This study shows that weather-based indicators of mood impact perceptions of mispricing and trading decisions of institutional investors. Using survey and disaggregated trade data, we show that relatively cloudier days increase perceived overpricing in individual stocks and the Dow Jones Industrial Index and increase selling propensities of institutions. We introduce stock-level measures of investor mood; investor optimism positively impacts stock returns among stocks with higher arbitrage costs, and stocks experiencing similar investor mood exhibit return comovement. These findings complement existing studies on how weather impacts stock index returns and identify another channel through which it can manifest.

Alfred Cowles' test of the Dow Theory apparently provides strong evidence against the ability of Wall Street's most famous chartist to forecast the stock market. Cowles (1934) analyzes editorials published by the chief exponent of the Dow Theory, William Peter Hamilton. We review Cowles' evidence and find that it supports the contrary conclusion. Hamilton's timing strategies actually yield high Sharpe ratios and positive alphas for the period 1902 to 1929. Neural net modeling to replicate Hamilton's market calls provides interesting insight into the Dow Theory and allows us to examine the properties of the theory itself out of sample.

Abstract We examine whether professional money managers overreact to large climatic disasters. We find that managers within a major disaster region underweight disaster zone stocks to a much greater degree than distant managers and that this aversion to disaster zone stocks is related to a salience bias that decreases over time and distance from the disaster, rather than to superior information possessed by close managers. This overreaction can be costly to fund investors for some especially salient disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes: a long-short strategy that exploits the overreaction generates a significant DGTW-adjusted return over the following 2 years.

[Campbell, Lettau, Malkiel, and Xu (2001) document a positive trend in idiosyncratic volatility during the 1962-1997 period. We show that by 2003 volatility falls back to pre-1990s levels. Furthermore, we show that the increase and subsequent reversal is concentrated among firms with low stock prices and high retail ownership. This evidence suggests that the increase in idiosyncratic volatility through the 1990s was not a time trend but, rather, an episodic phenomenon, at least partially associated with retail investors. Results from cross-sectional regressions, conditional trend estimation, stock-split events, and "attentiongrabbing" events are consistent with a retail trading effect.]

ABSTRACT We study stock holdings and trading behavior of more than 60,000 households and find evidence consistent with dividend clienteles. Retail investor stock holdings indicate a preference for dividend yield that increases with age and decreases with income, consistent with age and tax clienteles, respectively. Trading patterns reinforce this evidence: Older, low‐income investors disproportionally purchase stocks before the ex‐dividend day. Furthermore, among small stocks, the ex‐day price drop decreases with age and increases with income, consistent with clientele effects. Finally, consistent with the behavioral “attention” hypothesis, we document that older and low‐income investors purchase stocks following dividend announcements.

Abstract This paper examines the characteristics and pricing of stocks that are actively traded by speculative retail investors. We find that stocks with high retail trading proportion (RTP) have strong lottery features and they attract retail investors with strong gambling propensity. Furthermore, these stocks tend to be overpriced and earn significantly negative alpha. The average monthly return differential between the extreme RTP quintiles is −0.60%. This negative RTP premium is stronger among stocks that have lottery features or arelocated in regions where people exhibit stronger gambling propensity. Collectively, these results indicate that speculative retail trading affects stock prices.

This paper examines whether political activism increases people's propensity to participate in the stock market. Our key conjecture is that politically active people follow political news more actively, which increases their chance of being exposed to financial news. Consequently, their information gathering costs are likely to be lower and the propensity to participate in the market would be higher. We find support for this hypothesis using multiple micro-level data sets, state-level data from the US, and cross-country data from Europe. Irrespective of their political affiliation, politically active individuals are 9–25% more likely to participate in the stock market. Using residence in “battleground” states and several other geographic instruments, we demonstrate that greater political activism reduces information gathering costs and causes higher market participation rates. Further, consistent with our conjecture, we find that politically active individuals spend about 30 minutes more on news daily and appear more knowledgeable about the economy and the markets.

Abstract Investment managers are subject to personal and institutional norms that can constrain their investment choices. We conjecture that norm-constrained investors deviate from such norms only when they have compelling information, and we predict that deviating investments earn relatively high abnormal returns ex post. Consistent with our conjecture, we find that institutions averse to holding lottery-like stocks or sin stocks earn relatively high abnormal returns when they choose to hold such stocks. We find similar but weaker results for deviations from broader style categories. Overall, our evidence indicates that deviations from established institutional or social norms signal informed investing.

Abstract Using a demographics-based proxy for smartness, we show that the portfolio distortions of “smart” investors reflect an informational advantage, while the distortions of “dumb” investors reflect psychological biases. Specifically, smart investors outperform dumb investors by about 3% annually on a risk-adjusted basis. Furthermore, among investors with high portfolio distortions, smart investors outperform passive benchmarks by 2%, and the smart-dumb performance differential is 5%. At the stock level, a portfolio of stocks with smart investor clientele outperforms the dumb clientele portfolio by 3.50% annually. These findings suggest that behavioral and information-based explanations for portfolio distortions apply to distinct subsets of investors.

This paper shows that local institutional investors are effective monitors of corporate behavior. Firms with high local ownership have better internal governance and are more profitable. These firms are also less likely to manage their earnings aggressively or backdate options and are less likely to be targets of class action lawsuits. Further, managers of such firms exhibit a lower propensity to engage in “empire building” and are less likely to “lead the quiet life”. Examining the local monitoring mechanisms, we find that local institutions are more likely to introduce shareholder proposals, increase CEO turnover, and reduce excess CEO pay.