private information complements...

Confident investors trade more than less confident investors, but why? Prior research tests the ultimate relation between investor confidence and trading, but does not empirically examine the underlying mechanism that explains why confidence leads to trading. We complement the literature by...

The US Treasury effectively ”owns” about 24% of the stocks held by high income US taxable investors. Through the capital gains tax, Uncle Sam has an effective exposure of more than $1 trillion of equities. And this huge-but-silent investor might be about to get a lot bigger if capital gains...

An analysis of the Survey of Consumer Finance shows that wealthy investors have a higher return on their stocks than their poorer counterparts. Three key empirical facts emerge: (i) wealthy investors employ more productive search efforts, (ii) financial risk bearing and search efforts are...