The drivers and implications of retail margin trading

Jiangze Bian, Zhi Da, Zhiguo He (), Dong Lou, Kelly Shue and Hao Zhou

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Using granular data covering both regulated (brokerage-financed) and unregulated (shadowfinanced) margin accounts in China, we provide novel evidence on retail investors’ margin trading behavior and its price implications. First, we show that retail investors’ decisions to lever up in stock trading despite the hefty borrowing cost is related to their lottery preferences. We then show that margin borrowing affects investors’ trading behavior: investors are more likely to liquidate their holdings as they inch closer to margin calls. Third, we show that margin-induced trading aggregates to affect asset prices and contributes to shock spillovers across stocks (for example, from lottery stocks to non-lottery stocks).

Keywords: margin-induced trading; leverage; liquidation; contagion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G12 G14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-mst
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Finance, 18, July, 2024. ISSN: 0022-1082

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/126110/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:126110

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().