How do individual investors trade?

Nolte, Ingmar and Nolte, Sandra (2012) How do individual investors trade? European Journal of Finance, 18 (10). pp. 921-947. ISSN 1351-847X

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Abstract

This paper examines how high-frequency trading decisions of individual investors are influenced by past price changes. Specifically, we address the question as to whether decisions to open or close a position are different when investors already hold a position compared with when they do not. Based on a unique data set from an electronic foreign exchange trading platform, OANDA FXTrade, we find that investors’ future order flow is (significantly) driven by past price movements and that these predictive patterns last up to several hours. This observation clearly shows that for high-frequency trading, investors rely on previous price movements in making future investment decisions. We provide clear evidence that market and limit orders flows are much more predictable if those orders are submitted to close an existing position than if they are used to open one. We interpret this finding as evidence for the existence of a monitoring effect, which has implications for theoretical market microstructure models and behavioral finance phenomena, such as the endowment effect.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
European Journal of Finance
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2001
Subjects:
?? trading activity datasetorder flowforeign exchange marketmonitoring effecteconomics, econometrics and finance (miscellaneous) ??
ID Code:
64688
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
21 May 2013 09:17
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 13:57