IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v174y2025ics0378426625000512.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stock market experience and investor overconfidence: Do investors learn to be overconfident?

Author

Listed:
  • Bernile, Gennaro
  • Bonaparte, Yosef
  • Delikouras, Stefanos

Abstract

Investor overconfidence, characterized by an excessive belief in the ability to generate superior portfolio returns, is a widely studied behavioral bias. This paper investigates the mechanisms underlying overconfidence using a Bayesian model that incorporates two features: biased prior beliefs, which imply overconfidence even before investors engage in the stock market, and biased learning, where investors overemphasize instances of outperforming the market. Empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that biased learning contributes to overconfidence, but only in the early years of investor tenure. Although overconfidence decreases with investment experience, we find that it is a widespread and persistent behavioral trait.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernile, Gennaro & Bonaparte, Yosef & Delikouras, Stefanos, 2025. "Stock market experience and investor overconfidence: Do investors learn to be overconfident?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0378426625000512
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107431
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426625000512
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2025.107431?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    2. Terrance Odean., 1996. "Volume, Volatility, Price and Profit When All Trader Are Above Average," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-266, University of California at Berkeley.
    3. Nicolosi, Gina & Peng, Liang & Zhu, Ning, 2009. "Do individual investors learn from their trading experience?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 317-336, May.
    4. Lei Feng & Mark Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351, September.
    5. James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian & Andrew Metrick, 2009. "Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2515-2534, December.
    6. Froot, Kenneth & Teo, Melvyn, 2008. "Style Investing and Institutional Investors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 883-906, December.
    7. Roger G. Clarke & Meir Statman, 1998. "Bullish or Bearish?," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 63-72, May.
    8. Adam, Klaus & Marcet, Albert, 2011. "Internal rationality, imperfect market knowledge and asset prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1224-1252, May.
    9. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Klaus Adam & Albert Marcet & Juan Pablo Nicolini, 2016. "Stock Market Volatility and Learning," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 33-82, February.
    11. George M Korniotis & Alok Kumar, 2011. "Do Older Investors Make Better Investment Decisions?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 244-265, February.
    12. Lei Feng & Mark S. Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351.
    13. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2009. "Which past returns affect trading volume?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, February.
    14. Adam, Klaus & Matveev, Dmitry & Nagel, Stefan, 2021. "Do survey expectations of stock returns reflect risk adjustments?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 723-740.
    15. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    16. Yao-Min Chiang & David Hirshleifer & Yiming Qian & Ann E. Sherman, 2011. "Do Investors Learn from Experience? Evidence from Frequent IPO Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1560-1589.
    17. James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian & Andrew Metrick, 2009. "Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2515-2534, December.
    18. Glaser, Markus & Langer, Thomas & Weber, Martin, 2005. "Overconfidence of professionals and lay men : individual differences within and between tasks?," Papers 05-25, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    19. Agarwal, Sumit & Chomsisengphet, Souphala & Liu, Chunlin & Souleles, Nicholas S., 2005. "Do consumers choose the right credit contracts?," CFS Working Paper Series 2005/32, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    20. John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey, 2001. "Expectations of Equity Risk Premia, Volatility and Asymmetry from a Corporate Finance Perspective," NBER Working Papers 8678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Campbell, John Y. & Ramadorai, Tarun & Schwartz, Allie, 2009. "Caught on tape: Institutional trading, stock returns, and earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 66-91, April.
    22. Greenwood, Robin & Nagel, Stefan, 2009. "Inexperienced investors and bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 239-258, August.
    23. Da Costa, Newton & Goulart, Marco & Cupertino, Cesar & Macedo, Jurandir & Da Silva, Sergio, 2013. "The disposition effect and investor experience," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1669-1675.
    24. Markku Kaustia & Samuli Knüpfer, 2008. "Do Investors Overweight Personal Experience? Evidence from IPO Subscriptions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2679-2702, December.
    25. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2007. "Why inexperienced investors do not learn: They do not know their past portfolio performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 203-216, December.
    26. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    27. John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey & Hai Huang, 2009. "Investor Competence, Trading Frequency, and Home Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1094-1106, July.
    28. Froot, Kenneth A. & O'Connell, Paul G. J. & Seasholes, Mark S., 2001. "The portfolio flows of international investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 151-193, February.
    29. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    30. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    31. Juhani T. Linnainmaa, 2011. "Why Do (Some) Households Trade So Much?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1630-1666.
    32. De, Sankar & Gondhi, Naveen R. & Pochiraju, Bhimasankaram, 2010. "Does Sign Matter More Than Size? An Investigation into the Source of Investor Overconfidence," Working Papers 11-24, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    33. Markus Glaser & Zwetelina Iliewa & Martin Weber, 2019. "Thinking about Prices versus Thinking about Returns in Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(6), pages 2997-3039, December.
    34. Reza Mahani & Dan Bernhardt, 2007. "Financial Speculators' Underperformance: Learning, Self‐Selection, and Endogenous Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1313-1340, June.
    35. Gina Nicolosi & Liang Peng & Ning Zhu, 2003. "Do Individual Investors Learn from Their Trading Experience?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm439, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    36. Ravi Dhar & Ning Zhu, 2006. "Up Close and Personal: Investor Sophistication and the Disposition Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(5), pages 726-740, May.
    37. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1887-1934 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2014. "Getting Better or Feeling Better? How Equity Investors Respond to Investment Experience," NBER Working Papers 20000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. 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.
    3. Chan, Kalok & Wang, Baolian & Yang, Zhishu, 2019. "Why investors do not buy cheaper securities: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 59-76.
    4. Xu, Rong & Liu, Yaodong & Hu, Nan & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2022. "What drives individual investors in the bear market?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    5. Forman, John & Horton, Joanne, 2019. "Overconfidence, position size, and the link to performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 291-309.
    6. Itzhak Ben-David & Justin Birru & Viktor Prokopenya, 2018. "Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading [Two methods of reducing overconfidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(6), pages 2009-2036.
    7. Gregor Dorfleitner & Lars Hornuf & Martina Weber, 2023. "Paralyzed by shock: the portfolio formation behavior of peer-to-business lending investors," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1037-1073, April.
    8. Gregor Dorfleitner & Lars Hornuf & Martina Weber, 2018. "Paralyzed by Shock: The Portfolio Formation Behavior of Peer-to-Business Lending Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 7092, CESifo.
    9. D’Hondt, Catherine & De Winne, Rudy & Merli, Maxime, 2021. "Do retail investors bite off more than they can chew? A close look at their return objectives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 879-902.
    10. Katrin Gödker & Terrance Odean & Paul Smeets, 2023. "Disposed to Be Overconfident," CESifo Working Paper Series 10357, CESifo.
    11. Arnold, Marc & Pelster, Matthias & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2022. "Attention triggers and investors’ risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 846-875.
    12. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    13. Oliver Gloede & Lukas Menkhoff, 2014. "Financial Professionals' Overconfidence: Is It Experience, Function, or Attitude?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(2), pages 236-269, March.
    14. Peiran Jiao, 2015. "The Double-Channeled Effects of Experience on Individual Investment Decisions: Experimental Evidence," Economics Series Working Papers 766, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Barrot, Jean-Noel & Kaniel, Ron & Sraer, David, 2016. "Are retail traders compensated for providing liquidity?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 146-168.
    16. Hayley, Simon & Marsh, Ian W., 2016. "What do retail FX traders learn?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 16-38.
    17. Wenjun Wang, 2023. "Can experience mitigate precautionary bidding? Evidence from a quasi-experiment at an IPO auction," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(2), pages 148-163, March.
    18. Talpsepp, Tõnn & Liivamägi, Kristjan & Vaarmets, Tarvo, 2020. "Academic abilities, education and performance in the stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    19. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2007. "Why inexperienced investors do not learn: They do not know their past portfolio performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 203-216, December.
    20. Gao, Huasheng & Shi, Donghui & Zhao, Bin, 2021. "Does good luck make people overconfident? Evidence from a natural experiment in the stock market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overconfidence; Biased priors; Biased learning; Portfolios; Experience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy
    • 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:eee:jbfina:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0378426625000512. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.