This paper investigates market-level and private investor trading patterns and performance around earnings announcements. We document clear evidence for abnormal trading around earnings announcements for both the entire market and households in Germany and observe that private investor...

Why do retail investors trade? To analyze the impact of professional advice on trading, we combine administrative and survey data from a large German bank. Investors who report that they always rely on their advisor's recommendations have a 25-percent-higher trading volume. Also, for investors...

We use a comprehensive dataset from a German discount brokerage firm to investigate both the prevalence and effects of moving average trading heuristics among individual investors. We document an abnormal increase of 30% in individuals' trading volume on signal days. More than one in 10...

Psychology considers self-control failure, i.e., the inability to resist certain behaviors and impulses when seeking to achieve future goals as a major human pathology. The finance literature models and applies self-control failure to explain time-inconsistent behavior such as under-saving and...