The Follow-On Purchase and Repurchase Behavior of Individual Investors: An Experimental Investigation
Die Betriebswirtschaft, Vol. 71, pp. 139-154, 2011
37 Pages Posted: 20 Oct 2007 Last revised: 21 May 2014
Abstract
We analyze two recently documented follow-on purchase and repurchase patterns experimentally: Individual investors' preference for purchasing additional shares of a stock that decreased rather than increased in value succeeding an initial purchase (pattern 1) and investors' tendency for purchasing stocks that they previously sold at a higher price (pattern 2). Similar to the field data study by Odean, Strahilevitz, and Barber (2004), subjects in our experiment are about 2.5 to 3 times as likely to purchase units of a single fictitious good if the price of the good declined following a purchase or sale in the previous period. As an assignment of choices clearly reduces the effect, we argue that investors are involved in counterfactual thinking: They refrain from purchasing additional shares or repurchasing shares at a higher price because doing so means admitting to their ex post wrong decision.
Keywords: Repurchase, Counterfactual Thinking, Experiment
JEL Classification: C91, D14, D81, G11
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors
By Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean
-
Volume, Volatility, Price, and Profit When All Traders are Above Average
-
The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors
By Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean
-
Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment
By Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean
-
By Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean
-
By Simon Gervais and Terrance Odean
-
By Mark Grinblatt and Matti Keloharju