Recently, researchers have gone a step further from just documenting biases of individual investors. More and more studies analyze how experience affects decisions and whether biases are eliminated by trading experience and learning. A necessary condition to learn is that investors actually know...

Theoretical models predict that overconfident investors will trade more than rational investors. We directly test this hypothesis by correlating individual overconfidence scores with several measures of trading volume of individual investors. Approximately 3,000 online broker investors were...

Behavioral finance as a subdiscipline of behavioral economics is finance incorporating findings from psychology and sociology into its theories. Behavioral finance models are usually developed to explain investor behavior or market anomalies when rational models provide no sufficient...

Prices and returns are alternative ways to present information and to elicit expectations in financial markets. But do investors think of prices and returns in the same way? We present three studies with subjects having various levels of expertise, amount of information, and different incentive...

This paper analyzes the relation between momentum strategies (strategies that buy stocks with high returns over the previous three to twelve months and sell stocks with low returns over the same period) and turnover (number of shares traded divided by the number of shares outstanding) for the...

This study uses data that offers the unique opportunity to analyze how an unprecedented crisis such as the September 11 tragedy influences expected returns and volatility forecasts of individual investors. Via e-mail, we asked a randomly selected group of individual investors with accounts at a...

Investment clubs offer the opportunity to form a well-diversified portfolio with private investors being invested in that portfolio. Nevertheless, many investment clubs hold undiversified portfolios. We hypothesize that the clubs' composition and the characteristics of the decision making...

We analyze the internal capital markets of a multinational conglomerate, using a unique panel data set of planned and actual allocations to business units and a survey of unit CEOs. Following cash windfalls, more powerful managers obtain larger allocations and increase investment substantially...

It is often argued that the internet influences investor behavior. Furthermore, the recent bubble in internet stocks is sometimes ascribed, at least in part, to online trading. However, little is known about how online investors actually behave. This paper contributes to this gap. A sample of...

Overconfidence is often regarded as one of the most prevalent judgment biases. Several studies show that overconfidence can lead to suboptimal decisions of investors, managers, or politicians. Recent research, however, questions whether overconfidence should be regarded as a bias and shows that...