IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/6915.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Individual Investors and Volatility

Author

Listed:
  • Foucault, Thierry
  • Thesmar, David
  • Sraer, David

Abstract

We test the hypothesis that individual investors contribute to the idiosyncratic volatility of stock returns because they act as noise traders. To this end, we consider a reform that makes short selling or buying on margin more expensive for retail investors relative to institutions, for a subset of French stocks. If retail investors are noise traders, theory implies that the volatility of stocks affected by the reform should decrease relative to other stocks. This prediction is borne out by the data. Moreover, around the reform, we observe a significant decrease in (i) the magnitude of returns reversals, and (ii) the Amihud ratio for the stocks affected by the reform relative to other stocks. We show that these findings are also consistent with models in which individual investors, acting as noise traders, are a source of volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Foucault, Thierry & Thesmar, David & Sraer, David, 2008. "Individual Investors and Volatility," CEPR Discussion Papers 6915, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6915
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP6915
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    2. Jones, Charles M & Seguin, Paul J, 1997. "Transaction Costs and Price Volatility: Evidence from Commission Deregulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 728-737, September.
    3. Ron Kaniel & Gideon Saar & Sheridan Titman, 2008. "Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 273-310, February.
    4. Paul H. Kupiec, 1991. "Noise traders, excess volatility, and securities transaction tax," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 166, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    6. Umlauf, Steven R., 1993. "Transaction taxes and the behavior of the Swedish stock market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 227-240, April.
    7. Andrade, Sandro C. & Chang, Charles & Seasholes, Mark S., 2008. "Trading imbalances, predictable reversals, and cross-stock price pressure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 406-423, May.
    8. John Y. Campbell & Sanford J. Grossman & Jiang Wang, 1993. "Trading Volume and Serial Correlation in Stock Returns," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(4), pages 905-939.
    9. Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 1998. "Transaction Taxes and Financial Market Equilibrium," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(1), pages 81-118, January.
    10. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    11. Artyom Durnev & Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung & Paul Zarowin, 2003. "Does Greater Firm‐Specific Return Variation Mean More or Less Informed Stock Pricing?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 797-836, December.
    12. John Y. Campbell & Albert S. Kyle, 1993. "Smart Money, Noise Trading and Stock Price Behaviour," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34.
    13. Soeren Hvidkjaer, 2006. "A Trade-Based Analysis of Momentum," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 457-491.
    14. Richard K. Crump & V. Joseph Hotz & Guido W. Imbens & Oscar A. Mitnik, 2006. "Moving the Goalposts: Addressing Limited Overlap in the Estimation of Average Treatment Effects by Changing the Estimand," NBER Technical Working Papers 0330, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Daniel Dorn & Gur Huberman & Paul Sengmueller, 2008. "Correlated Trading and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 885-920, April.
    16. Soeren Hvidkjaer, 2008. "Small Trades and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 1123-1151, May.
    17. Dow, James & Rahi, Rohit, 2000. "Should Speculators Be Taxed?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(1), pages 89-107, January.
    18. Roll, R., 1989. "Price Volatility, International Market Links, And Their Implications For Regulatory Policies," Papers t10, Columbia - Center for Futures Markets.
    19. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    20. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti, 2000. "The investment behavior and performance of various investor types: a study of Finland's unique data set," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 43-67, January.
    21. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 1994. "Limited Market Participation and Volatility of Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 933-955, September.
    22. Scruggs, John T., 2007. "Noise trader risk: Evidence from the Siamese twins," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 76-105, February.
    23. Frazzini, Andrea & Lamont, Owen A., 2008. "Dumb money: Mutual fund flows and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 299-322, May.
    24. Guillermo Llorente & Roni Michaely & Gideon Saar & Jiang Wang, 2002. "Dynamic Volume-Return Relation of Individual Stocks," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 1005-1047.
    25. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2004. "Does an electronic stock exchange need an upstairs market?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 3-36, July.
    26. Daniel Dorn & Gur Huberman & Paul Sengmueller, 2008. "Correlated Trading and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 885-920, April.
    27. 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.
    28. Lee, Yi-Tsung & Liu, Yu-Jane & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2004. "Order Imbalances and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Taiwan Stock Exchange," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 327-341, June.
    29. Baker, Malcolm & Savasoglu, Serkan, 2002. "Limited arbitrage in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 91-115, April.
    30. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    31. Pontiff, Jeffrey, 2006. "Costly arbitrage and the myth of idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 35-52, October.
    32. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Jean‐Paul Décamps, 1999. "Short Sales Constraints, Liquidity and Price Discovery: An Empirical Analysis on the Paris Bourse," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 5(3), pages 395-410, November.
    33. Frank M. Song & Junxi Zhang, 2005. "Securities Transaction Tax and Market Volatility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(506), pages 1103-1120, October.
    34. Roll, Richard, 1984. "A Simple Implicit Measure of the Effective Bid-Ask Spread in an Efficient Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1127-1139, September.
    35. Duffee, Gregory R., 1995. "Stock returns and volatility A firm-level analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 399-420, March.
    36. Solnik, Bruno, 1990. "The Distribution of Daily Stock Returns and Settlement Procedures: The Paris Bourse," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1601-1609, December.
    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. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Capelle-Blancard, Gunther & Havrylchyk, Olena, 2016. "The impact of the French securities transaction tax on market liquidity and volatility," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 166-178.
    3. Yuming Fu & Wenlan Qian & Bernard Yeung, 2016. "Speculative Investors and Transactions Tax: Evidence from the Housing Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3254-3270, November.
    4. Choi, Darwin, 2019. "Disposition sales and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 19-36.
    5. Chen, Zhijuan & Lin, William T. & Ma, Changfeng & Tsai, Shih-Chuan, 2014. "Liquidity provisions by individual investor trading prior to dividend announcements: Evidence from Taiwan," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 358-374.
    6. Wei, Jason, 2018. "Behavioral biases in the corporate bond market," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 34-55.
    7. Ms. Thornton Matheson, 2011. "Taxing Financial Transactions: Issues and Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2011/054, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Thornton Matheson, 2012. "Security transaction taxes: issues and evidence," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(6), pages 884-912, December.
    9. Patrick J. Kelly, 2014. "Information Efficiency and Firm-Specific Return Variation," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-44.
    10. Choi, Paul Moon Sub & Choi, Joung Hwa, 2018. "Is individual trading priced in stocks?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 76-92.
    11. Joel Peress, 2014. "The Media and the Diffusion of Information in Financial Markets: Evidence from Newspaper Strikes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 2007-2043, October.
    12. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2011. "Recent trends in trading activity and market quality," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 243-263, August.
    13. Paula A. Yepes-Henao & Diego A. Agudelo & Ramazan Gencay, 2018. "Muddying the waters: Who Induces Volatility in an Emerging Market?," Documentos de Trabajo CIEF 16974, Universidad EAFIT.
    14. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," 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 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    15. Reza Bradrania & Andrew Grant & Peter Joakim Westerholm & Wei Wu, 2017. "Fool's mate: What does CHESS tell us about individual investor trading performance?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(4), pages 981-1017, December.
    16. Karolyi, G. Andrew & Lee, Kuan Hui & van Dijk, Mathijs A., 2007. "Common Patterns in Commonality in Returns, Liquidity, and Turnover around the World," Working Paper Series 2007-16, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    17. Cappelletti, Giuseppe & Guazzarotti, Giovanni & Tommasino, Pietro, 2017. "The stock market effects of a securities transaction tax: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 81-92.
    18. Deng, Yongheng & Liu, Xin & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2018. "One fundamental and two taxes: When does a Tobin tax reduce financial price volatility?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 663-692.
    19. 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.
    20. Jinliang Li, 2016. "When noise trading fades, volatility rises," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 475-512, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Idiosyncratic volatility; Noise trading; Retail investors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:6915. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.