Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors

34 Pages Posted: 12 Apr 2000

See all articles by Brad M. Barber

Brad M. Barber

University of California, Davis

Terrance Odean

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business

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Abstract

Individual investors who hold common stocks directly pay a tremendous performance penalty for active trading. Of 66,465 households with accounts at a large discount broker during 1991 to 1996, those that traded most earned an annual return of 11.4 percent, while the market returned 17.9 percent. The average household earned an annual return of 16.4 percent, tilted its common stock investment toward high-beta, small, value stocks, and turned over 75 percent of its portfolio annually. Overconfidence can explain high trading levels and the resulting poor performance of individual investors. Our central message is that trading is hazardous to your wealth.

JEL Classification: G00, G12, G14

Suggested Citation

Barber, Brad M. and Odean, Terrance, Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=219228 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.219228

Brad M. Barber (Contact Author)

University of California, Davis ( email )

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Terrance Odean

University of California, Berkeley - Haas School of Business ( email )

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Berkeley, CA 94720
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HOME PAGE: http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/odean.html

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