IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iae/iaewps/wp2021n27.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Retail investor expectations and trading preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Sarantis Tsiaplias

    (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, the University of Melbourne)

  • Qi Zeng

    (Department of Finance, the University of Melbourne)

  • Guay Lim

    (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, the University of Melbourne)

Abstract

Using a novel quarterly survey of 23 thousand Australian retail equity investors spanning eight years, we study the relationship between investor beliefs and their trading preferences. We provide evidence that, consistent with Mean-Variance preferences, both lower returns and higher volatility increase the marginal propensity to sell. Furthermore, we find that while demographic characteristics and investment experiences are predictive of the holding preferences of retail investors, they are uninformative about their trading directional preferences (i.e. whether to buy or sell). Our findings suggest that a representative-agent portfolio model with Mean-Variance preferences is sufficient to explain the trading directional preferences of retail investors, but not their holding patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarantis Tsiaplias & Qi Zeng & Guay Lim, 2021. "Retail investor expectations and trading preferences," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2021n27, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2021n27
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/3968376/wp2021n27.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Ameriks & Gábor Kézdi & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2020. "Heterogeneity in Expectations, Risk Tolerance, and Household Stock Shares: The Attenuation Puzzle," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 633-646, July.
    2. John Ameriks & Joseph Briggs & Andrew Caplin & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2020. "Older Americans Would Work Longer If Jobs Were Flexible," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 174-209, January.
    3. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel, 2008. "Do Wealth Fluctuations Generate Time-Varying Risk Aversion? Micro-evidence on Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 713-736, June.
    4. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-b.
    5. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-a.
    6. Charles F. Manski, 2018. "Survey Measurement of Probabilistic Macroeconomic Expectations: Progress and Promise," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 411-471.
    7. Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 714-746.
    8. Stöckl, Thomas & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Lindner, Florian, 2015. "Hot hand and gambler's fallacy in teams: Evidence from investment experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 327-339.
    9. John Ameriks & Joseph Briggs & Andrew Caplin & Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher Tonetti, 2020. "Long-Term-Care Utility and Late-in-Life Saving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2375-2451.
    10. Gene Amromin & Steven A. Sharpe, 2014. "From the Horse's Mouth: Economic Conditions and Investor Expectations of Risk and Return," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 845-866, April.
    11. Nakamura, Yutaka, 2015. "Mean-variance utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 536-556.
    12. Jeff Dominitz & Charles F. Manski, 2011. "Measuring and interpreting expectations of equity returns," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 352-370, April.
    13. Laurent E. Calvet & John Y. Campbell & Paolo Sodini, 2009. "Fight or Flight? Portfolio Rebalancing by Individual Investors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 301-348.
    14. Malmendier, Ulrike & Shanthikumar, Devin, 2007. "Are small investors naive about incentives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 457-489, August.
    15. Johannes Muhle-Karbe & Max Reppen & H. Mete Soner, 2016. "A Primer on Portfolio Choice with Small Transaction Costs," Papers 1612.01302, arXiv.org, revised May 2017.
    16. J. Tobin, 1958. "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 25(2), pages 65-86.
    17. 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.
    18. George M. Constantinides, 2005. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Transaction Costs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 7, pages 207-227, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. M. H. A. Davis & A. R. Norman, 1990. "Portfolio Selection with Transaction Costs," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 676-713, November.
    20. 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.
    21. Brad M Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean & Ke Zhang, 2020. "Learning, Fast or Slow," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(1), pages 61-93.
    22. 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.
    23. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    24. Péter Hudomiet & Gábor Kézdi & Robert J. Willis, 2011. "Stock market crash and expectations of American households," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 393-415, April.
    25. Brad M. Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean, 2009. "Just How Much Do Individual Investors Lose by Trading?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 609-632, February.
    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. Sarantis Tsiaplias & Qi Zeng & Guay C. Lim, 2023. "Retail Investor Trading Intentions: New Evidence from Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(327), pages 512-535, December.
    2. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel & Stephen Utkus, 2021. "Five Facts about Beliefs and Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1481-1522, May.
    3. Merkle, Christoph, 2017. "Financial overconfidence over time: Foresight, hindsight, and insight of investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 68-87.
    4. 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.
    5. Alderighi, Stefano, 2018. "The determinants of retail trading activity in emerging markets: A cross-market analysis," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 152-167.
    6. Bernard, Sabine & Loos, Benjamin & Weber, Martin, 2021. "The disposition effect in boom and bust markets," SAFE Working Paper Series 305, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    7. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Horenstein, Alex R. & Snir, Avichai, 2017. "Portfolio choice in Mexico," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 1-13.
    9. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    10. Firth, Chris, 2020. "Protecting investors from themselves: Evidence from a regulatory intervention," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    11. Brückbauer, Frank, 2022. "Do financial market experts know their theory? New evidence from survey data," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-092, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2022.
    12. Bucciol, Alessandro & Miniaci, Raffaele & Pastorello, Sergio, 2017. "Return expectations and risk aversion heterogeneity in household portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 201-219.
    13. Liu, Hongqi & Peng, Cameron & Wei, Xiong & Wei, Xiong, 2022. "Taming the bias zoo," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109301, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Korniotis, George & Bonaparte, Yosef & Kumar, Alok, 2020. "Income Risk and Stock Market Entry/Exit Decisions," CEPR Discussion Papers 15370, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Marc Frattaroli, 2021. "ICO investors," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 35(1), pages 1-59, March.
    16. Rüdiger Weber & Annika Weber & Christine Laudenbach & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Beliefs About the Stock Market and Investment Choices: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CEBI working paper series 21-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    17. Tobin Hanspal & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "Exposure to the COVID-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations," CEBI working paper series 20-13, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    18. Bansal, Avijit & Jacob, Joshy, 2022. "Impact of Price Path on Disposition Bias," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    19. 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.
    20. Vimal Balasubramaniam & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai & Benjamin Ranish, 2023. "Who Owns What? A Factor Model for Direct Stockholding," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1545-1591, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    investor expectiations; shareholder surveys; trading preferences; Mean-Variance utility.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions

    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:iae:iaewps:wp2021n27. 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: Sheri Carnegie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.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.