IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v40y2017icp59-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Informed retail investors: Evidence from retail short sales

Author

Listed:
  • Gamble, Keith Jacks
  • Xu, Wei

Abstract

Our study suggests that despite the enforcement of insider trading laws, there are still some investors trading on their private information. Using account-level information, we show that some retail investors seem to be informed about particular stocks. When they sell short these stocks, they earn an alpha of 15%; when they purchase these stocks, they earn an alpha of 27%. Other short sales and purchases by the same investor do not earn significant alpha. These informed trades are rare and further evidence suggest that these informed retail trades are motivated by private information rather than trading skill.

Suggested Citation

  • Gamble, Keith Jacks & Xu, Wei, 2017. "Informed retail investors: Evidence from retail short sales," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 59-72.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:40:y:2017:i:c:p:59-72
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2016.11.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539816301256
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2016.11.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ron Kaniel & Shuming Liu & Gideon Saar & Sheridan Titman, 2012. "Individual Investor Trading and Return Patterns around Earnings Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 639-680, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Miller, Edward M, 1977. "Risk, Uncertainty, and Divergence of Opinion," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1168, September.
    4. Massimo Massa & Andrei Simonov, 2006. "Hedging, Familiarity and Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 633-685.
    5. Trond M. Døskeland & Hans K. Hvide, 2011. "Do Individual Investors Have Asymmetric Information Based on Work Experience?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 1011-1041, June.
    6. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Ning Zhu, 2009. "Do Retail Trades Move Markets?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 151-186, January.
    7. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    8. Lesmond, David A. & Schill, Michael J. & Zhou, Chunsheng, 2004. "The illusory nature of momentum profits," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 349-380, February.
    9. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    10. Danielsen, Bartley R. & Sorescu, Sorin M., 2001. "Why Do Option Introductions Depress Stock Prices? A Study of Diminishing Short Sale Constraints," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 451-484, December.
    11. Ivković, Zoran & Sialm, Clemens & Weisbenner, Scott, 2008. "Portfolio Concentration and the Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 613-655, September.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1845-1876 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    14. Mark S. Seasholes & Ning Zhu, 2010. "Individual Investors and Local Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1987-2010, October.
    15. Baker, Malcolm & Litov, Lubomir & Wachter, Jessica A. & Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2010. "Can Mutual Fund Managers Pick Stocks? Evidence from Their Trades Prior to Earnings Announcements," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1111-1131, October.
    16. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    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. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2008. "Which Shorts Are Informed?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 491-527, April.
    19. 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.
    20. Terrance Odean, 1999. "Do Investors Trade Too Much?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1279-1298, December.
    21. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1987. "Constraints on short-selling and asset price adjustment to private information," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 277-311, June.
    22. Bessembinder, Hendrik, 1999. "Trade Execution Costs on NASDAQ and the NYSE: A Post-Reform Comparison," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 387-407, September.
    23. Biais, Bruno & Hillion, Pierre, 1994. "Insider and Liquidity Trading in Stock and Options Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(4), pages 743-780.
    24. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. 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.
    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. Fung, Scott & Tsai, Shih-Chuan, 2021. "The price discovery role of day traders in futures market: Evidence from different types of day traders," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 53-77.
    2. Hillert, Alexander & Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian, 2018. "Journalist disagreement," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 57-76.
    3. 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).
    4. Strych, Jan-Oliver, 2022. "The impact of margin trading and short selling by retail investors on market price efficiency: Empirical evidence from bitcoin exchanges," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Ben-David, Itzhak & Birru, Justin & Rossi, Andrea, 2019. "Industry familiarity and trading: Evidence from the personal portfolios of industry insiders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 49-75.
    4. 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.
    5. Peter Cziraki & Jordi Mondria & Thomas Wu, 2021. "Asymmetric Attention and Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 48-71, January.
    6. Wang, Albert Y. & Young, Michael, 2023. "Mood, attention, and household trading: Evidence from terrorist attacks," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    7. Trond M. Døskeland & Hans K. Hvide, 2011. "Do Individual Investors Have Asymmetric Information Based on Work Experience?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 1011-1041, June.
    8. repec:acb:cbeeco:2023-698 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Orhan ERDEM & Evren ARIK & Serkan YÜKSEL, 2014. "Trading Puzzle, Puzzling Trade," Iktisat Isletme ve Finans, Bilgesel Yayincilik, vol. 29(345), pages 83-102.
    10. Hoechle, Daniel & Schmid, Markus & Zimmermann, Heinz, 2012. "Decomposing Performance," Working Papers on Finance 1216, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Nov 2015.
    11. Daniel Hoechle & Stefan Ruenzi & Nic Schaub & Markus Schmid, 2017. "The Impact of Financial Advice on Trade Performance and Behavioral Biases," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 871-910.
    12. Hvide, Hans K. & Östberg, Per, 2014. "Stock investments at work," CEPR Discussion Papers 9837, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. George M. Korniotis & Alok Kumar, 2008. "Do behavioral biases adversely affect the macro-economy?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-49, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Christopher N. Avery & Judith A. Chevalier & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 2016. "The "CAPS" Prediction System and Stock Market Returns," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1363-1381.
    15. Enrichetta Ravina, 2023. "Retail Investors’ Contrarian Behavior Around News, Attention, and the Momentum Effect," Working Paper Series WP 2023-34, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    16. Wang, Shu-Feng & Lee, Kuan-Hui & Woo, Min-Cheol, 2017. "Do individual short-sellers make money? Evidence from Korea," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 159-172.
    17. Takahashi, Hidetomo, 2010. "Short-sale inflow and stock returns: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2403-2412, October.
    18. Bui, Dien Giau & Hasan, Iftekhar & Lin, Chih-Yung & Zhai, Rui-Xiang, 2022. "Income, trading, and performance: Evidence from retail investors," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 176-195.
    19. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti & Linnainmaa, Juhani T., 2012. "IQ, trading behavior, and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 339-362.
    20. Liu, Xufeng & Wan, Die, 2022. "Asymmetric positive feedback trading and stock pricing in China," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    21. Cici, Gjergji & Gehde-Trapp, Monika & Göricke, Marc-André & Kempf, Alexander, 2014. "What they did in their previous life: The investment value of mutual fund managers' experience outside the financial sector," CFR Working Papers 14-11, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).

    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:eee:empfin:v:40:y:2017:i:c:p:59-72. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    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.