IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/han/dpaper/dp-397.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are all professional investors sophisticated?

Author

Listed:
  • Menkhoff, Lukas
  • Schmeling, Maik
  • Schmidt, Ulrich

Abstract

Existing empirical evidence is inconclusive on whether professional investors show sophisticated behavior or not, a question which is at the heart of market efficiency. This ambiguous evidence is mostly based on trading data or laboratory evidence, which each has its limitations. We complement these approaches by conducting a survey of 500 investors, including several measures of sophistication, three relevant groups of investors and essential control variables. We find that both professional investors and laymen do indeed show unsophisticated investment behavior on aggregate. Furthermore, while some professional investors - institutional investors - behave at least more sophisticated than laymen, other professionals - investment advisors - seem to do even worse.

Suggested Citation

  • Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2008. "Are all professional investors sophisticated?," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-397, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    • Handle: RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-397.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of 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. Amil Dasgupta & Andrea Prat & Michela Verardo, 2011. "Institutional Trade Persistence and Long‐Term Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(2), pages 635-653, April.
    3. Daniel Dorn & Gur Huberman, 2005. "Talk and Action: What Individual Investors Say and What They Do," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 437-481, December.
    4. Karen K. Lewis, 1999. "Trying to Explain Home Bias in Equities and Consumption," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(2), pages 571-608, June.
    5. Lakonishok, Josef, et al, 1991. "Window Dressing by Pension Fund Managers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 227-231, May.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:55:y:2000:i:4:p:1655-1703 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-153, March.
    8. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    9. Shiller, Robert J & Kon-Ya, Fumiko & Tsutsui, Yoshiro, 1996. "Why Did the Nikkei Crash? Expanding the Scope of Expectations Data Collection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 156-164, February.
    10. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2005. "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, February.
    11. Markus Glaser & Thomas Langer & Martin Weber, 2007. "On the Trend Recognition and Forecasting Ability of Professional Traders," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 176-193, December.
    12. Torben Lütje & Lukas Menkhoff, 2007. "What drives home bias? Evidence from fund managers' views," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 21-35.
    13. 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.
    14. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    15. Richard W. Sias, 2004. "Institutional Herding," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 165-206.
    16. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 589-616, April.
    17. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2008. "Do professionals choke under pressure?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 636-653, March.
    18. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-47, April.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. 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.
    21. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2000. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm146, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2001.
    22. Aneel Keswani & David Stolin, 2008. "Which Money Is Smart? Mutual Fund Buys and Sells of Individual and Institutional Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 85-118, February.
    23. Locke, Peter R. & Mann, Steven C., 2005. "Professional trader discipline and trade disposition," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 401-444, May.
    24. repec:bla:germec:v:7:y:2006:i::p:449-462 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2007. "Information Cascades: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 151-180, February.
    26. Glaser, Markus & Langer, Thomas & Weber, Martin, 2005. "Overconfidence of professionals and lay men : individual differences within and between tasks?," Papers 05-25, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    27. Cohen, Randolph B. & Gompers, Paul A. & Vuolteenaho, Tuomo, 2002. "Who underreacts to cash-flow news? evidence from trading between individuals and institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 409-462.
    28. Dow, James & Gorton, Gary, 1997. "Noise Trading, Delegated Portfolio Management, and Economic Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1024-1050, October.
    29. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "Viewpoint: On the generalizability of lab behaviour to the field," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(2), pages 347-370, May.
    30. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Human behavior and the efficiency of the financial system," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 20, pages 1305-1340, Elsevier.
    31. Graham Loomes & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2003. "Do Anomalies Disappear in Repeated Markets?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(486), pages 153-166, March.
    32. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 1985. "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 777-790, July.
    33. Julie Agnew & Pierluigi Balduzzi & Annika Sundén, 2003. "Portfolio Choice and Trading in a Large 401(k) Plan," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 193-215, March.
    34. 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.
    35. Olaf Stotz, 2006. "Germany's New Insider Law: The Empirical Evidence after the First Year," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(4), pages 449-462, November.
    36. Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Sheridan Titman, 2001. "Profitability of Momentum Strategies: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 699-720, April.
    37. 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.
    38. Greenwood, Robin & Nagel, Stefan, 2009. "Inexperienced investors and bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 239-258, August.
    39. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Measuring the Financial Sophistication of Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 393-398, May.
    40. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich & Brozynski, Torsten, 2006. "The impact of experience on risk taking, overconfidence, and herding of fund managers: Complementary survey evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1753-1766, October.
    41. Russ Wermers, 2000. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Empirical Decomposition into Stock‐Picking Talent, Style, Transactions Costs, and Expenses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1655-1695, August.
    42. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    43. Huberman, Gur, 2001. "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 659-680.
    44. 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.
    45. 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.
    46. 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.
    47. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    48. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    49. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan & Wermers, Russ, 1995. "Momentum Investment Strategies, Portfolio Performance, and Herding: A Study of Mutual Fund Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    50. Alan S. Blinder, 2000. "Central-Bank Credibility: Why Do We Care? How Do We Build It?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1421-1431, December.
    51. Weber, Martin & Camerer, Colin F., 1998. "The disposition effect in securities trading: an experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 167-184, January.
    52. Norman Strong & Xinzhong Xu, 2003. "Understanding the Equity Home Bias: Evidence from Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 307-312, May.
    53. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    54. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "How Distance, Language, and Culture Influence Stockholdings and Trades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 1053-1073, June.
    55. 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.
    56. Alexander Klos & Elke U. Weber & Martin Weber, 2005. "Investment Decisions and Time Horizon: Risk Perception and Risk Behavior in Repeated Gambles," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(12), pages 1777-1790, December.
    57. Patrick J. Dennis & Deon Strickland, 2002. "Who Blinks in Volatile Markets, Individuals or Institutions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1923-1949, October.
    58. 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.
    59. Shiller, 021Robert J. & Pound, John, 1989. "Survey evidence on diffusion of interest and information among investors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 47-66, August.
    60. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1985. "Using Survey Data to Test Some Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    61. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:1:p:97-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Walter Krämer & Michael Bücker, 2011. "Probleme des Qualitätsvergleichs von Kreditausfallprognosen," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 5(1), pages 39-58, March.
    2. Rafał Wolski & Monika Bolek & Jerzy Gajdka & Janusz Brzeszczyński & Ali M. Kutan, 2023. "Do investment fund managers behave rationally in the light of central bank communication? Survey evidence from Poland," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(5), pages 757-794, February.
    3. D. Schneller & S. Heiden & M. Heiden & A. Hamid, 2018. "Home is Where You Know Your Volatility – Local Investor Sentiment and Stock Market Volatility," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(2), pages 209-236, May.
    4. Tian, Geran & Wang, Xiaowen & Wu, Weixing, 2021. "Borrow low, lend high: Credit arbitrage by sophisticated investors," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Roshani Chamalka Gunathilaka & J. M. Ruwani Fernando, 2021. "Do behavioral biases differ among institutional and individual investors?," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 2, pages 61-73, June.

    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. repec:bla:germec:v:11:y:2010:i::p:418-440 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," 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 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    4. Menkhoff, Lukas & Nikiforow, Marina, 2009. "Professionals' endorsement of behavioral finance: Does it impact their perception of markets and themselves?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 318-329, August.
    5. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2013. "Overconfidence, experience, and professionalism: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 92-101.
    6. Eduard Gaar & David Scherer & Dirk Schiereck, 2022. "The home bias and the local bias: A survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 21-57, February.
    7. Camille Magron & Maxime Merli, 2012. "Stocks repurchase and sophistication of individual investors," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2012-02, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    8. 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.
    9. Nikiforow, Marina, 2009. "Does training on behavioral finance influence fund managers' perception and behavior?," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-419, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Tekçe, Bülent & Yılmaz, Neslihan & Bildik, Recep, 2016. "What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 515-526.
    11. Maximilian Koestner & Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer & Andreas Hackethal, 2017. "Do individual investors learn from their mistakes?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 669-703, July.
    12. Fotini Economou & Konstantinos Gavriilidis & Bartosz Gebka & Vasileios Kallinterakis, 2022. "Feedback trading: a review of theory and empirical evidence," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(4), pages 429-476, February.
    13. 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.
    14. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Torben Lütje & Lukas Menkhoff, 2007. "What drives home bias? Evidence from fund managers' views," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 21-35.
    18. Rafał Wolski & Monika Bolek & Jerzy Gajdka & Janusz Brzeszczyński & Ali M. Kutan, 2023. "Do investment fund managers behave rationally in the light of central bank communication? Survey evidence from Poland," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(5), pages 757-794, February.
    19. Itzhak Venezia, 2018. "Lecture Notes in Behavioral Finance," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10751, August.
    20. Dorn, Daniel & Strobl, Günter, 2023. "Rational disposition effects: Theory and evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    21. Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & David Hume & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart, 2023. "At the Top of the Mind: Peak Prices and the Disposition Effect," Discussion Papers 2023-09, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Institutional investors; investment advisors; individual investors; investment behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    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:han:dpaper:dp-397. 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: Heidrich, Christian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwhande.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.