IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/finmgt/v39y2010i2p807-831.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Peer Effects in the Trading Decisions of Individual Investors

Author

Listed:
  • Lilian Ng
  • Fei Wu

Abstract

This study examines for evidence of peer effects in the trading decisions of individual investors from Mainland China, a country whose cultural and social structures are vastly different from those of Western countries. Cultural differences, as widely documented, play a significant role in social interactions and word‐of‐mouth behavior. In contrast to US studies, we find robust evidence that the trading decisions of Chinese investors are influenced, via word of mouth, by those of their peers who maintain brokerage accounts at the same branch, but not by those whose accounts are maintained at another branch located in the same city.

Suggested Citation

  • Lilian Ng & Fei Wu, 2010. "Peer Effects in the Trading Decisions of Individual Investors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 807-831, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:finmgt:v:39:y:2010:i:2:p:807-831
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-053X.2010.01093.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-053X.2010.01093.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1755-053X.2010.01093.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zoran Ivković & Scott Weisbenner, 2005. "Local Does as Local Is: Information Content of the Geography of Individual Investors' Common Stock Investments," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 267-306, February.
    2. Jin Jia & Qian Sun & Wilson H.S. Tong, 2005. "Privatization Through an Overseas Listing: Evidence from China’s H-Share Firms," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 34(3), Fall.
    3. Jianping Mei & Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2009. "Speculative Trading and Stock Prices: Evidence from Chinese A-B Share Premia," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(2), pages 225-255, November.
    4. Glenn Ellison & Drew Fudenberg, 1995. "Word-of-Mouth Communication and Social Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 93-125.
    5. Yakov Amihud & Haim Mendelson & Jun Uno, 1999. "Number of Shareholders and Stock Prices: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1169-1184, June.
    6. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Ning Zhu, 2009. "Do Retail Trades Move Markets?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 151-186, January.
    7. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    8. Ellison, Glenn & Fudenberg, Drew, 1993. "Rules of Thumb for Social Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 612-643, August.
    9. Arturo Bris & William N. Goetzmann & Ning Zhu, 2007. "Efficiency and the Bear: Short Sales and Markets Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1029-1079, June.
    10. Kent Daniel & David Hirshleifer & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 1998. "Investor Psychology and Security Market Under- and Overreactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 1839-1885, December.
    11. Shiller, Robert J, 1995. "Conversation, Information, and Herd Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 181-185, May.
    12. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    13. Stephen R. Foerster & G. Andrew Karolyi, 1999. "The Effects of Market Segmentation and Investor Recognition on Asset Prices: Evidence from Foreign Stocks Listing in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 981-1013, June.
    14. Banerjee, Abhijit & Fudenberg, Drew, 2004. "Word-of-mouth learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-22, January.
    15. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Jeremy C. Stein, 2005. "Thy Neighbor's Portfolio: Word‐of‐Mouth Effects in the Holdings and Trades of Money Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2801-2824, December.
    16. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    17. Bailey, Warren & Chung, Y. Peter & Kang, Jun-koo, 1999. "Foreign Ownership Restrictions and Equity Price Premiums: What Drives the Demand for Cross-Border Investments?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 489-511, December.
    18. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    19. Brown, Jacqueline Johnson & Reingen, Peter H, 1987. "Social Ties and Word-of-Mouth Referral Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(3), pages 350-362, December.
    20. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    21. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    22. Lei Feng & Mark S. Seasholes, 2004. "Correlated Trading and Location," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(5), pages 2117-2144, October.
    23. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    24. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    25. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance & Zhu, Ning, 2009. "Systematic noise," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 547-569, November.
    26. Jianping Mei & Jose Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2005. "Speculative Trading and Stock Prices: An Analysis of Chinese A-B Share Premia," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000867, UCLA Department of Economics.
    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. Wang, Peipei & Wen, Yuanji & Singh, Harminder, 2017. "The high-volume return premium: Does it exist in the Chinese stock market?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB), pages 323-336.
    2. Alina Lerman, 2020. "Individual Investors' Attention to Accounting Information: Evidence from Online Financial Communities," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2020-2057, December.
    3. Chien Chi Chu & Xiu‐Fen Su & Yu‐En Lin & Akihiro Omura & Bin Li & Adrian Wai‐Kong Cheung, 2023. "Love thy neighbour: Evidence from capital structure decisions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(3), pages 2907-2933, September.
    4. Mitton, Todd & Vorkink, Keith & Wright, Ian, 2018. "Neighborhood effects on speculative behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 42-61.
    5. Alexakis, Christos & Kenourgios, Dimitris & Pappas, Vasileios & Petropoulou, Athina, 2021. "From dotcom to Covid-19: A convergence analysis of Islamic investments," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Fabrice Hervé & Elodie Manthé & Aurélie Sannajust & Armin Schwienbacher, 2019. "Determinants of individual investment decisions in investment‐based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(5-6), pages 762-783, May.
    7. Margaretic, Paula & Cifuentes, Rodrigo & Carreño, José Gabriel, 2021. "Banks’ interconnections and peer effects: Evidence from Chile," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    8. Wang, Xiaoqiong & Zhen, Hongxian & Zhu, Feifei, 2023. "Voting with their feet: Controlling shareholders' share pledging and other major shareholders' strategic response," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Curatola, Giuliano, 2017. "Portfolio choice and asset prices when preferences are interdependent," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 197-223.
    10. Chen, Tsung-Yu & Chao, Ching-Hsiang & Wu, Zhen-Xing, 2021. "Does the turnover effect matter in emerging markets? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Curatola, Giuliano & Dergunov, Ilya, 2023. "International capital markets with interdependent preferences: Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 403-421.
    12. Ana I. Balsa & Néstor Gandelman & Nicolás González, 2015. "Peer Effects in Risk Aversion," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(1), pages 27-43, January.
    13. Li, Chengcheng & Wang, Xiaoqiong, 2022. "Local peer effects of corporate social responsibility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Wen-Lin Wu & Yin-Feng Gau, 2017. "Home bias in portfolio choices: social learning among partially informed agents," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 527-556, February.
    15. Wang, Qin & Zhang, Jun, 2015. "Does individual investor trading impact firm valuation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 120-135.
    16. Wenlian Gao & Lilian Ng & Qinghai Wang, 2011. "Does Corporate Headquarters Location Matter for Firm Capital Structure?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 40(1), pages 113-138, March.
    17. Dachen Sheng & Heather Montgomery, 2022. "Should Firms in Emerging Markets Invest in R&D? Evidence from China’s Manufacturing Sector," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, November.
    18. Yu, Xiaojian & Liu, Jianlin & Lien, Donald, 2023. "A new measure of fund window dressing and its application to Chinese mutual fund market," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 63-72.
    19. Huang, Yin-Siang & Chiu, Junmao & Lin, Chih-Yung & Robin,, 2022. "The effect of Chinese lunar calendar on individual investors' trading," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    20. Kelley Bergsma & Danling Jiang, 2016. "Cultural New Year Holidays and Stock Returns around the World," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 45(1), pages 3-35, March.
    21. Yingying Xu & Zhixin Liu & Jichang Zhao & Chiwei Su, 2017. "Weibo sentiments and stock return: A time-frequency view," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-21, July.
    22. Zhang, Annie C. & Fang, Jiali & Jacobsen, Ben & Marshall, Ben R., 2018. "Peer effects, personal characteristics and asset allocation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 76-95.

    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. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Zoran Ivkovi & Scott Weisbenner, 2007. "Information Diffusion Effects in Individual Investors' Common Stock Purchases: Covet Thy Neighbors' Investment Choices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 1327-1357.
    3. García, Diego & Norli, Øyvind, 2012. "Geographic dispersion and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 547-565.
    4. Pantzalis, Christos & Park, Jung Chul, 2014. "Exuberance out of left field: Do sports results cause investors to take their eyes off the ball?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 760-780.
    5. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    6. Hvide, Hans K. & Östberg, Per, 2014. "Stock investments at work," CEPR Discussion Papers 9837, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Kai & Santi, Caterina & Shi, Lei, 2022. "Social interaction, volatility clustering, and momentum," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 125-149.
    8. Hong, Harrison & Kubik, Jeffrey D. & Stein, Jeremy C., 2008. "The only game in town: Stock-price consequences of local bias," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 20-37, October.
    9. Li, Mingsheng & Zhao, Xin, 2016. "Neighborhood effect on stock price comovement," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-22.
    10. Kaustia, Markku & Knüpfer, Samuli, 2012. "Peer performance and stock market entry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 321-338.
    11. Green, T. Clifton & Jame, Russell, 2013. "Company name fluency, investor recognition, and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 813-834.
    12. Frederik König, 2014. "Reciprocal social influence on investment decisions: behavioral evidence from a group of mutual fund managers," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 28(3), pages 233-262, August.
    13. Jeffrey R. Brown & Zoran Ivković & Paul A. Smith & Scott Weisbenner, 2008. "Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1509-1531, June.
    14. Hvide, Hans K. & Östberg, Per, 2015. "Social interaction at work," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 628-652.
    15. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance, 2013. "The Behavior of Individual Investors," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1533-1570, Elsevier.
    16. Carosi, Andrea, 2016. "Do local causations matter? The effect of firm location on the relations of ROE, R&D, and firm SIZE with MARKET-TO-BOOK," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 388-409.
    17. Itzhak Venezia, 2018. "Lecture Notes in Behavioral Finance," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10751, December.
    18. Davide Crapis & Bar Ifrach & Costis Maglaras & Marco Scarsini, 2017. "Monopoly Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3586-3608, November.
    19. Jadbabaie, Ali & Molavi, Pooya & Sandroni, Alvaro & Tahbaz-Salehi, Alireza, 2012. "Non-Bayesian social learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 210-225.
    20. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2011. "Opinion Dynamics and Learning in Social Networks," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.

    More about this item

    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:bla:finmgt:v:39:y:2010:i:2:p:807-831. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fmaaaea.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.