IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/22146.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading

Author

Listed:
  • Itzhak Ben-David
  • Justin Birru
  • Viktor Prokopenya

Abstract

We document evidence consistent with retail day traders in the Forex market attributing random success to their own skill and, as a consequence, increasing risk taking. Although past performance does not predict future success for these traders, traders increase trade sizes, trade size variability, and number of trades with gains, and less with losses. There is a large discontinuity in all of these trading variables around zero past week returns: e.g., traders increase their trade size dramatically following winning weeks, relative to losing weeks. The effects are stronger for novice traders, consistent with more intense “learning” in early trading periods.

Suggested Citation

  • Itzhak Ben-David & Justin Birru & Viktor Prokopenya, 2016. "Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading," NBER Working Papers 22146, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22146
    Note: AP CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicolosi, Gina & Peng, Liang & Zhu, Ning, 2009. "Do individual investors learn from their trading experience?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 317-336, May.
    2. Gervais, Simon & Odean, Terrance, 2001. "Learning to be Overconfident," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 1-27.
    3. Andrew Gelman & Guido Imbens, 2019. "Why High-Order Polynomials Should Not Be Used in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 447-456, July.
    4. Thomas Oberlechner & Carol Osler, 2009. "Overconfidence in Currency Markets," Working Papers 02, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    5. 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.
    6. Oberlechner, Thomas & Osler, Carol, 2012. "Survival of Overconfidence in Currency Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 91-113, February.
    7. Itzhak Ben-David & David Hirshleifer, 2012. "Are Investors Really Reluctant to Realize Their Losses? Trading Responses to Past Returns and the Disposition Effect," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2485-2532.
    8. Juhani T. Linnainmaa, 2011. "Why Do (Some) Households Trade So Much?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1630-1666.
    9. Veronika K. Pool & Noah Stoffman & Scott E. Yonker, 2012. "No Place Like Home: Familiarity in Mutual Fund Manager Portfolio Choice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2563-2599.
    10. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2005. "On the Industry Concentration of Actively Managed Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1983-2011, August.
    11. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2005. "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, February.
    12. 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.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    15. Yao-Min Chiang & David Hirshleifer & Yiming Qian & Ann E. Sherman, 2011. "Do Investors Learn from Experience? Evidence from Frequent IPO Investors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(5), pages 1560-1589.
    16. Locke, Peter R. & Mann, Steven C., 2005. "Professional trader discipline and trade disposition," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 401-444, May.
    17. Richard H. Thaler, 2000. "From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 133-141, Winter.
    18. Ben-David, Itzhak & Birru, Justin & Rossi, Andrea, 2016. "Trading Skill: Evidence from Trades of Corporate Insiders in Their Personal Portfolios," Working Paper Series 2016-08, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    19. Simon Gervais & Itay Goldstein, 2007. "The Positive Effects of Biased Self-Perceptions in Firms," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 11(3), pages 453-496.
    20. Markku Kaustia & Samuli Knüpfer, 2008. "Do Investors Overweight Personal Experience? Evidence from IPO Subscriptions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2679-2702, December.
    21. 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.
    22. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    23. Meir Statman & Steven Thorley & Keith Vorkink, 2006. "Investor Overconfidence and Trading Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(4), pages 1531-1565.
    24. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2009. "Sensation Seeking, Overconfidence, and Trading Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 549-578, April.
    25. Reza Mahani & Dan Bernhardt, 2007. "Financial Speculators' Underperformance: Learning, Self‐Selection, and Endogenous Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1313-1340, June.
    26. Arkes, Hal R. & Christensen, Caryn & Lai, Cheryl & Blumer, Catherine, 1987. "Two methods of reducing overconfidence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 133-144, 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. Itzhak Ben-David & Justin Birru & Viktor Prokopenya, 2018. "Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading [Two methods of reducing overconfidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(6), pages 2009-2036.
    2. 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.
    3. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    4. Forman, John & Horton, Joanne, 2019. "Overconfidence, position size, and the link to performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 291-309.
    5. Barrot, Jean-Noel & Kaniel, Ron & Sraer, David, 2016. "Are retail traders compensated for providing liquidity?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 146-168.
    6. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    7. Pereira Reichhardt, Joaquín & Iqbal, Tabassum, 2014. "Investment Decisions: Are we fully-Rational?," MPRA Paper 57686, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Arnold, Marc & Pelster, Matthias & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2022. "Attention triggers and investors’ risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 846-875.
    9. 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.
    10. Anagol, Santosh & Balasubramaniam, Vimal & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2021. "Learning from noise: Evidence from India’s IPO lotteries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 965-986.
    11. Xu, Rong & Liu, Yaodong & Hu, Nan & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2022. "What drives individual investors in the bear market?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    12. Jin, Miao & Liu, Yu-Jane & Meng, Juanjuan, 2019. "Fat-finger event and risk-taking behavior," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 126-143.
    13. 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.
    14. Helen X. H. Bao & Steven Haotong Li, 2016. "Overconfidence And Real Estate Research: A Survey Of The Literature," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(04), pages 1-24, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas & Pennings, Joost M.E., 2013. "Individual investor perceptions and behavior during the financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 60-74.
    17. 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).
    18. Gemayel, Roland & Preda, Alex, 2021. "Performance and learning in an ambiguous environment: A study of cryptocurrency traders," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2009. "Which past returns affect trading volume?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, February.
    20. Chou, Robin K. & Wang, Yun-Yi, 2011. "A test of the different implications of the overconfidence and disposition hypotheses," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 2037-2046, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:nbr:nberwo:22146. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.