IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sifrwp/0025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Anders E.S.

    (Swedish Institute for Financial Research)

Abstract

I explore cross-sectional portfolio performance in a sample containing 324,736 transactions conducted by 16,831 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. It is argued that the degree of diversification is a proxy for investor skill, and it has a separate and distinct positive effect on performance. These findings are helpful in explaining the overall result that investors underperform the market by around 8.5% per year on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Anders E.S., 2004. "All Guts, No Glory: Trading and Diversification among Online Investors," SIFR Research Report Series 25, Institute for Financial Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sifrwp:0025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sifr.org/PDFs/sifr-wp25.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimo Massa & Andrei Simonov, 2006. "Hedging, Familiarity and Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 633-685.
    2. Massa, Massimo & Simonov, Andrei, 2003. "Reputation and interdealer trading: a microstructure analysis of the Treasury Bond market," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 99-141, April.
    3. Kaplan, Steven & Strömberg, Per, 2002. "Characteristics, Contracts and Actions: Evidence from Venture Capitalist Analyses," CEPR Discussion Papers 3243, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Bortolotti, Bernardo & de Jong, Frank & Nicodano, Giovanna & Schindele, Ibolya, 2007. "Privatization and stock market liquidity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 297-316, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, Anders, 2006. "Is online trading gambling with peanuts?," Papers 06-02, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    2. Hoechle, Daniel & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2007. "A Generalization of the Calendar Time Portfolio Approach and the Performance of Private Investors," Working papers 2007/14, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    3. Anderson, Anders, 2005. "Is Online Trading Gambling with Peanuts?," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 06-02, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ulf Axelson & Sandeep Baliga, 2009. "Liquidity and Manipulation of Executive Compensation Schemes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(10), pages 3907-3939, October.
    2. Ulf Axelson & Per Strömberg & Michael S. Weisbach, 2009. "Why Are Buyouts Levered? The Financial Structure of Private Equity Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1549-1582, August.
    3. Fedyk, Yuriy & Walden, Johan, 2007. "High-Speed Natural Selection in Financial Markets with Large State Spaces," SIFR Research Report Series 52, Institute for Financial Research.
    4. Akram, Q. Farooq & Rime, Dagfinn & Sarno, Lucio, 2008. "Arbitrage in the foreign exchange market: Turning on the microscope," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 237-253, December.
    5. Bjönnes, Geir H. & Holden, Steinar & Rime, Dagfinn & Solheim, Haakon O.Aa., 2005. "'Large' vs. 'Small' Players: A Closer Look at the Dynamics of Speculative Attacks," SIFR Research Report Series 38, Institute for Financial Research.
    6. van Hemert, Otto, 2006. "Life-Cycle Housing and Portfolio Choice with Bond Markets," SIFR Research Report Series 44, Institute for Financial Research.
    7. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 195-234, February.
    8. Rydqvist, Kristian, 2010. "Tax Arbitrage with Risk and Effort Aversion - Swedish Lottery Bonds 1970-1990," SIFR Research Report Series 70, Institute for Financial Research.
    9. Dreber, Anna & Rand, David G. & Garcia, Justin R. & Wernerfelt, Nils & Lum, J. Koji & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2010. "Dopamine and Risk Preferences in Different Domains," Working Paper Series rwp10-012, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Booth, G. Geoffrey & Gurun, Umit G. & Zhang, Harold, 2014. "Financial networks and trading in bond markets," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 126-157.
    11. Tanos, Barbara Abou, 2022. "Culture and mutual funds’ performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    12. Christopher N. Avery & Judith A. Chevalier & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 2016. "The "CAPS" Prediction System and Stock Market Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1363-1381.
    13. H. Henry Cao & Bing Han & David Hirshleifer & Harold H. Zhang, 2011. "Fear of the Unknown: Familiarity and Economic Decisions," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 173-206.
    14. Isaac Ehrlich & Jong Kook Shin & Yong Yin, 2011. "Private Information, Human Capital, and Optimal "Home Bias" in Financial Markets," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(3), pages 255-301.
    15. Dessein, Wouter, 2002. "Information and Control in Alliances and Ventures," CEPR Discussion Papers 3418, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Junfu Zhang, 2011. "The advantage of experienced start-up founders in venture capital acquisition: evidence from serial entrepreneurs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 36(2), pages 187-208, February.
    17. Bo Becker & Zoran Ivković & Scott Weisbenner, 2011. "Local Dividend Clienteles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(2), pages 655-683, April.
    18. Laurent E. Calvet & Paolo Sodini, 2014. "Twin Picks: Disentangling the Determinants of Risk-Taking in Household Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 867-906, April.
    19. Gawlik, Remigiusz, 2016. "Finansowanie innowacyjnych przedsięwzięć przez fundusze podwyższonego ryzyka - determinanty procesu decyzyjnego [Financing of Innovative Enterprises Through Venture Capital – Determinants of Decisi," MPRA Paper 77528, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Rhee, S. Ghon & Wang, Jianxin, 2009. "Foreign institutional ownership and stock market liquidity: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1312-1324, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investor behavior; Performance evaluation; Panel data models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:sifrwp:0025. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anki Helmer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sifrrse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.