Frequent shifting of household portfolio composition may erode wealth due to poor market timing and transaction costs. If household preferences are stable, the optimal wealth maximizing strategy is periodically rebalancing to maintain a relatively constant ratio or investment assets to wealth...

This paper investigates whether financial advisers add value to individual investors' portfolio decisions by comparing portfolios of advised and self-directed (execution-only) Dutch individual investors. The results indicate significant differences in characteristics and portfolios between these...

A simple characterisation of a naive investor, in terms of tolerance of Drawdown Risk, is presented which allows investors focusing on cumulative returns (rather than consumption) to easily and simply quantify their investment choices

Classical financial theory assumes that individuals are perfectly rational and act by usingcomplete and homogeneous information sets. For a long time, this has been used both ondescriptive and normative grounds. However, empirical research has shown thatinvestors systematically commit reasoning...

Passive investing, particularly in emerging markets, has become an increasingly popular means of quick, “diversified” exposure to a particular segment of the markets. Defensive investors, as Benjamin Graham noted, would be best served owning a diversified list of leading companies. Yet it's...

In “Benjamin Graham and Risk”, Brandes Institute Advisory Board member Bruce Grantier examines the similarities and differences between the modern portfolio theory concept of risk and the writings of Benjamin Graham and other prominent value investors. This article is part of an ongoing...

This research investigates whether the financial literacy of individuals influences risk taking decisions and diversification behavior. This issue is relevant in that investors are increasingly in charge of their own financial security, but they have to deal with financial instruments whose...

This report is a brief of the actual research and discusses two ways of asset allocation in Hedge Funds to generate alpha over the fund of hedge funds. The fund of hedge funds have fallen out of favour for investors seeking alternative investments as they have lagged the general market returns....

We build a new measure of investor sentiment only based on changes in diversification levels of individual investors' portfolios. The dynamics of the number of different stocks in portfolios is modelized as a Markov chain. We measure investor sentiment as the area above the cumulative...