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The Wisdom of the Robinhood Crowd

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  • Ivo Welch

Abstract

Robinhood (RH) investors collectively increased their holdings in the March 2020 COVID bear market, indicating an absence of panic and margin calls. Their steadfastness was rewarded in the subsequent bull market. Despite unusual interest in some “experience” stocks, their aggregated consensus portfolio (likely mimicking the household-equal-weighted portfolio) primarily tilted towards stocks with high past share volume and dollar-trading volume. These were mostly big stocks. Both their timing and their consensus portfolio performed well from mid-2018 to mid-2020.

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  • Ivo Welch, 2020. "The Wisdom of the Robinhood Crowd," NBER Working Papers 27866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27866
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    10. Mark Marner-Hausen, 2022. "Developing a Framework for Real-Time Trading in a Laboratory Financial Market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 172, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    11. Romain Bocher, 2023. "Causal Entropic Forces, Narratives and Self-organisation of Capital Markets," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 35(2), pages 172-190, July.
    12. Itzhak Ben-David & Francesco A. Franzoni & Byungwook Kim & Rabih Moussawi, 2021. "Competition for Attention in the ETF Space," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 21-03, Swiss Finance Institute.
    13. Djalilov, Abdulaziz & Ülkü, Numan, 2021. "Individual investors’ trading behavior in Moscow Exchange and the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    14. Outlaw, Dominique, 2023. "Frenzied buyers and sophisticated sellers: How short sellers trade individual investors’ most purchased stocks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    15. Nobanee, Haitham & Ellili, Nejla Ould Daoud, 2023. "What do we know about meme stocks? A bibliometric and systematic review, current streams, developments, and directions for future research," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 589-602.
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    17. Ingar Haaland & Ole-Andreas Elvik Næss & Ingar K. Haaland, 2023. "Misperceived Returns to Active Investing," CESifo Working Paper Series 10257, CESifo.
    18. Felix Reichenbach & Martin Walther, 2023. "Financial recommendations on Reddit, stock returns and cumulative prospect theory," Digital Finance, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 421-448, June.
    19. Aloosh, Arash & Ouzan, Samuel & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, 2022. "Bubbles across Meme Stocks and Cryptocurrencies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    20. Kalda, Ankit & Loos, Benjamin & Previtero, Alessandro & Hackethal, Andreas, 2021. "Smart (phone) investing? A within investor-time analysis of new technologies and trading behavior," SAFE Working Paper Series 303, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    21. David Ardia & Cl'ement Aymard & Tolga Cenesizoglu, 2023. "Fast and Furious: A High-Frequency Analysis of Robinhood Users' Trading Behavior," Papers 2307.11012, arXiv.org.
    22. Kormanyos, Emily & Hanspal, Tobin & Hackethal, Andreas, 2023. "Do gamblers invest in lottery stocks?," SAFE Working Paper Series 373, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2023.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G4 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance

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