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Do Investors Integrate Losses and Segregate Gains? Mental Accounting and Investor Trading Decisions

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  • Sonya Seongyeon Lim

    (DePaul University)

Abstract

I test whether investors' trading decisions are influenced by their preferences for framing gains and losses. I find that investors are more likely to bundle sales of losers than sales of winners on the same day, consistent with the hedonic editing hypothesis (Thaler 1985) that individuals prefer integrating losses and segregating gains. In addition, the extent to which mixed sales of winners and losers are consistent with the hedonic editing hypothesis is greater than what would be expected under random sales of stocks. These results suggest that mental accounting is likely to play a significant role in investors' trading decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonya Seongyeon Lim, 2006. "Do Investors Integrate Losses and Segregate Gains? Mental Accounting and Investor Trading Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(5), pages 2539-2574, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jnlbus:v:79:y:2006:i:5:p:2539-2574
    DOI: 10.1086/505243
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    Cited by:

    1. Amari Mouna & Jarboui Anis & David McMillan, 2015. "The factors forming investor’s failure: Is financial literacy a matter? Viewing test by cognitive mapping technique," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 1057923-105, December.
    2. Hongyan Fang & John R. Nofsinger, 2009. "Risk Aversion, Entrepreneurial Risk, and Portfolio Selection," Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, vol. 13(2), pages 25-55, Fall.
    3. Lin, Mei-Chen & Chou, Pin-Huang, 2011. "Prospect theory and the effectiveness of price limits," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 330-349, June.
    4. Martín Egozcue & Sébastien Massoni & Wing-Keung Wong & RiÄ ardas Zitikis, 2012. "Integration-segregation decisions under general value functions: "Create your own bundle — choose 1, 2, or all 3!"," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12057, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    5. Arkes, Hal R. & Hirshleifer, David & Jiang, Danling & Lim, Sonya, 2008. "Reference point adaptation: Tests in the domain of security trading," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 67-81, January.
    6. Sunhae Sul & Jennifer Kim & Incheol Choi, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being and Hedonic Editing: How Happy People Maximize Joint Outcomes of Loss and Gain," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 1409-1430, August.
    7. Alok Kumar & Sonya Seongyeon Lim, 2008. "How Do Decision Frames Influence the Stock Investment Choices of Individual Investors?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1052-1064, June.
    8. Barrafrem, Kinga & Västfjäll, Daniel & Tinghög, Gustav, 2021. "The arithmetic of outcome editing in financial and social domains," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    9. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh, 2009. "The Psychological Attraction Approach to Accounting and Disclosure Policy," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 1067-1090, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Martín Egozcue & Sébastien Massoni & Wing-Keung Wong & Ričardas Zitikis, 2012. "Integration-segregation decisions under general value functions : "Create your own bundle -- choose 1, 2, or all 3 !"," Post-Print halshs-00747008, HAL.
    12. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    13. Mohammad Reza Nikbakht & Mehrdad Sadr Ara, 2016. "A new experimental model for profit maximization," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(3), pages 45-52, June.
    14. Jiang, Ping & Wang, Xinyi & Yuan, Bozong & Zhao, Lu, 2024. "Do investors prefer multiple small bad news events or a single big one? Evidence from the Chinese stock market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    15. Jie Jiang & David G. Shrider & Huangwen Ting & Yanran Wu, 2021. "Are mutual fund investors loss averse? Evidence from China," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 231-250, May.
    16. Huang, Yu Chuan & Chan, Shu Hui, 2014. "The house money and break-even effects for different types of traders: Evidence from Taiwan futures markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 1-13.
    17. Ben-David, Itzhak & Hirshleifer, David, 2011. "Beyond the Disposition Effect: Do Investors Really Like Gains More Than Losses?," Working Paper Series 2011-13, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    18. Ross Niswanger & Eric Walden, 2022. "Quantity bias in comparison-shopping of multi-item baskets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-19, February.
    19. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    20. Hsu, Yuan-Lin, 2022. "Financial advice seeking and behavioral bias," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    21. Olsen, Jerome & Kasper, Matthias & Kogler, Christoph & Muehlbacher, Stephan & Kirchler, Erich, 2019. "Mental accounting of income tax and value added tax among self-employed business owners," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 125-139.
    22. Sebastian Serfas, 2011. "The impact of cognitive biases on capital investments," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 427-446, April.
    23. Bingxuan Lin & Jianhua Liu & Rui Lu & Liang Sun, 2023. "The Benefit of Frequent Corporate Philanthropy," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 59(1), pages 411-436, March.

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