Do they trade as they say? Comparing survey data and trading records

This article is about three widespread and far-reaching mistakes in financial markets, namely, the Equity Home Bias, Anchoring and Herding. We use a combination of two different sources, survey answers and actual trading patterns, in order to analyze those mistakes empirically. This two-pronged approach allows us to discover interrelations between talk and action and provides a robustness check for our findings. Equity Home Bias is more predominant in real trading than investors admit in the questionnaire. In addition to domestic stocks, German investors also overweight Non-German Eurozone stocks. Consequently, investors hold an astonishing 82.13 per cent of their portfolio in stocks denominated in Euro. Anchoring in the survey is positively correlated with the Disposition Effect in actual trading. We ask investors if they allow themselves to be influenced by others, and we demonstrate that there is a positive link between affirmative answers and Herding in real action. In addition, we study whether behavioral differences exist between various socio-demographic groups. Higher educated investors are less inclined to exhibit the Equity Home Bias, Anchoring and Herding. Whereas gender hardly influences biases, interestingly, age is positively related to Equity Home Bias but negatively related to the other two biases.