We construct a zero-net-worth uninformed "naive investor" who uses a random portfolio allocation strategy. We then compare the returns of the momentum strategist to the return distribution of naive investors. For this purpose we reward momentum profits relative to the return percentiles of the...

We compare the momentum strategies to "naïve" uninformed strategies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. The high participation of individual investors in these economies makes it an ideal setting to use the score function proposed by Banerjee and Hung (BH, 2011). As in BH we find that the average...

We consider a passive 1/N naive diversification strategy which is long in the equally weighted portfolio of stocks feasible for trading and short in the risk-free asset. We then examine the profi tability, exposures to risk factors, idiosyncratic variance as well as the relation between the...

We create a market-wide measure of dispersion in options investors' expectations by aggregating across all stocks the dispersion in trading volume across moneynesses (DISP). DISP exhibits strong negative predictive power for future market returns and its information content is not subsumed by...

This paper explores the impact of investor sentiment on the risk-neutral skewness of S&P 500 index options over the period 1990 to 2011. We decompose the aggregate investor sentiment into an economic fundamentals component that captures investors' rational updating of beliefs and an error in...

This paper studies the importance of stock market literacy and trust for stock ownership decisions. We find that these two distinct channels simultaneously explain not only the probability of participation, but, conditional on participation, also explain the share of investment in stocks. Once...