An examination of the relationship between the disposition effect and gender, age, the traded security, and bullヨbear market conditions

Article history: Received 7 May 2011 Received in revised form 3 November 2012 Accepted 16 January 2013 Available online 26 January 2013 We analyze how gender and age, internal characteristics of retail futures traders—one that remains fixed while the other changes over a lifetime—and the security being traded and bull– bear market conditions, two external factors, are related to the disposition effect by separately tracking their trade-by-trade transaction histories over a period of close to six years on the Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX). We show that women and mature traders, compared with their male and younger counterparts, exhibit a stronger disposition effect. The effect is also stronger among traders who trade financial-sector futures contracts than among those who trade electronic-sector futures contracts. We further demonstrate that a bear market sees a stronger disposition effect. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: G11 G12 G14