IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v33y2009i4p731-746.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Option trading and individual investor performance

Author

Listed:
  • Bauer, Rob
  • Cosemans, Mathijs
  • Eichholtz, Piet

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of option trading on individual investor performance. The results show that most investors incur substantial losses on their option investments, which are much larger than the losses from equity trading. We attribute the detrimental impact of option trading on investor performance to poor market timing that results from overreaction to past stock market returns. High trading costs further contribute to the poor returns on option investments. Gambling and entertainment appear to be the most important motivations for trading options while hedging motives only play a minor role. We also provide strong evidence of performance persistence among option traders.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauer, Rob & Cosemans, Mathijs & Eichholtz, Piet, 2009. "Option trading and individual investor performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 731-746, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:33:y:2009:i:4:p:731-746
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-4266(08)00272-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Wayne E. Ferson & Campbell R. Harvey, 1999. "Conditioning Variables and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1325-1360, August.
    2. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2005. "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, February.
    4. Josef Lakonishok & Inmoo Lee & Neil D. Pearson & Allen M. Poteshman, 2007. "Option Market Activity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 813-857.
    5. Donald B. Keim & Ananth Madhavan, "undated". "The Cost of Institutional Equity Trades," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 08-98, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    6. Glosten, L. R. & Jagannathan, R., 1994. "A contingent claim approach to performance evaluation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 133-160, January.
    7. 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.
    8. French, Kenneth R & Poterba, James M, 1991. "Investor Diversification and International Equity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 222-226, May.
    9. Anderson, Anders, 2006. "Is online trading gambling with peanuts?," Papers 06-02, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    10. repec:fth:pennfi:68 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bing Han, 2008. "Investor Sentiment and Option Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 387-414, January.
    12. Ng, Lilian & Wu, Fei, 2007. "The trading behavior of institutions and individuals in Chinese equity markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2695-2710, September.
    13. Allen M. Poteshman, 2001. "Underreaction, Overreaction, and Increasing Misreaction to Information in the Options Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-876, June.
    14. Venezia, Itzhak & Shapira, Zur, 2007. "On the behavioral differences between professional and amateur investors after the weekend," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1417-1426, May.
    15. Vikas Agarwal, 2004. "Risks and Portfolio Decisions Involving Hedge Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 63-98.
    16. Mahani, Reza S. & Poteshman, Allen M., 2008. "Overreaction to stock market news and misevaluation of stock prices by unsophisticated investors: Evidence from the option market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 635-655, September.
    17. Allen M. Poteshman & Vitaly Serbin, 2003. "Clearly Irrational Financial Market Behavior: Evidence from the Early Exercise of Exchange Traded Stock Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 37-70, February.
    18. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    19. Shapira, Zur & Venezia, Itzhak, 2001. "Patterns of behavior of professionally managed and independent investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1573-1587, August.
    20. 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.
    21. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:5:p:2013-2040 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. 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.
    23. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    24. Ferson, Wayne E & Schadt, Rudi W, 1996. "Measuring Fund Strategy and Performance in Changing Economic Conditions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 425-461, June.
    25. Brown, Gregory W. & Cliff, Michael T., 2004. "Investor sentiment and the near-term stock market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-27, January.
    26. Karlsson, Anders & Norden, Lars, 2007. "Home sweet home: Home bias and international diversification among individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 317-333, February.
    27. Jeffrey A. Busse & Paul J. Irvine, 2006. "Bayesian Alphas and Mutual Fund Persistence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(5), pages 2251-2288, October.
    28. Brennan, Michael J. & Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 1998. "Alternative factor specifications, security characteristics, and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 345-373, September.
    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. Hoechle, Daniel & Schmid, Markus & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2012. "Decomposing Performance," Working Papers on Finance 1216, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Nov 2015.
    2. Lukas Menkhoff & Maik Schmeling & Ulrich Schmidt, 2010. "Are All Professional Investors Sophisticated?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 418-440, November.
    3. Li An & Huijun Wang & Jian Wang & Jianfeng Yu, 2020. "Lottery-Related Anomalies: The Role of Reference-Dependent Preferences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 473-501, January.
    4. Daniel Hoechle & Stefan Ruenzi & Nic Schaub & Markus Schmid, 2017. "The Impact of Financial Advice on Trade Performance and Behavioral Biases," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 871-910.
    5. Jungshik Hur & Mahesh Pritamani & Vivek Sharma, 2010. "Momentum and the Disposition Effect: The Role of Individual Investors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1155-1176, September.
    6. Chunpeng Yang & Bin Gao & Jianlei Yang, 2016. "Option pricing model with sentiment," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 147-164, July.
    7. Li An & Huijun Wang & Jian Wang & Jianfeng Yu, 2015. "Lottery-related anomalies: the role of reference-dependent preferences," Globalization Institute Working Papers 259, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    8. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    9. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    10. 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.
    11. Abreu, Margarida & Mendes, Victor & Santos, João A.C., 2011. "Home country bias: Does domestic experience help investors enter foreign markets?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 2330-2340, September.
    12. Gehde-Trapp, Monika & Klingler, Linda, 2022. "The effect of sentiment on institutional investors: A gender analysis," CFR Working Papers 22-08, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    13. Amihud, Yakov & Noh, Joonki, 2021. "The pricing of the illiquidity factor’s conditional risk with time-varying premium," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    14. Gregory Connor & Lisa R. Goldberg & Robert A. Korajczyk, 2010. "Portfolio Risk Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9224.
    15. Oliver Entrop & Michael McKenzie & Marco Wilkens & Christoph Winkler, 2016. "The performance of individual investors in structured financial products," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 569-604, April.
    16. Joshua Traut, 2023. "What we know about the low-risk anomaly: a literature review," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 37(3), pages 297-324, September.
    17. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti & Linnainmaa, Juhani T., 2012. "IQ, trading behavior, and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 339-362.
    18. Liu, Xufeng & Wan, Die, 2022. "Asymmetric positive feedback trading and stock pricing in China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. Andreas Oehler & Julian Schneider, 2022. "Gambling with lottery stocks?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(6), pages 477-503, October.
    20. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.

    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:33:y:2009:i:4:p:731-746. 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.