Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors

TLDR

Active trading by individual investors holding common stocks incurs a substantial performance penalty. Among 66,465 households, frequent traders earned only 11.4% versus the market’s 17.9%, with an average return of 16.4% and high turnover, indicating that overconfidence-driven trading harms wealth.

Abstract

Individual investors who hold common stocks directly pay a tremendous performance penalty for active trading. Of 66,465 households with accounts at a large discount broker during 1991 to 1996, those that traded most earned an annual return of 11.4 percent, while the market returned 17.9 percent. The average household earned an annual return of 16.4 percent, tilted its common stock investment toward high-beta, small, value stocks, and turned over 75 percent of its portfolio annually. Overconfidence can explain high trading levels and the resulting poor performance of individual investors. Our central message is that trading is hazardous to your wealth.