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Prospect Theory for Online Financial Trading

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  • Yang-Yu Liu
  • Jose C. Nacher
  • Tomoshiro Ochiai
  • Mauro Martino
  • Yaniv Altshuler

Abstract

Prospect theory is widely viewed as the best available descriptive model of how people evaluate risk in experimental settings. According to prospect theory, people are risk-averse with respect to gains and risk-seeking with respect to losses, a phenomenon called "loss aversion". Despite of the fact that prospect theory has been well developed in behavioral economics at the theoretical level, there exist very few large-scale empirical studies and most of them have been undertaken with micro-panel data. Here we analyze over 28.5 million trades made by 81.3 thousand traders of an online financial trading community over 28 months, aiming to explore the large-scale empirical aspect of prospect theory. By analyzing and comparing the behavior of winning and losing trades and traders, we find clear evidence of the loss aversion phenomenon, an essence in prospect theory. This work hence demonstrates an unprecedented large-scale empirical evidence of prospect theory, which has immediate implication in financial trading, e.g., developing new trading strategies by minimizing the effect of loss aversion. Moreover, we introduce three risk-adjusted metrics inspired by prospect theory to differentiate winning and losing traders based on their historical trading behavior. This offers us potential opportunities to augment online social trading, where traders are allowed to watch and follow the trading activities of others, by predicting potential winners statistically based on their historical trading behavior rather than their trading performance at any given point in time.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang-Yu Liu & Jose C. Nacher & Tomoshiro Ochiai & Mauro Martino & Yaniv Altshuler, 2014. "Prospect Theory for Online Financial Trading," Papers 1402.6393, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1402.6393
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2008. "Risk Aversion in Cumulative Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 208-216, January.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2005. "What is Loss Aversion?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 157-167, January.
    5. Schmidt, Ulrich & Traub, Stefan, 2002. "An Experimental Test of Loss Aversion," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 233-249, November.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ambler, Kate & Godlonton, Susan & Recalde, María P., 2021. "Follow the leader? A field experiment on social influence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1280-1297.
    2. Scheckenbach, Isabel & Wimmer, Maximilian & Dorfleitner, Gregor, 2021. "The higher you fly, the harder you try not to fall: An analysis of the risk taking behavior in social trading," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 239-259.
    3. Fabiana Fragnito, 2023. "Copytrading, a New Phenomenon: Comparative Economic and Legal Overview," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 431-445.
    4. Cheng, Xiu & Long, Ruyin & Chen, Hong, 2020. "A policy utility dislocation model based on prospect theory: A case study of promoting policies with low-carbon lifestyle," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. James Schmitz & David Rothschild, 2019. "Understanding market functionality and trading success," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-28, August.
    6. Florian Röder & Andreas Walter, 2019. "What Drives Investment Flows Into Social Trading Portfolios?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 42(2), pages 383-411, July.
    7. Aneta Hryckiewicz & Piotr Mielus & Karolina Skorulska & Malgorzata Snarska, 2018. "Does a bank levy increase frictions on the interbank market?," KAE Working Papers 2018-033, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    8. Dorfleitner, Gregor & Fischer, Lukas & Lung, Carina & Willmertinger, Philipp & Stang, Nico & Dietrich, Natalie, 2018. "To follow or not to follow – An empirical analysis of the returns of actors on social trading platforms," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 160-171.
    9. Benjamin M Blau & Ryan J Whitby, 2017. "Range-based volatility, expected stock returns, and the low volatility anomaly," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(11), pages 1-19, November.
    10. Breitmayer, Bastian & Massari, Filippo & Pelster, Matthias, 2019. "Swarm intelligence? Stock opinions of the crowd and stock returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 443-464.
    11. Pelster, Matthias & Hofmann, Annette, 2018. "About the fear of reputational loss: Social trading and the disposition effect," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 75-88.
    12. Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2020. "Copy Trading," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5608-5622, December.
      • Apesteguia, Jose & Oechssler, Jörg & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2018. "Copy Trading," Working Papers 0649, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
      • Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2018. "Copy trading," Economics Working Papers 1615, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2019.
      • Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2018. "Copy Trading," Working Papers 1048, Barcelona School of Economics.
    13. Kromidha, Endrit & Li, Matthew C., 2019. "Determinants of leadership in online social trading: A signaling theory perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 184-197.
    14. Karolina Puławska, 2022. "Effects of the bank levy introduction on the interbank market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 844-864, January.

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