We find individuals are four times more likely to purchase stocks of their local direct utility company as opposed to utility companies operating outside their state of residence. Our tests reveal that individuals do not possess superior or private information about their local utilities....

When determining a stock to buy, Strahilevitz et al. (2011) demonstrate that individual investors often repurchase a stock previously traded for a profit as a learning process. When evaluating a decision, people use the most available information that comes to mind. We posit that the most...