The Intelligent Investor

The Internet and the Investor

T he Internet is changing how information is delivered to investors and the ways in which investors can act on that information. It has lowered both the fixed and marginal costs of producing financial services, thus enabling newer, smaller companies to challenge established providers of these services. On-line brokerage firms, such as E*Trade and Ameritrade, are among the most vivid and success...

The Effect of Investor Protection

This paper tests the hypotheses that poor investor-protection environments lead to higher information asymmetry in security markets. We compare China-based stocks, which operate in a relatively unprotected environment, to Hong Kong-based stocks. The information component in the market friction of China stocks is shown to be up to 20% larger than that of Hong Kong-based stocks. The effect is rob...

Taxes and the Marginal Investor

The Influence of Investor Psychology

In 1980s, many empirical researches’ findings (i.e., Shiller(1984), Thaler (1985) et al. ) did not support efficient market hypothesis (EMH). Previous studies (e.g., Bernartzi and Thaler, 1995) related to behavioral model suggest that certain market anomalies are consistent with the presence of irrational trades by investors. Kahneman and Tversky (1979) proposed the prospect theory as an altern...

The Comovement of Investor Attention

Prior literature has documented that investor attention is associated with the pricing of stocks. We examine attention comovement, the extent to which investor attention for a firm is affected by attention paid to the industry and market in general. We find that attention comovement is positively related to comovement in firm fundamentals, and is also related to firm characteristics, such as si...