We directly compare retail investor execution costs with exchange execution costs. We find off-exchange retail trades execute at lower effective spreads than comparable exchange trades, primarily due to the uninformed nature of retail trades. These results hold when payment for order flow (PFOF)...

In this paper, we develop a model in which overconfident market participants and rational speculators trade against trend-chasers. We show that the growth and the burst of a financial bubble stem from positive feedback trading. However, the presence of overconfident traders and the risk aversion...

This paper uses regulatory data to assess the value of retail order flow in the German equity market. To this end, we examine the performance of specialized retail market makers (RMMs) that internalize a large share of retail activity via affiliated trading venues. We show that retail market...