Retail order imbalance positively correlates with returns in the days following trades. However, in aggregate, retail investor trades lose money over these same periods. Why? 1) While order imbalance tests value or equally weight stocks, retail purchases are concentrated in stocks earning large...

We show that aggregate insider trading (AIT) in the S&P 500 is a reliable predictor of the U.S. equity premium, while AIT outside the S&P 500 seems to be uninformative. Aggregate trading of S&P 500 insiders outperforms a broad set of well-established predictors considering in- and out-of-sample...

Monthly momentum returns increase monotonically across quintile portfolios of stocks sorted by retail trading participation with a top-minus-bottom spread of 1.42% (t-statistics = 3.46). Stocks that are heavily traded by retail investors exhibit lottery-like features such as low prices, high...

Using short sell transactions data from 2010 to 2016, this paper is the first to provide a comprehensive sample of short selling initiated by retail investors. We find that retail short selling can predict negative stock returns. A trading strategy that mimics weekly retail shorting earns an...

We propose a new approach to measuring informed trading in individual securities based on a portfolio optimization model for investors facing information and liquidity shocks. These shocks induce speculative and liquidity-motivated order flow, taking into account the price impact of trading. The...

This paper finds significant predictability in stock returns across technology-linked firms. Using patent-holding information to identify firms' technological linkage, we show that a long–short equity trading strategy sorted on lagged returns of technology-linked firms yields monthly alphas of...

Optimal investment of firms implies that expected stock returns are tied with the expected marginal benefit of investment divided by the marginal cost of investment. Winners have higher expected growth and expected marginal productivity (two major components of the marginal benefit of...

Both short-term momentum and long-term reversal are attributable to investors underreacting to preceding insider trading information. Past winners (losers) continue to earn significant positive (negative) returns in the short term only if their insider trading activity indicates positive...