Wide framing disposition effect: An empirical study

Julia Brettschneider, Giovanni Burro () and Vicky Henderson

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 185, issue C, 330-347

Abstract: We estimate the disposition effect for active traders in a large discount brokerage dataset containing US households trading records between 1991 and 1996. We apply a wide framing perspective, focusing on portfolios rather than individual stocks. We find that the disposition effect varies inversely with the proportion of stocks trading at a gain in the portfolio, nearly vanishing when this proportion reaches 50%. This is driven by how the realisation of gains and losses depends on the percentage of gains in the account. The probability to realise a loss increases with the percentage of gains in the account. The relation between the probability of realising a gain and the percentage of gains in the bank account follows a U-shape. We also estimate the change in the disposition effect when an investor realises more than one stock on a trading day. We find when investors sell a stock, they are much more likely to also realise another stock on the same day. In particular, selling a loss increases an investor’s propensity to sell a gain and vice versa. This key finding provides an explanation for the observed dependency of the disposition effect on the portfolio composition. We also propose several psychological explanations for our findings.

Keywords: Disposition effect; Wide framing; Portfolio disposition effect; Stock market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C55 D90 G40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:185:y:2021:i:c:p:330-347

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.03.003

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