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All Guts, No Glory: Trading and Diversification among Online Investors

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  • Anders Anderson

Abstract

I explore cross‐sectional portfolio performance in a sample containing 324,736 transactions conducted by 16,831 Swedish investors at an Internet discount brokerage firm during the period May 1999 to March 2002. On average, investors hold undiversified portfolios, show a strong preference for risk, and trade aggressively. I measure performance using a panel data model, and explain the cross‐sectional variation using investors' turnover, portfolio size and degree of diversification. I find that turnover is harmful to performance due to fees, and is therefore more predominant among investors with small portfolios. I argue that the degree of diversification is a proxy for investor skill, and it has a separate and distinct positive effect on performance. Investors underperform the market by about 8.5% per year on average, of which half can be attributed to trading costs.

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  • Anders Anderson, 2007. "All Guts, No Glory: Trading and Diversification among Online Investors," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(3), pages 448-471, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:eufman:v:13:y:2007:i:3:p:448-471
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2007.00368.x
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    2. Hoechle, Daniel & Schmid, Markus & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2012. "Decomposing Performance," Working Papers on Finance 1216, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Nov 2015.

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