Financial Attention
50 Pages Posted: 31 Jul 2012 Last revised: 22 May 2015
Date Written: May 19, 2015
Abstract
This paper investigates investor attention using novel panel data on daily online logins for a large sample of retirement accounts. We find support for selective attention to portfolio information. Account logins fall by 9.5% after market declines. Investors also pay less attention when the VIX volatility index is high. The level of attention and the attention/return correlation are strongly related to investor demographics (gender, age) and financial condition (wealth, holdings). Using a new statistical decomposition, we also show how aggregate and individual household trading are related to investor attention.
Keywords: investors attention, ostrich effect, behavioral economics/finance
JEL Classification: D03, G02
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation