Examining NFL betting contracts at Tradesports.com, we find mispricing consistent with the disposition effect, where investors are more likely to close out profitable positions than losing positions. Prices are too low when teams are ahead and too high when teams are behind. Returns following...

Examining a shock to the salience of the sustainability of the US mutual fund market, we present causal evidence that investors marketwide value sustainability. Being categorized as low sustainability resulted in net outflows of more than $12 billion while being categorized as high...

We present evidence consistent with markets failing to properly price information in seasonal earnings patterns. Firms with historically larger earnings in one quarter of the year (“positive seasonality quarters”) have higher returns when those earnings are usually announced. Analysts have...

We review the literature on recurring firm events and predictable returns. Many common firm events recur on a predictable basis, such as earnings and dividends, among others. These events tend to be associated with large positive returns in the period when the events are predicted to occur...

Many individual investors, mutual funds and institutions trade as if dividends and capital gains are disconnected attributes, not fully appreciating that dividends result in price decreases. Behavioral trading patterns (e.g. the disposition effect) are driven by price changes instead of total...

A contrast effect occurs when the value of a previously-observed signal inversely biases perception of the next signal. We present the first evidence that contrast effects can distort prices in sophisticated and liquid markets. Investors mistakenly perceive earnings news today as more impressive...

We review the literature on recurring firm events and predictable returns. Many common firm events recur on a predictable basis, such as earnings and dividends, among others. These events tend to be associated with large positive returns in the period when those events are predicted to occur...

When investors sell one asset and quickly buy another (“reinvestment days”), their trades suggest the original mental account is not closed, but is instead rolled into the new asset. Investors display a rolled disposition effect, selling the new position when its value exceeds the investment...

Some mutual funds purchase stocks before dividend payments to artificially increase their dividends, which we call "juicing." Funds paid more than twice the dividends implied by their holdings in 7.4% of fund-years examined. Juicing is associated with larger inflows, and is more common among...

I document a new stylized fact about how investors trade assets: individuals are more likely to sell the extreme winning and extreme losing positions in their portfolio (“the rank effect”). This effect is not driven by firm-specific information, holding period or the level of returns itself,...