American Finance Association, Wiley The Journal of Finance

American Finance Association
Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns

Author(s): Ron Kaniel, Gideon Saar and Sheridan Titman
Source: The Journal of Finance, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Feb., 2008), pp. 273-310
Published by: Wiley for the American Finance Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25094440
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THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE VOL. LXIII, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2008
Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns

RON KANIEL, GIDEON SAAR, and SHERIDAN TITMAN*
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the dynamic relation between net individual investor trading
and short-horizon returns for a large cross-section of NYSE stocks. The evidence in
dicates that individuals tend to buy stocks following declines in the previous month
and sell following price increases. We document positive excess returns in the month
following intense buying by individuals and negative excess returns after individuals
sell, which we show is distinct from the previously shown past return or volume effects.
The patterns we document are consistent with the notion that risk-averse individuals
provide liquidity to meet institutional demand for immediacy.
For a variety of reasons, financial economists tend to view individuals and

institutions differently. In particular, while institutions are viewed as informed
investors, individuals are believed to have psychological biases and are often
thought of as the proverbial noise traders in the sense of Kyle (1985) or Black
(1986). One of the questions of interest to researchers in finance is how the
behavior of different investor clienteles or their interaction in the market affects
returns. In this paper we focus on the interaction between individual investors
and stock returns.
Specifically, we examine the short-horizon dynamic relation between the buy

ing and selling by individuals and both previous and subsequent returns using
a unique data set provided to us by the NYSE. The data set was constructed
from the NYSE's Consolidated Equity Audit Trail Data (CAUD) files that con
tain detailed information on all orders that execute on the exchange. For each
stock on each day we have the aggregated volume of executed buy and sell
orders of individuals. This information enables us to create a measure of net
individual investor trading.
We examine the extent to which intense net buying or selling by individuals
in a stock is related to the stock's past returns and the extent to which such in
tense net trading by individuals predicts future returns. Consistent with earlier
*Ron Kaniel is from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Gideon Saar is from the
Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. Sheridan Titman is from the Mc
Combs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. We wish to thank Shuming Liu for
dedicated research assistance. We are grateful for comments from an anonymous referee, Robert
Battalio, Simon Gervais, John Griffin, Larry Harris, Joel Hasbrouck, Roni Michaely, Terry Odean,
Maureen O'Hara, Lei Yu, and seminar (or conference) participants at Cornell University, Duke
University, INSEAD, London Business School, New York University, Ohio State University, Rice
University, University of Notre Dame, Yale University, and the American Finance Association
meetings. This research began while Saar was on leave from New York University and held the
position of Visiting Research Economist at the New York Stock Exchange. The opinions expressed
in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the members or directors of the NYSE.
273
274 The Journal of Finance

studies, we find that individuals tend to buy after prices decrease and sell af
ter prices increase. The mean market-adjusted return in the 20 days prior to
a week of intense individual selling is 3.15%, while that prior to a week of in
tense individual buying is -2.47%. More interestingly, we find that the trades
of individuals can be used to forecast future returns. Specifically, we find that
stocks experience statistically significant excess returns of 0.80% in the 20 days
following a week of intense buying by individuals, and ?0.33% following a week
of intense individual selling.

Although this paper considers several potential explanations for this find
ing, the one that best explains our findings is that the contrarian tendency of
individuals leads them to act as liquidity providers to institutions that require
immediacy. Following Stoll (1978), Grossman and Miller (1988), and Campbell,
Grossman, and Wang (1993), one can argue that institutional investors who
require immediacy must offer price concessions to induce risk-averse individ
uals to take the other side of their trades, and that this results, in turn, in
subsequent return reversals. This return dynamic is consistent with the return
patterns we observe during and after weeks of intense buying or selling by in
dividuals. We also find that the magnitude of the excess returns is greater in
less liquid stocks, which is consistent with this explanation.
Since individuals tend to buy after prices decrease and sell after prices in
crease, their profits may also relate to the short-horizon return reversals first
observed by Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990). In principle, these reversals
can be due to either illiquidity or investor overreaction.1 If the return reversals
are due to overreaction, then it may be the case that the short-horizon excess
return observed after intense net individual trading simply reflects the fact
that individuals buy after prices decrease and sell after they increase. If this
is the case, then we might expect the predictability result we document to di
minish after controlling for past returns. Alternatively, if return reversals arise
because of illiquidity, and if the aggregate net trading of individuals provides a
better measure of institutions' demand for immediacy than past price changes,
then one might expect intense net individual trades to be a better predictor of
short-horizon returns than past returns.
In addition to past returns, our analysis controls for trading volume in light of
evidence that volume is related to short-horizon returns (e.g., Conrad, Hameed,
and Niden (1994), Gervais, Kaniel, and Mingelgrin (2001), and Llorente et al.
(2002)). Volume can arise from shocks to investor hedging needs, private infor
mation, or trader interest in a given stock. Since such shocks can give rise to
demand by individuals, it is possible that volume and net individual investor
trading contain the same information about future returns.
1 Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990) both discuss the possibility of overreaction. Lehmann
(1990) also suggests that frictions in liquidity provision may explain the weekly reversals and
Jegadeesh and Titman (1995), who examine the relation between return reversals and bid-ask
spreads, provide evidence that is consistent with a liquidity explanation for daily reversals. More
recently, Subrahmanyam (2005) finds no relation between past trade imbalances signed using
the Lee and Ready (1991) algorithm and future returns, which is inconsistent with the liquidity
explanation in a theoretical model he develops to distinguish between illiquidity and overreaction.
Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns 275

To evaluate these different possibilities, we examine the returns of portfo
lios constructed from independent sorts on net individual trading, volume, and
returns. In a double-sort on net individual trading and returns we find a rela

tion between net individual trading and future returns but no evidence of an
independent past return effect. Sorting on net individual trading and volume
shows that both variables predict returns but they seem to contain different
information. We also run multivariate regressions of weekly returns on past
returns, volume, and net individual trading. The results of these regressions
indicate that trading by individuals is a powerful predictor of future returns
that is not subsumed by either past returns or past volume. Correcting for
bid-ask bounce and nonsynchronous trading causes past returns to lose predic
tive power in all but small stocks; net individual trading remains a significant
predictor.
Finally, we look at the question of whether the actions of individuals are
"systematic" in the sense that they affect all stocks at the same time. We conduct
a principal components analysis of net individual trading but do not find strong
evidence of correlated actions of individuals across stocks: The first principal

component of this variable explains only 1.70% of the variance over and above
a simulated benchmark created from independent data.
Our paper is part of a growing literature that examines the dynamic relation
between individual investor trading and returns.2 The evidence on this rela
tionship (especially the direction of returns following individual trading) seems
to differ depending on three dimensions that distinguish the different studies:
(i) the horizon of the dynamic relation (a shorter horizon of days and weeks
versus a longer horizon of several months to a couple of years), (ii) country
(individual investors play different roles in the financial markets of different
countries), and (iii) the nature of the data and whether individual investor
trading is actually observed or has to be inferred. We believe that the evidence
from different countries and different horizons can be reconciled. Accordingly,
we devote Section VII to a thorough discussion of the literature and how our
results relate to other findings.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the
sample and the unique data set we use. Section II presents analysis of the
dynamic relation between net individual trading and returns. The investigation
of short-horizon return predictability and its relation to net individual trading
is carried out in Section III. Sections IV, V, and VI discuss interpretations of the
results and provide additional evidence on competing explanations. Section VII
offers a discussion of the literature on the dynamic relation between individual
trading and returns. In particular, we relate our results to the literature and
seek to understand (or reconcile) seemingly conflicting evidence. Section VIII
2 See, e.g., Odean (1998, 1999), Choe, Kho, and Stulz (1999), Barber and Odean (2000, 2001,
2005), Grinblatt and Keloharju (2000, 2001), Coval, Hirshleifer, and Sumway (2002), Goetzmann
and Massa (2002), Griffin, Harris, and Topaloglu (2003), Jackson (2003), Andrade, Chang, and
Seasholes (2005), Barber et al. (2005), Barber, Odean, and Zhu (2005), Hvidkjaer (2005), Richards
(2005), and San (2005).

looks at the question of whether the actions of individuals are "systematic" in
the sense that they affect all stocks at the same time. Section IX concludes.
I. Data and Sample

We study the trading of individuals using a data set provided to us by the
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The data set contains four years of daily buy
and sell volume of executed individual investor orders for a large cross-section
of NYSE stocks. The data set was constructed from the NYSE's Consolidated
Equity Audit Trail Data (CAUD) files that contain detailed information on all
orders that execute on the exchange, both electronic and manual (those handled
by floor brokers). One of the fields associated with each order, Account Type,
specifies whether the order comes from an individual investor.
The Account Type designation of individual investor orders has its origins in
the aftermath of October 1987. The NYSE introduced the Individual Investor
Express Delivery Service that provides priority delivery of orders that have been
identified as individual investor orders.3 The goal of the service is to ensure that
individual investors are not disadvantaged relative to professional investors
in periods of extreme market conditions. In order to implement the system,
new Account Type categories that identify individual investors were created
in October 1988. Orders coming from individual investors are now marked as
such by their brokers (Account Type is a mandatory field that a broker has to
fill for each order that is sent to the NYSE).
The Account Type field is not audited by the NYSE on an order-by-order
basis. It is reasonable to assume, however, that individual investor orders are
marked as such because designating an order as coming from an individual
investor has some advantages. At the same time, NYSE officials monitor the
use of this field by brokers. Any abnormal use of the individual investor desig
nation in the Account Type field by a brokerage firm is likely to draw attention,
which prevents abuse of the system. We therefore believe that the Account Type
designation of individual investor orders is fairly accurate.
Our sample contains all common domestic stocks that were traded on the
NYSE any time between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2003. The scope of
our data set is large: $1.55 trillion of individual trading in 2,034 NYSE stocks
over 4 years.4 We use the CRSP database to construct the sample, and match
the stocks to the NYSE data set by means of ticker symbol and CUSIP. This
procedure results in a sample of 2,034 stocks. An important advantage of this
3 The service is activated when the Dow Jones Industrial Average moves more than a certain
amount up or down from the previous day's close. When the Individual Investor Express Delivery
Service was introduced in October 1988, the threshold was a 25-point move from the previous day's
close.
4 In comparison, Odean (1998, 1999) uses a sample with $1.1 billion of trading by individual
clients of a certain discount broker during a seven-year period (1987 to 1993). Barber and Odean
(2000, 2001), Coval et al. (2002), and Kumar and Lee (2005) use a different sample with $24.3
billion of individual trading from one discount broker over 6 years (1991 to 1996). Barber and
Odean (2005) study another data set (clients of a full-service retail broker) with data from 1997 to
1999 and individual investor transactions totaling $128 billion.

Table I
Summary Statistics
The sample of stocks for the study consists of all common domestic stocks that were traded on the
NYSE at any time between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2003, with records in the CRSP
database. We use ticker symbol and CUSIP to match the stocks to a special data set containing daily
aggregated buying and selling volume of individuals provided by the NYSE. There are 2,034 stocks
in our sample. In Panel A we provide summary statistics from the CRSP database. For each stock we
compute the following time-series measures: AvgCap is the average monthly market capitalization
over the sample period; AvgPrc is the average daily closing price; AvgTurn is the average weekly
turnover (number of shares traded divided by the number of shares outstanding); AvgVol is the
average weekly dollar volume; and StdRet is the standard deviation of weekly returns. We then
sort the stocks by market capitalization into 10 deciles, and form three size groups: small stocks
(deciles 1, 2, 3, and 4), mid-cap stocks (deciles 5, 6, and 7), and large stocks (deciles 8, 9, and 10).
The cross-sectional mean and median of these measures are presented for the entire sample and
separately for the three size groups. In Panel B we compute from the NYSE data set the following
time-series measures for each stock: the average weekly Dollar Volume, defined as the sum of
executed buy and sell orders, the average weekly Share Volume, and the Executed Order Size of
individual investors in terms of both dollars and shares.
Panel A: Summary Statistics of Sample Stocks (from CRSP)
AvgCap AvgPrc AvgTurn AvgVol StdRet

(in million $) (in $) (in %) (in million $) (in %)
All stocks Mean 5,303.2 59.80 2.52 113.18 0.0700
Median 943.7 21.98 2.05 21.76 0.0589
Small stocks Mean 317.1 13.57 2.37 8.77 0.0836
Median 308.7 11.60 1.63 4.55 0.0697
Mid-cap stocks Mean 1,311.8 25.94 3.22 42.47 0.0667

Median 1,230.3 23.94 2.51 31.23 0.0591
Large stocks Mean 14,054.0 136.87 3.10 302.56 0.0598
Median 5,018.0 37.15 2.56 159.45 0.0532
Panel B: Summary Statistics of Individual Trading from the NY
Individuals Individuals Individuals Individuals
Dollar Volume Share Volume Executed Order Execute
(1000s $) (shares) Size (dollars) Size (shares)
All stocks Mean 4,304.1 169,243 15,822.0 770.9

Median 1,131.0 55,575 13,243.4 644.6
Small stocks Mean 716.3 149,812 8,689.6 904.7
Median 377.1 32,475 7,896.8 722.5
Mid-cap stocks Mean 2,144.2 177,000 15,723.4 711.5
Median 1,417.1 55,460 14,323.0 613.5
Large stocks Mean 11,147.6 329,988 26,083.4 675.0

Median 4,991.8 141,125 22,240.8 618.2
data set is that the information about daily buy and sell volume of i
investors was created by aggregating executed orders, rather than
other words, the classification into buy and sell volume in our data set i
and thus we do not have to rely on classification algorithms such as

proposed by Lee and Ready (1991). Panel A of Table I presents summa
tics from CRSP on the sample stocks (for the entire sample and for
groups).
Panel B of Table I contains summary statistics for the data set. The weekly
dollar trading volume of individuals in the average stock is 4.3 million dollars,

but it ranges from 716,000 dollars in small stocks to over 11 million dollars in
large stocks.5 The average (median) trade size for an individual in our sample is
$15,822 ($13,243), which is somewhat larger than in Barber and Odean (2000),
who report an average trade size of $13,707 for sells and $11,205 for buys
(but much smaller medians, of $5,738 and $4,988, respectively). On the other
hand, the average trade size Barber and Odean (2005) report in the sample
of individuals who use a full-service broker between 1997 and 1999 is $15,209
for buys and $21,169 for sells. The larger average trade size in their sample is
consistent with ours, and may reflect a later period (closer to ours) or a different
clientele (full service versus discount broker). Panel B of Table I also shows
that the average order size of individuals is positively related to the market
capitalization of the stock: The average order size in large stocks is more than
twice that in small stocks.
We should note that some brokers either sell some of their order flow (in
NYSE-listed stocks) to wholesalers for execution or internalize a certain por
tion of their clients' orders by trading as a principal against them. Since such
prearranged trading practices cannot be carried out on the NYSE, these trades
take place on one of the regional exchanges (or, alternatively, are reported to
the NASD) and are therefore not in our sample of NYSE executions. For exam
ple, Schwab internalized 66% of its orders in the fourth quarter of 2003, while
Fidelity sent about 38% of its volume in NYSE-listed stocks to the Boston Stock
Exchange to be executed by its own specialist.6 It is very likely that the fraction
of volume these brokers send to the NYSE consists of orders that create an im
balance not easily matched internally. This means that imbalances in the orders
of individuals find their way to the NYSE even if some of the more balanced
individual volume is executed elsewhere. Therefore, our net individual trading
measure (detailed below) that captures imbalances in individuals' executed or
ders on the NYSE probably reflects (even if not perfectly) the imbalances in the
trading of individuals in the market as a whole.
We construct a daily measure of net individual investor trading by subtract
ing the value of the shares sold by individuals from the value of shares bought,
and we standardize the measure by the average daily dollar volume. Specifi
cally, we define Net Individual Trading (NIT) for stock i on day t as
Individual buy dollar volume; t ~ Individual sell dollar volume;,*
Average daily dollar volume in previous year; t
where the denominator is the stock's average daily dollar volume (from CRSP)
for the year ending on day t - l.7 For most of the work in this paper on
short-horizon predictability of returns, we aggregate the measure to the weekly
frequency to be compatible with prior literature.
5 The reason we provide summary statistics at the weekly frequency is that most of our analysis
is done at that frequency to be compatible with the literature on short-horizon return predictability.
6 These figures are taken from an article by Kate Kelly in the Wall Street Journal ("SEC Overhaul
Could Topple Best-Price Rule," March 5, 2004).

7 E.g., to compute the denominator for February 3, 2000 (for a certain stock), we average the
daily dollar volume over all trading days from February 3, 1999, to February 2, 2000.

Table II provides summary statistics on the weekly NIT measure. In Panel
A we observe that for the average NYSE stock in our sample, the time-series
mean of NIT during the years 2000 to 2003 is negative (i.e., individuals sold
more than they bought).8 Panel B demonstrates that the time-series standard
deviation of a stock's Net Individual Trading measure is rather large, with an
average magnitude of seven times the mean for small stocks or twice the mean
for large stocks. What this means is that although NIT is typically quite small,
there are observations of a rather large NIT.9
Panels A and B of Table II demonstrate that the extent of imbalances in indi
vidual trading varies over time, and can be rather large in magnitude for some
stocks on some weeks. If we were to think in terms of a representative (ag

gregate) individual, then most weeks we would observe that the representative
individual rebalances a bit of his or her holdings in each stock but does not have
a strong, predominant direction. Since our goal is to look for dynamic patterns
that relate the buying or selling desires of this aggregate individual to the re
turns of specific stocks, it is clear that such patterns would be more detectable
by focusing on weeks when this individual is intensely buying or selling stocks.
Therefore, in the next section we use a procedure that, for each week, forms
portfolios of stocks that experience more intense buying or selling by individu
als, and we investigate the return patterns around these occurrences.
II. Dynamic Relation between Net Individual Trading and Returns

Our goal is to look at whether intense imbalances are dynamically related
to short-horizon returns. We believe that such return patterns should manifest
themselves more clearly when one restricts the investigation to more intense
imbalances. Therefore, we use two methods by which every week one can place
stocks into portfolios with intense positive or negative imbalances. The first
method is to cross-sectionally sort on the NIT measure every week and form
decile portfolios (decile 1 is the intense selling portfolio, i.e., the 10% of the
stocks with the most negative NIT that week, and decile 10 is the intense
buying portfolio). By repeating this procedure every week in the sample period,
we obtain a time series of the extreme portfolios that can then be examined.
The second method looks at each stock's past magnitude of NIT in order
to determine whether net individual trading is "intense." Specifically, every
week we put each stock into 1 of the 10 decile portfolios formed by comparing
the NIT value of the stock that week to the NIT values of the same stock in
the previous 9 weeks. If the NIT measure that week is more negative than
the NIT measures of the same stock in the previous 9 weeks, the stock is put
into decile 1 (most intense selling). If the NIT measure is more positive than
8 Note that the time-series mean of weekly NIT is rather small in magnitude, with a median
across stocks of between ?0.0318 and ?0.0659 for the different size quintiles. In dollar terms, the
medians for the size quintiles (from small to large) are -$5,835, -$83,751, -$209,456, -$436,242,
and -$1,417,285.
9 The first-order autocorrelation of the NIT measure is positive and seems to be somewhat lower
for smaller stocks (0.2082) than for larger stocks (0.2825).

Table II
Summary Statistics of Individuals' Trading Imbalances

in our sample. NIT^ for a stock on week t is defined as the dollar volume bought by individuals
minus the dollar volume sold by individuals (both obtained from the NYSE), divided by a moving
average of past 1-year average dollar volume (from CRSP). In Panel A we compute the time
series means of NIT for each stock over the 4-year sample period. We then sort stocks into five
size quintiles according to average market capitalization (from CRSP), and present cross-sectiona
summary statistics of the stocks' NIT for the five size quintiles. In Panel B we compute the time
series standard deviation of NIT of each stock over the sample period and present cross-sectional
summary statistics for the five size quintiles. Panel C presents summary statistics of NIT in weekly
portfolios of stocks that experience intense buying or selling by individuals. For each week in the
sample period, we use the previous 9 weeks to form NIT deciles. Each stock is put into 1 of 10
deciles according to the NIT value in the current week relative to its value in the previous 9 weeks.
Decile 1 contains the stocks with the most intense selling (negative NIT) while decile 10 contains
the stocks with the most intense buying (positive NIT). For each decile, we compute the average
NIT for the stocks in the portfolio. We present time-series summary statistics of the average NIT
in deciles 1 and 10 for the entire sample and separately for the three size groups.
Panel A: Cross-Sectional Distribution of Stocks' Average NIT
Size Quintiles Mean Std. Dev. Min 25% Median 75% Max
Ql (small stocks) -0.0613 0.2208 -2.0811 -0.1245 -0.0318 0.0371 0.6708

Q2 -0.1208 0.2328 -2.6624 -0.1750 -0.0659 -0.0099 0.5938
Q3 -0.1037 0.1904 -2.8527 -0.1355 -0.0581 -0.0165 0.4683
Q4 -0.0715 0.1157 -0.8468 -0.0907 -0.0382 -0.0141 0.2743
Q5 (large stocks) -0.0505 0.0943 -1.0200 -0.0550 -0.0320 -0.0158 0.0750
Panel B: Cross-Sectional Distribution of Stocks' Standard Deviation of NIT
Size Quintiles Mean Std. Dev. Min 25% Median 75% Max
Ql (small stocks) 0.4556 0.3489 0.0046 0.2134 0.4010 0.6061 3.2319
Q2 0.3475 0.3417 0.0100 0.1362 0.2636 0.4464 3.9161
Q3 0.2485 0.2723 0.0017 0.0991 0.1739 0.3014 3.7744
Q4 0.1731 0.1941 0.0060 0.0748 0.1197 0.1974 2.2564
Q5 (large stocks) 0.1041 0.1200 0.0119 0.0571 0.0758 0.1124 1.8754
Panel C: Summary Statistics of NIT in Portfolios of Intense Buying or Selling by Individuals
Portfolio Mean Std. Dev. 25% Median 75%
Intense selling (decile 1) All stocks -0.4171 0.1334 -0.4978 -0.4047 Small stocks -0.6614 0.2316 -0.8119 -0.6241 -0.4910
Mid-cap stocks -0.3487 0.1557 -0.4507 -0.3207 -0.2326

Large stocks -0.1537 0.0582 -0.1939 -0.1455 -0.1079
Intense buying (decile 10) All stocks 0.2048 0.0700 0.1580 0.1970 0.2417
Small stocks 0.3812 0.1198 0.2911 0.3781 0.4473
Mid-cap stocks 0.1118 0.0555 0.0784 0.1016 0.135

Large stocks 0.0507 0.0279 0.0329 0.0474 0.065

the NIT measures of the same stock in the previous 9 weeks, the stock is put
into decile 10 (most intense buying) for that week. Note that the decile portfolios
may contain different stocks in different weeks, but the stocks in these port
folios share the characteristic that their net individual trading is much more
negative (decile 1) or much more positive (decile 10) than the NIT these stocks
experienced in the recent past. We would like to emphasize that the measure
of Net Individual Trading used in the analysis is the level of the imbalance
(not the change in imbalance). The procedure that places stocks into portfolios
simply defines a benchmark that helps us decide whether a particular NIT in
a given week for a given stock is more intense than the "normal" NIT of that
stock.10
We carry out the first method described above as part of our robustness tests,
choosing to present in the paper analyses based on the second methodology for
placing stock/weeks into intense imbalance portfolios. The reason we adopt the
methodology of forming deciles by comparing a stock's NIT each week to its own
past NIT is because the impact of trading imbalances on future prices should
be related to each stock's ability to absorb order flow.11 This portfolio formation
procedure, similar in spirit to the methodology in Gervais et al. (2001), has the
advantage that it uses a moving window of past NIT values and therefore is ro
bust to a potential trend in the measure. It turns out that both procedures yield
similar findings, but we believe using own-stock past values for determining
the deciles is more appropriate for our specific goal of looking at the relation
between imbalances and returns, and hence we present only these results in
the tables.12
Panel C of Table II presents time-series summary statistics for the average
NIT of stocks in deciles 1 and 10 (intense selling and buying, respectively). The
average magnitude of the imbalance for stocks in these deciles can be rather
large: 41.71% of average daily volume when individuals sell and 20.48% when
they buy. Since Panel A of Table II shows that individuals on average sold during
the sample period, the deviation of intense buying or selling from the uncon
ditional mean of NIT is approximately symmetric. Comparing the summary
statistics of the intense NIT portfolios with the information for the entire sam
ple (in Panels A and B of Table II), it appears that decile portfolios 1 and 10 tend
to have average NIT values that are between one and two standard deviations
above or below their time-series means. We check whether our portfolio forma
tion procedure causes us to focus on a somewhat unrepresentative set of stocks,
as we want to be sure that the procedure does not always put in the extreme
10 To have an idea of the dollar magnitude of the intense imbalances of individuals, we compute
the average dollar imbalance of the stocks in each decile portfolio. The time-series mean of the
average dollar imbalance for the decile 1 (decile 10) portfolio is -$3,061,250 ($1,190,945), and the
standard deviation is $1,153,572 ($744,578).
11 Subrahmanyam (2005) makes a similar point, stating that inventory control effects predict
downward pressure on the price of a stock in the absolute rather than the relative (cross-sectional)
sense.
12 The dynamic patterns we find are a bit stronger when we implement the cross-se
procedure.

portfolios the same few stocks that experience consistent buying or selling by
individuals for the entire duration of the 4-year sample period. We therefore
compute for each stock the fraction of weeks it is placed in the decile 1 or decile
10 portfolios. The mean value of this fraction across the sample stocks is 0.1239
(0.1109) for decile 1 (decile 10), which suggests that, indeed, we achieve our goal
of looking at the majority of stocks exactly at those times when these stocks
experience more extreme imbalances.13
Having created the time series of portfolios with intense individual trad
ing imbalances, we turn to investigating the short-horizon dynamic relation
between NIT and returns. Table III presents the cumulative market-adjusted
returns around intense buying or selling by individuals.14 We look at patterns
associated with the intense selling and buying portfolios (decile 1 and decile
10, respectively), but for robustness we also present results for somewhat less
intense trading by forming a selling portfolio from the stocks in deciles 1 and
2, and a buying portfolio from the stocks in deciles 9 and 10. We report the
market-adjusted return during the week of intense individual imbalance, but
our focus is on the short-horizon dynamics. Therefore, market-adjusted cumu
lative returns are calculated for 20, 15, 10, and 5 days before the first day or
after the last day of the intense individual trading week. The cells in the table
contain the time-series means and ^-statistics for each of the cumulative return
measures. We use the Newey-West correction in computing the ^-statistics due

to potential autocorrelation of the errors induced by overlapping periods (es
pecially when the cumulative return measures are for periods longer than one
week).
The first line of the table shows that intense individual selling (decile 1)
follows an increase in stock prices. The mean excess return in the 20 days
prior to the selling week is 3.15%, and the mean excess return in the 5 days
prior to that week is 1.62%. These returns are highly statistically significant.
The last line of the table describes the returns in the week prior to intense
individual buying activity (decile 10). The excess return in the 20 days prior
to intense buying is ?2.47% and is highly statistically significant. We obtain
similar results with the less extreme portfolios (deciles 1 and 2 for selling, and
deciles 9 and 10 for buying), suggesting that our findings are not driven by
outliers.
The table also reveals that there are positive excess returns following weeks
with intense net buying or selling by individuals. The portfolio of stocks in
decile 10 earns market-adjusted returns of 0.32% in the week after intense
13 We also compute the faction of stocks in decile 1 (or decile 10) in week t that were also placed
in the same decile in week t + 1. The time-series average of this fraction is 0.1939 (0.1652) for
decile 1 (decile 10), which is a bit smaller than the first-order autocorrelation of NIT reported in
footnote 9.
14 We use the equal-weighted portfolio of all stocks in the sample as a proxy for the market
portfolio. To create the cumulative returns of the market portfolio, say over a 20-day period, we
first compute for each stock the cumulative (raw) return over the relevant 20-day period. The
average of these returns across the stocks in the sample is what we define as the return on the
equal-weighted market portfolio.
Table III
Returns around Intense Individual Trading
This table presents analysis of market-adjusted returns around intense buying and selling activity of individuals as given by
For each week in the sample period, we use the previous 9 weeks to form NIT deciles. Each stock is put into 1 of 10 deciles a
week relative to its value in the previous 9 weeks. Decile 1 contains the stocks with the most intense selling (negative NIT) w
most intense buying (positive NIT). We present the results for four portfolios: (i) decile 1, (ii) deciles 1 and 2, (iii) deciles 9 and
of days prior to or following the portfolio formation each week. In Panel A, we calculate eight cumulative return numbers
t ? 1), where k e {20,15,10, 5} days and t is the first day of the formation week, and CR(? + 1, t + k), where k e {5,10,15,
week. The return on each portfolio is then adjusted by subtracting the return on a market proxy (the equal-weighted portfolio of all stocks in
time-series mean and ^-statistic for each market-adjusted cumulative return measure and for the market-adjusted return during the intense tr
B, we present the time-series mean and ^-statistics for weekly market-adjusted returns in the 4 weeks around the formation week (i.e., CR(t ?
15, 10, 5} days and t is the first day of the formation week, and CR(? + k - 4, t + k), where k e {5, 10, 15, 20} days and t is the last day of the
significance at the 1% level and * indicates significance at the 5% level (both against a two-sided alternative). The ^-statistic is computed using
Panel A: Cumulative Market-Adjusted Returns around Intense Individual Trading fb
Portfolio fc = -20 fc=--15 & =-10 k = -5 k = 0 k = +5 k =
Intense Selling Mean 0.0315** 0.0299** 0.0247** 0.
(decile 1) ^-statistic (22.62) (22.22) (23.5
Selling Mean 0.0302** 0.0281** 0.0231** 0.0146*
(deciles 1&2) ^-statistic (24.86) (23.73) (24.
Buying Mean -0.0251** -0.0234** -0.0192** -0.0124** -0.0087** 0.0025**
(deciles 9&10) ^-statistic (-24.12) (-24.43) (-24.07) (-23.85)

(decile 10) ^-statistic (-22.21) (-22.61) (-22.58) (-22.04) (-13.90)
Intense Buying Mean -0.0247** -0.0236** -0.0200** -0.0131** -0.0111
-:Pa
In
(d
Se
(deciles 1&2) ^-statistic (5.88) (13.01) (18.91) (23.29) (21.94) (-3.95) (-1.86
Buying Mean -0.0019** -0.0043** -0.0070** -0.0124** -0.0087
(deciles 9&10) ^-statistic (-6.41) (-14.04) (-18.41) (-23.85) (-16.74) (7.14) (5.
Intense Buying Mean -0.0013** -0.0038** -0.0072** -0.0131** -0.0111
(decile 10) ^-statistic (-3.35) (-10.84) (-15.67) (-22.04) (-13.90) (6.97) (4.1

0.3000 -i-1
0.2000-jPj
0.1000--J-?-V
0.0000 < r # ?-+- Ik^^
. ^zm *-+-?*?ii
5 -0-100Q jp? g??* --->,- + ??^
-0.2000-X--f^?
-0.3000-X--/
-0.4000-^
-0.5000 -I
-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
Days
? Decile 1 ???Decile 10
Figure 1. NIT around intense individual trading. This figure presents the Net Individual
Trading (NIT) measure of stocks before, during, and after they experience weeks with intense
buying and selling activity of individuals. For each week in the sample period, we use the previous
9 weeks to form NIT deciles. Each stock is put into 1 of 10 deciles according to the NIT value in
the current week relative to its value in the previous 9 weeks. Decile 1 contains the stocks with
the most intense selling (negative NIT) while decile 10 contains the stocks with the most intense
buying (positive NIT). Let k be the number of days prior to or following portfolio formation each
week. The figures show the average NIT measure of the stocks in decile 1 and 10 during the
intense trading week as well as their average NIT in the 4 weeks around the formation week (i.e.,
CR(t - k, t - k + 4), where k e {20, 15, 10, 5} days and t is the first day of the formation week, and
CR(? + k ? 4, t + k), where k e {5, 10, 15, 20} days and t is the last day of the formation week).
buying and 0.80% in the 20 days following portfolio formation (both statisti
cally significant). The excess return after intense individual selling is smaller
in magnitude (?0.33% after 20 days) but nonetheless statistically significant.
It is also interesting to note that excess returns during the intense trading
week have opposite signs (positive when individuals sell and negative when
individuals buy). We will return to this finding in Section V when we discuss
potential explanations for the patterns we document.
Panel B of Table III looks at the weekly excess returns (as opposed to the
cumulative excess returns) in the 4 weeks around intense trading by individu
als. This enables us to statistically test the hypothesis that the excess return
continues to increase (or decrease) every week. We observe that during the 4
weeks after intense trading by individuals, excess returns continue to accumu
late and the weekly changes are for the most part statistically significant. This
is not due to a continued abnormally large imbalance of individual trading over
that period. Figure 1 shows the NIT of decile 1 and decile 10 stocks around
the formation week. It is clear from the figure that NIT before and after the
formation week does not have the same magnitude but is rather much closer
to the "normal" level (which on average is negative, as Table II indicates).15
15 The excess return does not continue to significantly increase beyond 4 weeks. In Section VI,
when we discuss potential explanations of this pattern, we provide additional evidence on what
happens after 4 weeks.
A. Robustness Tests
We carry out extensive robustness tests that consider how different elements
of the analysis may affect the results. First, to examine the robustness of our
findings to the portfolio formation procedure, we form NIT deciles based on

a weekly cross-sectional sorting and replicate the analysis in Table III. The
results are similar, and both the return patterns prior to individual trading
and the return predictability are statistically significant.
Second, we examine the robustness of our results to different definitions of the
net individual trading measure. We use a nonstandardized measure (without

dividing by the average volume), a measure standardized by average volume
over the entire sample period, a measure standardized by predicted volume
from a regression model, and an imbalance measure constructed by dividing
the dollar buying each week by the sum of dollar buying and selling by indi
viduals. We also use several definitions of the deviations from net individual
trading by subtracting the mean over the sample period, a moving average over
the previous year, or the predicted value from a regression model. The results
using all measures are very similar, showing significant returns prior to indi
vidual trading and return predictability following intense individual trading
imbalances.
Third, we examine the robustness of our results to different definitions of

returns. Specifically, we repeat the analysis with excess returns from a market
model regression, with industry-adjusted returns, with raw returns, and with
returns generated from end-of-day quote midpoints (constructed using the TAQ
database).16 All return definitions generate similar, statistically significant re
sults.
Lastly, we repeat the analysis with two altered samples. Since our sample
period includes a severe decline in the prices of technology stocks, we repeat
our tests excluding the technology sector. We also use a sample that excludes
all stock/weeks with dividend or earnings announcements. We find that the
patterns in these subsamples are similar to those we identify in the complete
sample.17
III. Short-Horizon (Weekly) Predictability of Returns

This section examines how our evidence relates to other evidence of short
horizon return predictability that is described in the existing literature.
We first consider the Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990) findings on

16 For industry-adjusted returns we use a classification into 10 industry portfolios
(based on four-digit SIC codes) made available by Kenneth French. The specification
of the 10 industry portfolios can be obtained from http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pages/
faculty/ken.french/Data-Library/det_10_ind_port.html.
17 The questions of how individuals trade around earnings announcements and whether their
trading can explain known return patterns around corporate events (such as the drift) are of
independent interest (see, e.g., Lee (1992), Nofsinger (2001), Hirshleifer et al. (2002), Frieder (2004),
Shanthikumar (2004), and Vieru, Perttunen, Schadewitz (2005)). We are currently pursuing an
investigation of these questions in a separate paper due to the breadth of the issues associated
with such an analysis.

short-horizon return reversals. Given that intense individual buying follows
a month of negative returns and intense individual selling follows a month
with positive returns, it is possible that the short-horizon excess returns we
document following intense trading imbalances of individuals simply reflect
the Jegadeesh and Lehmann return reversals. We then consider the Gervais et
al. (2001) finding that volume increases predict returns. Since individual trad
ing imbalances may be related to trading volume, it is possible our findings
linking individual trading imbalances and future returns is related to evidence
that increased trading volume predicts returns.
A. Short-Term Return Reversals

To examine this issue we form 25 portfolios by independently placing stocks
into five quintiles based on their weekly return and five quintiles based on
their NIT decile ranking for the week.18 For each portfolio we compute the
market-adjusted return in the following week.19 Panel A of Table IV, which
reports the time-series averages of the weekly market-adjusted returns for the
25 portfolios, reveals no apparent evidence of return reversals in our sample

period when conditioning on NIT. The last two columns of the table look at
the payoffs to a trading strategy that buys quintile 5 and sells quintile 1. If
the return reversal strategy that buys the portfolio with last week's most nega
tive return and sells the one with last week's most positive return can be used
to generate profits, the payoffs in the column Q5-Q1 should be negative and
significant. The table shows that the payoffs to this strategy are not statistically
different from zero in any of the NIT quintiles.20
On the other hand, there is a pronounced pattern within each quintile of past
returns going from past individual selling (NIT quintile 1) to past individual
buying (NIT quintile 5). The market-adjusted return in each column of the table
becomes more positive as we go from the stocks that individuals sold the previ
ous week to those individuals bought. The bottom two rows of the panel provide
information about the payoffs to buying a portfolio that is composed of stocks
that experienced more intense individual buying in the previous week (NIT
quintile 5) and selling those stocks that experienced intense individual selling
(NIT quintile 1) in each return quintile. All these portfolios realize statistically
significant positive payoffs, ranging from 0.24% to 0.60% per week.21
18 As in Section II, every week a stock is assigned a separate decile ranking by comparing its
NIT in that week to its NIT in the previous nine weeks.
19 We examine the robustness of our findings to different definitions of returns by repeating
the analysis using returns adjusted with a market model, industry-adjusted returns, raw returns,
and returns computed from end-of-day quote midpoints (as in Section II). Our conclusions from all
these return definitions are the same.
20 We use the Newey-West correction in the computation of the ^-statistics.
21 The payoffs are in terms of percentage of dollars invested in the long position of this zero
investment strategy.

Table IV
Return Predictability: Portfolio Sorting Approach
This table presents analysis of weekly return predictability conditional on the previous wee
return (Panel A) or turnover (Panel B) and the net individual trading measure (NIT). For ea
week in the sample period, we use the previous 9 weeks to form NIT quintiles. Each stock is pu
into one of the five quintiles according to the NIT value in the current week relative to its val
in the previous 9 weeks (where quintile 1 has stocks with more negative NIT, or more selling, a
quintile 5 has stocks with more positive NIT, or more buying). In Panel A, each week in the sam
period stocks is also sorted on returns and put into five quintiles (quintile 1 has stocks with the m
negative return and quintile 5 has stocks with the most positive return). We then form 25 portfol
as the intersection of the five return quintiles and five NIT quintiles, and compute for each portfol
the market-adjusted return in the week following the formation week. We present the time-series
mean return for each of the 25 portfolios sorted by returns and net individual trading. The last tw
rows of the panel give the payoff to the strategy of buying NIT quintile 5 and selling NIT quintile
1, and the last two columns of the panel give the payoff to the strategy of buying return quintil
5 and selling return quintile 1. Panel B presents similar analysis except that we place stocks
portfolios based on past turnover (rather than past returns) and past NIT. The construction of t
25 portfolios is analogous to the one in Panel A, and the last two columns of the panel give th
payoff to the strategy of buying turnover quintile 5 and selling turnover quintile 1. ** indicat
significance at the 1% level (against a two-sided alternative). The ^-statistic is computed using t
Newey-West correction.
Panel A: Weekly Return Predictability Using Past Return and NIT
Return(?)
NITO) QK<0) Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (>0) Q5-Q1 ^-statistic

Q1(<0) -0.0022 -0.0019 -0.0007 -0.0007 -0.0016 0.0006 (0.35)
Q2 -0.0010 -0.0012 -0.0011 -0.0013 -0.0026 -0.0016 (-0.90)
Q3 -0.0001 -0.0017 -0.0007 -0.0010 -0.0012 -0.0011 (-0.63)
Q4 0.0024 -0.0002 -0.0001 0.0005 0.0002 -0.0023 (-1.54)
Q5(>0) 0.0038 0.0008 0.0017 0.0018 0.0022 -0.0016 (-1.00)
Q5-Q1 0.0060** 0.0027** 0.0024** 0.0025** 0.0038**
^-statistic (4.87) (2.92) (3.38) (3.26) (3.43)
Panel B: Weekly Return Predictability Using Past Turnover and N
Turnover^)
NITO) QK<0) Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (high) Q5-Q1 ^-statistic

Q1(<0) -0.0033 -0.0031 -0.0021 -0.0005 0.0004 0.0037** (2.78)
Q2 -0.0040 -0.0035 -0.0015 -0.0004 0.0015 0.0055** (3.94)
Q3 -0.0041 -0.0021 -0.0012 0.0000 0.0013 0.0054** (3.89)
Q4 -0.0026 -0.0012 0.0012 0.0028 0.0044 0.0070** (5.41)
Q5(>0) 0.0006 0.0003 0.0008 0.0030 0.0046 0.0040** (2.98)
Q5-Q1 0.0039** 0.0034** 0.0029** 0.0035** 0.0042**
^-statistic (2.95) (3.58) (3.44) (3.20) (3.64)
B. Trading Volume and Future Returns
We also consider the possibility that net individual trading pre
because of its correlation with volume, which was shown by Gervai

to predict future returns. To examine whether the NIT-return relationship is
independent of volume we repeat the analysis placing the stocks each week into
five quintiles of NIT and five quintiles of turnover. The assignment of a stock
into a turnover quintile in a given week follows the methodology in Gervais et
al. and is similar in nature to the way we assign stocks into NIT quintiles each
week (the turnover of a stock in a certain week is compared to the turnover of
the same stock in the previous nine weeks). Twenty-five portfolios are formed
as the intersection of the five turnover quintiles and the five NIT quintiles, and
their excess returns in the following week are calculated.22
Panel B of Table IV reveals that the information in the NIT measure is distinct
from that in turnover, and both provide independent information about future
returns. In particular, the strategy of buying the stocks in NIT quintile 5 and
selling the stocks in NIT quintile 1 produces statistically significant payoffs in
each turnover column, and the strategy of buying the stocks in turnover quintile
5 and selling those in turnover quintile 1 generates statistically significant
payoffs in each NIT row.
The finding that both net trading of individual investors and turnover predict
the subsequent week's return is especially interesting. Gervais et al. (2001)
suggest that the high-volume return premium, or the tendency of prices to
increase after periods with high turnover, is due to shocks in trader interest.
If high volume attracts investor attention to the stock, the investor recognition
hypothesis (e.g., Merton (1987)) argues that the stock's value would increase
due to better risk sharing. It is reasonable to assume that individual investors
do not follow all the stocks all the time but may be attracted to a certain stock
after a volume shock brings media attention to it. This reasoning suggests
that conditioning on a variable that specifically measures individual investor
trading could potentially explain the high-volume return premium, leaving no
role for turnover.
Our findings, however, suggest that turnover and NIT contain different in
formation and neither of them subsumes the other. One possible explanation
for this result is that the short-horizon relation between net individual trad
ing and returns is nonlinear. Since volume is an absolute value measure while
NIT is a directional measure, the nonlinearity means that volume will show up
significantly as well.
To examine turnover, NIT, and past returns simultaneously we estimate a
series of Fama and MacBeth (1973) regressions, where returns in week t are
regressed on week t ? 1 returns, NIT, and turnover.23 To be consistent with the
methodology we implement in Section II, we transform NIT into decile ranks
22 We compute the correlation between the NIT ranks and the turnover ranks for each stock.
The mean correlation across the stocks in the sample is ?0.055 and the standard deviation is
0.1782. This relatively low correlation means that the independent sorting procedure results in a
reasonable number of stocks in each of the 25 portfolios.
23 Specifically, a cross-sectional regression is performed for each week in the sample period.
We then construct test statistics based on the time series of the estimated coefficients (using the
Newey-West correction for the standard errors).

(the NITDecile variable).24 Similarly, we transform turnover into decile ranks
because Gervais et al. (2001) find such a transformation of volume useful in
predicting returns.
In Panel A of Table V we use CRSP returns to facilitate comparison with
most of the papers in the return predictability literature. In both the univariate
and multivariate regressions, the coefficients on NITDecile and TurnoverDecile
are positive and highly statistically significant, which is consistent with the
findings in the last table, but the coefficient on past return is negative and
significant, which is consistent with past literature but seems inconsistent with
the results from the portfolio-sorting approach.25 In the separate regressions
on small, mid-cap, and large stocks we observe that the significant relation
between past returns and future returns is driven entirely by the smaller stocks.
The significant showing of past returns in the sample of small stocks
prompted us to examine the robustness of these results to two issues: bid-ask

bounce and nonsynchronous trading.26 To eliminate the effect of bid-ask bounce
we use the TAQ database to create a return series from end-of-day quote mid
points.27 The closing TAQ midpoint may also mitigate the problem of nonsyn
chronous trading. Since the specialist keeps a binding quote in each stock and
can change the quote even when there is no trading, the quote prevailing at the
close of the market presumably contains updated pricing information even if

the last trade occurred long before the close.
Panel B of Table V presents the results of the regressions with the midquote
returns. While both NIT and turnover are strongly related to future returns
in the entire sample and all subsamples, the past return effect is weaker with
midquote returns. Here, the past return is not significant in the regression on
the entire sample and it comes out significant only in the small-cap subsample,
with a significance level that is weaker than that observed in the regressions
using CRSP returns.
24 For robustness, we also run the regressions using NIT, rather then the NIT decile ranks, as
the independent variable. This specification is similar in spirit to the cross-sectional robustness
tests that we conduct in Section II. The results are similar in that the mean coefficient on NIT is
positive and statistically significant in all the models (univariate and multivariate).
25 While the mean coefficient on past returns is much larger in magnitude than the mean coeffi
cients on NITDecile and TurnoverDecile, the past return effect is in fact much smaller than the NIT
or volume effects. To see this note that the magnitude of a typical weekly return is on the order of
10~2, which means that its effect on future returns (after multiplying by the regression coefficient)
is on the order of 10~4. In contrast, the mean of the decile rank variable used for NITDecile (or
TurnoverDecile) is about 5.5, which means that the effects of NIT and volume on future returns
are on the order of 10~3.
26 Conrad, Gultekin, and Kaul (1997) claim that a large portion of the documented weekly return
reversal can be explained by bid-ask bounce. Lo and MacKinlay (1990) present a framework in
which nontrading induces negative serial correlation in the returns of individual stocks. While
their simulations show that the impact of nontrading on short-horizon returns of individual stocks
is negligible, it can still contribute to the significant coefficient that we find on past returns.
27 Since the quality of intraday data in TAQ may not be as high as the quality of the CRSP data,
if the absolute value of the difference between the TAQ return and the CRSP return is greater than
15%, we set the TAQ return to a missing value for the purpose of the regressions.

Table V
Return Predictability: Fama-MacBeth Approach
This table presents a regression analysis of short-horizon (weekly) return predictability. The d
pendent variable is weekly return, Return(? +1), and the independent variables are an intercep
Return(^), NITDecile(^), and TurnoverDecile(?). The TurnoverDecile variable is similar to that
Gervais et al. (2001). It classifies the weekly turnover (number of shares traded over the numb
of shares outstanding) into 10 deciles by comparing it to the same stock's turnover in the previ
9 weeks. The net individual trading (NIT) measure is described in Section I, and the NITDec
variable is constructed in a similar fashion to TurnoverDecile. We implement a Fama-MacB
methodology for the regressions: (i) a cross-sectional regression is performed for each week in t
sample period and (ii) test statistics are based on the time series of the coefficient estimates. W
present the mean coefficient from the weekly regressions, and use the Newey-West correction
the standard errors to compute the ^-statistics. In Panel A we use CRSP returns, while in Pan
B we compute returns using end-of-day quote midpoints from the TAQ database. ** indicates
nificance at the 1% level and * indicates significance at the 5% level (both against a two-sid
alternative).
Panel A: CRSP Returns
Turnover
Intercept Return(?) NITDecile(?) Decile(e)
Size Groups (^-statistic) (^-statistic) (^-statistic) (^-statistic

All stocks 0.0035 -0.0225**
(1.93) (-3.10)
(0.45)
0.0008 0.0005**
(7.28)
-0.0006
0.0007**
(-0.31)
(6.87)
-0.0030 -0.0215** 0.0004** 0.0007**
(-1.53) (-2.97) (6.65) (7.71)
Small stocks 0.0028 -0.0312**
(1.32) (-3.93)
-0.0008
(-0.39)
0.0006**
(6.50)
-0.0028
0.0010**
(-1.28)
(7.97)
-0.0057* -0.0316** 0.0005** 0.0010**
(-2.56) (-3.96) (5.64) (8.39)
Mid-cap stocks 0.0042* -0.0053

(2.34) (-0.54)
(1.30)
0.0024 0.0004**
(5.36)
0.0028
(1.40)
0.0003**
(3.18)
0.0004 -0.0033 0.0004** 0.0003**
(0.19) (-0.34) (5.24) (3.34)
Large stocks 0.0035* -0.0203

(1.99) (-1.68)
(0.82)
0.0015 0.0004**
(4.33)
0.0016
(0.77)
0.0003**
(2.77)
-0.0004 -0.0158 0.0003** 0.0003**
(-0.17) (-1.30) (4.24) (3.35)
{continued)

Table V?Continued
Panel B: Midquote Returns from the TAQ Database
Turnover
Intercept Return(f) NITDecile(f) Decile(?)
Size Groups (^-statistic) (^-statistic) (^-statistic) (^-statisti

All stocks 0.0031 -0.0132
(1.73) (-1.91)
(0.33)
0.0006 0.0005**
(7.03)
-0.0007
(-0.37)
0.0007**
(6.76)
-0.0031 -0.0122 0.0004** 0.0007**
(-1.60) (-1.76) (6.84) (7.44)
Small stocks 0.0024 -0.0177*
(1.15) (-2.51)
-0.0011
(-0.52)
0.0006**
(6.19)
-0.0029
(-1.30)
0.0009**
(8.35)
-0.0057* -0.0180* 0.0005** 0.0009**
(-2.57) (-2.54) (5.71) (8.67)
Mid-cap stocks 0.0039* -0.0016

(2.18) (-0.16)
(1.21)
0.0022 0.0004**
(5.06)
0.0026
(1.29)
0.0003**
(2.97)
0.0003 0.0005 0.0004** 0.0003**
(0.15) (0.05) (5.06) (3.02)
Large stocks 0.0032 -0.0167

(1.79) (-1.38)
(0.66)
0.0012 0.0004**
(4.28)
0.0013
(0.62)
0.0003**
(2.70)
-0.0007 -0.0121 0.0003** 0.0003**
(-0.36) (-1.00) (4.32) (3.24)
The finding of no return reversals, even in
cap and large stocks seems surprising give

of short-horizon return dynamics. Since th
does not overlap with the sample periods
of weekly return reversals, we use the sam
reversals over 4-year periods starting in 1964
light on whether this phenomenon has cha
period we study is unusual relative to the per
The results in Table VI indicate that the

been changing. The second column of Table
Table VI
Return Predictability: Historical Trends co
This table presents an investigation of historical trends in short-horizon (weekly) return predictability with pa
The dependent variable is weekly return (from CRSP), Return^ + 1), and the independent variables are an in
Fama-MacBeth methodology for the regressions: (i) a cross-sectional regression is performed for each week in t
are based on the time series of the coefficient estimates. We present the mean coefficient from the weekly
correction for the standard errors to compute the ^-statistics. Since our main analysis (e.g., Table V) uses 4 yea
historical trends by running the regressions on nonoverlapping 4-year periods going back from 2003 to the
The table presents regression results for all stocks and by size groups. We sort stocks according to market c
deciles 1, 2, 3, and 4 as small stocks, deciles 5, 6, and 7 as mid-cap stocks, and deciles 8, 9, and 10 as large st
level and * indicates significance at the 5% level (both against a two-sided alternative).
All Stocks Small Stocks Mid-Cap Stocks Large S
Intercept Return(?) Intercept Return(^) Intercept Return(tf
1964-1967 0.0039** -0.0765** 0.0054** -0.0925** 0.0036** -0.0
(3.21) (-11.33) (3.77) (-12.32) (2.95) (-8.
1968-1971 0.0013 -0.0920** 0.0013 -0.1084** 0.0
(0.63) (-12.63) (0.58) (-12.83) (0.64) (-9.
1972-1975 0.0004 -0.0973** 0.0006 -0.1263** 0.0004 -0.08
(0.16) (-14.59) (0.22) (-17.86) (0.16) (-10

(3.04) (-12.58) (3.33) (-13.98) (3.06) (-10
0.0051** -0.0698** 0.0061** -0.0765** 0.0050** -0.0
1976-1979 0.0046** -0.0797** 0.0062** -0.0930** 0.0

1980-1983
(3.04) (-13.34) (3.38) (-13.49) (2.99) (-10.6
1984-1987 0.0023 -0.0688** 0.0013 -0.0758** 0.0026 -0.072
(1.10) (-10.84) (0.58) (-10.50) (1.26) (-9.16) (1.8
1988-1991 0.0036* -0.0909** 0.0033 -0.1114** 0.0033* -0.035
(2.16) (-7.83) (1.64) (-7.06) (2.19) (-4
1992-1995 0.0031** -0.0730** 0.0035** -0.0936** 0.0026** -0.033
(3.37) (-12.63) (3.14) (-11.59) (2.92) (-4.50) (3.5
1996-1999 0.0028 -0.0376** 0.0022 -0.0448** 0.0029 -0.01
(1.74) (-5.69) (1.27) (-6.75) (1.72) (-1.48) (2.
2000-2003 0.0031 -0.0229** 0.0038* -0.0383** 0.0033 0.0099 0.0
(1.78) (-3.27) (1.98) (-4.94) (1.86) (1.09) (1.

estimated mean coefficients over the past decade or so since the publication
of the work by Lehmann (1990) and Jegadeesh (1990) on the predictability of
short-horizon returns. While the magnitude of the mean coefficient on past re
turns fluctuates over the decades, it monotonically decreases from the 1988 to
1991 period (-0.0909) to the 2000 to 2003 period (-0.0229).28 The analysis of
size groups shows that the decline in the magnitude and significance of the
mean coefficient over the past decade can be found in stocks of all sizes. Since
small stocks demonstrate a higher degree of weekly return reversal than mid
cap or large stocks, the declining trend still leaves a statistically significant
mean coefficient during our sample period, 2000 to 2003. The smaller mag
nitude of reversals in larger stocks coupled with the declining trend over the
past decade result in nonsignificant mean coefficients for the mid-cap and large
groups in the most recent 4-year period.
IV. Are the NIT Returns Associated with Increased Risk?

Before considering alternative explanations for the observed relation be
tween NIT and returns, it is important to examine whether individual trading
is associated with changes in the riskiness of stocks. One possibility is that
institutions sell shares to individuals when they consider the shares too risky.
Alternatively, following the logic of De Long et al. (1990a), one might conjecture
that increased individual trading can make stocks more volatile or riskier. In
either case, the higher returns in the weeks following an increase in NIT may
simply be compensation for the increased risk.
To examine in more detail volatility patterns around intense trading by in
dividuals, we follow the same basic procedures that generated the numbers in
Table III but calculate volatility rather than mean returns. We compute for
each stock in each of the four portfolios the standard deviation of daily returns
in 9-day windows centered on k = ?20, ?15, ?10, ?5, 0, +5, +10, +15, and+20
days (where day 0 is the middle of the formation week). Since we are interested
in abnormal volatility around intense individual trading activity, we subtract
from these numbers the "normal" 9-day return standard deviation (which we
compute as the average of daily return standard deviations on all nonover
lapping 9-day windows in the sample period). Table VII, which presents the
mean of these abnormal volatility measures in each NIT portfolio, tells us how
volatility of returns evolves around the intense trading of individuals.
A clear pattern emerges from the table: Volatility increases prior to intense in
dividual activity and subsequently decreases. Take, for example, return volatil
ity around intense individual selling (first line of the table, going across the
columns). It is -0.0001 below average volatility at k = -20, then increases to
0.0012 above average volatility at k = -5, reaches 0.0018 at k = 0, and then
decreases to -0.0008 by k = +20. The next two columns test the increase of
28 One possible explanation for the decrease in magnitude of the reversals since the beginning
of the 1990s is the decrease in bid-ask spreads over that period, which would result in less bid-ask
bounce.
Table VII
Return Volatility around Individual Tr
This table presents analysis of daily standard deviation of returns around intense buying and selli
measure (NIT). For each week in the sample period, we use the previous 9 weeks to form NIT deciles
in the current week relative to its value in the previous 9 weeks. Decile 1 contains the stocks with
the stocks with the most intense buying (positive NIT). We present the results for four portfolios: (i)
10. For each stock and each week, we calculate the standard deviation of daily returns in a 9-day w
where k = 0 is the middle of the formation week. We subtract from these numbers the "normal"
of daily return standard deviations on all nonoverlapping 9-day windows in the sample period). E
across all the stocks in each of the four portfolios. Each cell in the table contains the time-series mean for each portfo
zero mean. The last three columns provide the differences in standard deviations from k = -20 to k = 0, k = 0 to k = +20, and k = -2
testing the hypothesis of zero differences. ** indicates significance at the 1% level and * indicates significance at the 5% level (both ag
Portfolio & = -20 & = -15 k = -10 k =-5 k = 0 k = +5 k = +10 k = +
Intense selling -0.0001 -0.0002 -0.0001 0.0012** 0.0018** 0.0002 -0.0006 -0.00
(decile 1) (-0.29) (-0.38) (-0.29) (2.60) (4.22) (0.45) (-1.30) (-1.73) (-
Selling (deciles 1 0.0001 0.0001 0.0002 0.0008 0.0009* -0.0002 -0.

and 2) (0.22) (0.22) (0.42) (1.88) (2.07) (-0.44) (-1.35) (-1.78) (-1.79
Buying (deciles 9 -0.0008 -0.0008* -0.0004 0.0005 0.0013** 0.0007 0

and 10) (-1.89) (-2.05) (-1.09) (1.22) (2.66) (1.57) (0.18) (0.04) (-0.2
Intense buying -0.0010** -0.0011** -0.0008* 0.0008 0.0022** 0.001
(decile 10) (-2.62) (-2.83) (-2.00) (1.83) (4.50) (2.68) (0.62) (0.17) (-0.1

volatility from k = ? 20 to k = 0, which is 0.0020 and statistically significant, and
the decrease of ?0.0027 from k = 0 to k = +20, again statistically significant.

The last column of the table tests the more "permanent" change in volatility,
from k = ?20 to k = +20, and finds no significant change. An even greater
increase in volatility (0.0033) is observed from k = ?20 to k = 0 before intense
buying activity (decile 10), and most of it is subsequently reversed (?0.0023)
from k = 0 to k = +20.29
There is some evidence of a gradual decline in volatility, and at k = +5 the
return standard deviation following intense buying by individuals is still 0.0013
higher than average, which is statistically significant. However, the magnitude
of the elevated volatility is quite small (about 10% of the average standard
deviation), and volatility goes down back to the normal level in the following
week. Therefore, it seems that the increase in volatility we observe is too small
and too temporary in nature to explain the excess returns we observe.30
V. Individual Investors as Liquidity Providers

Up to this point we have established that there is a positive association be
tween NIT and future returns, that these return patterns are not subsumed by
existing return patterns observed in the literature, and that NIT does not seem
to be associated with increases or decreases in volatility.
In this section we discuss what we believe is a plausible explanation for the

finding of positive (negative) short-horizon excess returns following intense
individual buying (selling). At the outset, we emphasize that although we find
that individual investor trades contain information that can be used to forecast
returns over short horizons, this does not necessarily imply that individual
investors, who have much longer holding periods, realize abnormal returns.
The question of interest to us is not whether individuals realize these excess
returns, but rather why we observe them.
The explanation that we find most consistent with the data is that individu
als earn a small excess return following periods of high NIT as compensation
for providing liquidity to institutions that require immediacy. Price pressure
exerted by institutional trading is consistent with both the contemporaneous
pattern we observe?positive excess returns when individuals intensely sell and
negative excess returns when individuals intensely buy?and with the patterns
of excess returns following intense individual trading. What may be happening
is that individuals sell shares when buying pressure from institutions pushes
prices up and buy shares when selling pressure from institutions pushes prices
down. We do not claim that individuals provide liquidity by trading actively like
29 We also test the hypothesis that the increase in volatility before a week of intense trading
is equal to the decrease in volatility afterwards, and cannot reject it at conventional significance
levels.
30 In addition to examining changes in volatility, we examine changes in the betas and conduct a
similar analysis to that in Table VII using the beta of stocks (with respect to the value-weighted in
dex) instead of the standard deviation of returns. As in Table VII, there is no statistically significant
change between the betas computed at k = ?20 and at k = +20.

dealers making two-sided markets. Rather, it could be that when institutions
trade large positions in a certain direction and start moving prices, individuals
end up taking the other side of these positions.31
The pattern we observe whereby individuals buy when prices decline and
sell when prices increase makes them natural liquidity providers irrespective
of whether they use market or limit orders. In fact, practitioners often define
liquidity-supplying orders as buy orders placed when the stock price is falling
and sell orders placed when the stock price is rising.32 We know from models of
risk-averse liquidity provision such as Grossman and Miller (1988) and Camp
bell et al. (1993) that investors who require immediacy (e.g., institutions) must
offer price concessions to induce other risk-averse investors, in this case indi
viduals, to take the other side of their trades. These price concessions result in
subsequent return reversals because the future cash flows of the stock do not
change, and these could be the short-horizon excess returns we find following
intense individual trading.
Note that the negative excess return after individuals sell is smaller in mag
nitude than the positive excess return during the week of intense selling (the
"k = 0" column in Table III). Similarly, the positive excess return after indi
viduals buy is smaller in magnitude than the negative excess return during
the week in which they buy. This seems to suggest that there is a "permanent"
price impact to the institutional trading activity in addition to the "temporary"
price impact that is due to risk-averse liquidity provision. Our results are there
fore consistent with studies that show that the price pressure associated with
institutional trading is only partially reversed subsequently (see, e.g., Chan and
Lakonishok (1993,1995), Keim and Madhavan (1997), and Campbell, Ramado
rai and Vuolteenaho (2005)). Our results are also consistent with Campbell et
al. (2005), who use institutional 13-F filings and trade information from TAQ to
identify institutional trading. Their results suggest that institutions demand
rather than provide liquidity, and seem particularly likely to demand liquidity
when they sell stocks. They note that our results complement theirs, and in
deed the two studies document return patterns that mirror each other using
very different data sources.
If the excess returns we document following intense net individual trading
represent "compensation" for providing liquidity to institutions, we should ex
pect to find larger compensation for accommodating institutional order flow in
less liquid stocks. To test this hypothesis we use the percentage effective spread
(the distance of the transaction price from the quote midpoint divided by the
31 Institutional investors often seek to acquire or dispose of large positions in a stock and there
fore the impact of their trading on market prices can be significant. Furthermore, when different
portfolio managers chase after the same alpha (i.e., correlated trading strategies), the price impact
of their trading can be further amplified. The investment style of portfolio managers and their
motivation for the change in position often determine the demand for immediacy of execution and,
in turn, the price impact of trading (see, e.g., Wagner and Edwards (1993), Chan and Lakonishok
(1995), and Keim and Madhavan (1997)).

32 See, e.g., Wagner and Edwards (1993).

quote midpoint) as a proxy for the liquidity of a stock.33 The larger the effective
spread, the greater the price movement on trades and therefore the less liquid
the stock. We sort stocks each week according to the average percentage effec
tive spread and put them into three groups: small, medium, and large. We then
form the intense buying and intense selling portfolios of individuals separately
for each spread group. We find that the excess returns are indeed larger in
less liquid stocks, especially when individuals buy: The 20-day excess return
on portfolio 10 is 0.42% in the small spread group, 0.59% in the medium spread
group, and 1.40% in the large spread group.34

There is a vast literature in market microstructure on the cost of trade ex
ecution, but much less work exists on the liquidity implications of aggregate
imbalances of a specific clientele.35 Two studies that use trade imbalances re
port return reversals of similar magnitude to ours. Chordia and Subrahmanyam
(2004) look at the profitability of trading strategies that use previous-day trad
ing imbalances signed with the Lee and Ready (1991) algorithm. They find that
return reversals in the following day (which they attribute to an "inventory"
effect or the provision of liquidity by risk-averse agents) can be used to form
a strategy that yields a statistically significant daily average return of 0.09%.
Barber et al. (2005) look at imbalances of small trades signed by the Lee and
Ready (1991) algorithm and report a return of 0.73% (-0.64%) in the month
after a week with intense positive (negative) small-trade imbalances.36
VI. Other Potential Explanations

Probably the most straightforward explanation for our finding of positive
(negative) short-horizon excess returns following intense individual buying
(selling) is that individuals whose trades are executed on the NYSE have pri
vate information about the fundamentals of stocks. Coval et al. (2002) suggest
that individual investors are better able to exploit their private information (be
cause they are small relative to institutions) and look for evidence in the 1991 to
1996 discount broker data set. They document persistence in the performance
33 The percentage effective spread measure is constructed using the TAQ database.
34 In light of the literature on the relation between liquidity and expected returns, one could
argue that sorting on spread is basically sorting on a stock characteristic that could be priced. As
such, the result of higher excess returns following purchases by individuals in the high effective
spread group could mean that individuals buy riskier stocks. We therefore compute excess returns
by subtracting the return on a portfolio of stocks with similar spreads as opposed to subtracting
the return on the proxy for the market. E.g., the excess return on the intense buying portfolio in
the small spread group is its raw return minus the return on the entire small spread group.
35 The market microstructure literature often looks at more basic units of liquidity demand (e.g.,
trades) and quantifies the compensation for liquidity provision using a measure such as the realized
spread (the reversal from the trade price to a post-trade benchmark price). Owing to the aggregate
nature of the daily data we obtain from the NYSE, however, we cannot relate our results directly
to those studies.
36 Campbell et al. (1993) use another approach to demonstrate return reversals due to liquidity
provision. They regress the current return on past daily volume (signed by the past return) and
find a significant negative coefficient. This approach is also used in Pastor and Stambaugh (2003).

of some individual investors, and while on average individuals in their sample
underperform, they document that some traders earn 12 to 15 basis points per
day during the week after they trade.
However, adopting such an interpretation to explain our results would sug

gest that individuals in the aggregate, or at least those individuals who heavily
influence our sample on weeks when there is an intense imbalance of trad
ing, are somehow better informed than the institutions with whom they trade.
While plausible, we find this explanation less appealing since it is unclear how
individuals, who have far fewer resources than institutions, could gain the up
per hand in discovering private information and trading on it profitably in such
a widespread fashion.37
Figure 2 shows the cumulative excess returns up to 50 days following a week
with intense individual imbalances. It seems that the magnitude of the excess
returns stabilizes starting 20 days after intense individual buying or selling.
Coval, Hirshleifer, and Shumway note that the average holding period for in
dividuals in the 1991 to 1996 discount broker sample is 378 days (301 days for
traders with at least 25 trades). If this is also the typical holding period of in
dividuals who trade on the NYSE, then they do not trade frequently enough to
take advantage of whatever short-lived private information they have. Another
piece of evidence that seems inconsistent with the hypothesis that the return
patterns are due to individual investors trading on short-lived private informa
tion can be seen in Table III. Prices during the intense trading week seem to go
in the opposite direction to what this hypothesis would imply: negative returns
when individuals intensely buy and positive returns when they sell.38
Another potential explanation for our results is that increased individual
buying is associated with increases in the visibility of the stocks, and this could
lead to the subsequent increase in share prices. As we mentioned earlier, Mer
ton (1987) suggests that increased recognition by individual investors can lead
to broader risk sharing, which in turn can reduce required rates of return and
as a result increase stock prices. However, Merton's story requires an imme
diate increase in share prices as the visibility of the stock increases, which is
inconsistent with what we observe. Indeed, we find a contemporaneous decline
in stock prices in weeks in which individuals accumulate shares.
One might also consider the possibility that the serial correlation of order im
balances by individual investors generates our returns. This is essentially the
argument made in a recent paper by Barber et al. (2005), who find that an in
crease in small-trade buying in week 1 is associated with high contemporaneous
37 It is possible that the orders executed on the NYSE come from relatively sophisticated individ
ual investors. In other words, it could be that the distribution across individuals in our data set is
different from the one in the data set of the discount broker's clients, and that more individuals in
our data set are like the skillful individuals that Coval, Hirshleifer, and Shumway document. One
piece of evidence inconsistent with this explanation, however, comes from Jones and Lipson (2004),
who also use proprietary NYSE order-level data. They find that orders coming from individuals
have smaller permanent price impacts relative to institutional orders, suggesting that individuals
have less private information than institutions about stocks' fundamentals.
38 We thank the referee for pointing out this test of the short-lived private information hypothesis.
1.40% -j-?-?-?-?x
1.20%
1.00%
0.80%- g^""11*""*^ m
I ?-6?o/?-jp!*^
I 0.40%-j?10
5 0.20% -L?Jfc
O 0.00% -??-1-,-1-1
-0.20% -j-*^%&
-0.40% -I--^^H^tttezi;
-0.60%-^^
-0.80% -I
0
10
20
30
40
50
Days
- -Decile 1 ~~*~Decile 10 ~*r~Decile 1 &2 ~h*~ Decile 9&10
Figure 2. Returns following intense individual trading. This figure presents cumulative
market-adjusted returns following weeks with intense buying and selling activity of individuals
as given by the net individual trading measure (NIT). For each week in the sample period, we use
the previous 9 weeks to form NIT deciles. Each stock is put into 1 of 10 deciles according to the
NIT value in the current week relative to its value in the previous 9 weeks. Decile 1 contains the
stocks with the most intense selling (negative NIT) while decile 10 contains the stocks with the
most intense buying (positive NIT). We present the results for four portfolios: (i) decile 1, (ii) deciles
1 and 2, (iii) deciles 9 and 10, and (iv) decile 10. We calculate cumulative return numbers for each of
the stocks in a portfolio: CR(? + 1, t + k), where t is the last day of the portfolio formation week and
k is the number of days in the cumulative return calculation. The return on each portfolio is then
adjusted by subtracting the return on a market proxy (the equal-weighted portfolio of all stocks in
the sample).
returns and both a high magnitude of small-trade buying in week 2 as well as

higher returns in week 2. It should be noted that in our case, however, a pos
itive order imbalance is associated with negative rather than positive returns
in the contemporaneous week, and the serial correlation of the order imbalance
is actually quite small.
VII. Our Results in the Context of the Literature

The literature on the trading behavior of individual investors has been evolv
ing rapidly and it is useful to describe how the results in this paper relate to
both earlier and contemporaneous research that examines individual trading
behavior.

The first thing to note is that there is widespread agreement in the litera
ture that individuals tend to be contrarian, at least in the short term, which is
consistent with our argument that individuals tend to supply liquidity to insti
tutions. Choe, Kho, and Stulz (1999) report short-horizon contrarian patterns of
Korean individual investors (i.e., buying after prices go down and selling after
prices go up), Grinblatt and Keloharju (2000,2001) report contrarian tendencies
(both long- and short-term) using Finnish data, Jackson (2003) demonstrates
such short-horizon patterns using Australian data, and Richards (2005) reports
similar findings in six Asian markets. In the United States, Goetzmann and
Massa (2002) examine individuals who invest in an index fund and find that
contrarians outnumber momentum traders two to one, and Griffin et al. (2003)
document a short-horizon contrarian tendency of traders who submit orders in
Nasdaq stocks through a set of retail brokers.39

There is less agreement, however, about the relation between individual
trades and future stock returns. Starting with the longer horizon (several
months to 2 years), Odean (1999) finds that the stocks individuals buy un
derperform those they sell. Barber and Odean (2000) look at the overall per
formance of individual portfolios and find that they underperform the index by
about 1%. Similarly, Grinblatt and Keloharju (2000) report poor performance
of individual investors at the 6-month horizon in Finland. San (2005), who in
fers individual trading from signed total volume by subtracting institutional
changes in 13-F filings, finds the opposite result, namely, that excess return is
positive in the 2 years following individual buying. Two recent papers, Barber
et al. (2005) and Hvidkjaer (2005), use small-trade volume signed with the Lee
and Ready (1991) algorithm as a proxy for individual investor trading. Both pa
pers find that stocks with heavy small-trade buy volume underperform stocks
with heavy small-trade sell volume. The performance difference is detected up
to 3 years in the future.40 Barber et al. (2005) also provide some evidence on
short-horizon return patterns that we discuss below.
39 San (2005) does not have data that identifies individuals. She creates a proxy for net individual
trading by signing total volume and subtracting from it changes in institutional holdings. She finds
that prices decline in the 2 years prior to individual buying. Bailey, Kumar, and Ng (2004), who
examine a sample from a discount broker (1991 to 1996), find that U.S. individuals who invest
abroad also exhibit contrarian behavior (relative to the foreign country's stock index).
40 The advantage of using signed small-trade volume to proxy for individual investor trading is
that a long time series can be constructed (both papers use a sample period that starts in 1983). The
disadvantage is that small-trade volume may not come just from individuals. Lee and Radhakrishna
(2000) use 3 months of NYSE data (similar to ours) and show that this proxy worked reasonably
well in 1990. However, Hvidkjaer (2005) notes that in the final years of his sample (that ends in
2004), small-trade volume increases markedly and it no longer seems to be negatively related to
changes in institutional holdings. The bulk of the increase in small trading probably comes from
institutions that split orders into small trades. Campbell et al. (2005) reach the same conclusion
when looking at the relation between changes in institutional holdings and small-trade volume. In
fact, their methodology finds that trades below $2,000 are more likely to come from institutions than
from individuals. While signed small-trade volume is probably a reasonable proxy for individual
investor trading over a large portion of the sample used in Barber et al. (2005) and Hvidkjaer
(2005), Hvidkjaer notes that this proxy may be a poor one in the future.

It should be noted that because of our limited time series we are unable to
contribute to the literature on the long-term effect of individuals' purchases and
sales. Our focus, therefore, is on short-horizon return patterns. Looking at evi
dence from outside the United States, our results are consistent with evidence
presented by Jackson (2003), who finds that the net flows of small investors
positively predict future short-horizon returns in Australia. In contrast, Bar
ber et al. (2005) find that in Taiwan, individual investors realize small losses in
the short horizon (0.17% in the first 25 days). Similarly, Andrade et al. (2005)
report that margin traders in Taiwan (most of whom are individuals) tend to
earn negative returns over short horizons.
It may not be particularly surprising that the findings in Australia are con
sistent with our results but the Taiwanese results have a different flavor. The
Australian market, like the U.S. market, is dominated by institutions, so our
conjecture that individuals provide liquidity to institutions is equally plausible
in the United States and Australia. However, Barber et al. (2005) report that
89.5% of dollar volume on the Taiwan Stock Exchange comes from individuals,
and that day trading (most of which is carried out by individuals) is 23% of
dollar volume, which suggests that our liquidity provision story is unlikely to
be applicable in Taiwan. They also show, however, that individuals do make
money from liquidity-providing trades (1.06% in the first 10 days). It should
also be noted that our experimental design is somewhat different from that in
Barber et al. (2005), and therefore their results could potentially be consistent
with ours. They look at return patterns following all imbalances, while we focus
on those intense imbalances where individuals in the aggregate have a strong,
predominant direction.
To the best of our knowledge, the only paper prior to our study that looks
at the short-horizon dynamic relation between the trading of individual in
vestors in the United States and returns is Griffin et al. (2003). They find
no evidence that individual imbalances predict future daily returns. One po
tential explanation for the differences in our findings is that there is a fun
damental difference between the NASDAQ stocks examined in their study
and the NYSE stocks we examine. Another potential explanation is that
their proxy for individual investor trading (trading through brokers who
mostly serve retail clients) may contain some noise that masks a weaker
relationship.41
Recent evidence that is consistent with ours can be found in Barber et al.
(2005). They suggest a possible reconciliation of our finding of positive (nega
tive) excess returns after intense buying (selling) by individuals and the result
41 The data set used by Griffin et al. does not provide information on whether certain trades or
orders come from individuals. However, they observe an identifier that tells them something about
the broker or the venue of execution (i.e., they can separate institutional brokers, wirehouses, ECNs,
regional firms, wholesalers, small firms, and regional exchanges). Griffin et al. classify the order
flow of all ECNs (except Instinet), regional firms, wholesalers, and the Chicago Stock Exchange as
order flow coming from individuals. Each small firm is classified depending on the executed order
size of the majority of its orders (if most orders are small, all the order flow of that firm is classified
as coming from individuals).

in Odean (1999) of poor longer-horizon performance of individual investor
trading. Using signed small-trade volume as a proxy for individual trading,
they find similar results to ours on the return patterns in the several weeks
after heavy buying or selling by individuals. They conclude that the pattern re
verses itself subsequently, and therefore it is consistent with the longer-horizon
underperformance that they document.
VIII. On the Issue of Systematic Noise

A natural question to ask of our data set is whether the actions of individual
investors on the NYSE are "systematic" in the sense that they affect all stocks
at the same time. The importance of this issue rests in part on the suggestion of
the behavioral finance literature that, if individual investors are indeed "noise"
traders, systematic variation in their behavior would affect expected returns.
This argument is succinctly made by Lee, Shleifer, and Thaler (1991): "If dif
ferent noise traders traded randomly across assets, the risk their sentiment
would create would be diversifiable, just as the idiosyncratic fundamental risk
is diversifiable in conventional pricing models. However, if fluctuations in the
same noise trader sentiment affect many assets and are correlated across noise
traders, then the risk that these fluctuations create cannot be diversified. Like
fundamental risk, noise trader risk will be priced in equilibrium."
Since we find a dynamic relation between net individual trading and returns
on a stock-by-stock basis, we also look at whether the dynamic relation exists
between the value-weighted market return and a value-weighted measure of
net individual trading. We find no statistically significant patterns, suggesting
that the behavior of individuals may not be highly correlated across stocks. The
lack of dynamic patterns at the market portfolio level prompts us to carry out
additional analysis.
In Table VIII we aggregate the dollar buying and selling of all individuals
every day in all NYSE common domestic stocks and provide summary statistics
on the time-series distribution of this aggregated imbalance measure. The ta

ble demonstrates that aggregate imbalances of individuals can be rather large
in magnitude. One could think of two different scenarios for how such large
aggregate imbalances are created. First, they could potentially reflect just a
few stocks that individuals intensely buy (or sell) on a particular day, with the
rest of the stocks having more-or-less balanced individual trading. Second, it

could be that these large aggregate imbalances arise when most stocks exhibit
on the same day the same predominant direction of individual trading (either
buying or selling). Only the second scenario would suggest systematic behavior
of individual investors across stocks.
To examine this issue, we conduct a principal components analysis of the
daily net individual trading measure and look at the percentage of variance of
NIT that is explained by the first 10 principal components. We construct 1,000
random subsamples of 180 stocks each from among the stocks that have a com
plete set of daily returns, and look at the mean and standard deviation of the

Table VIII
Summary Statistics of the Aggregate Net Individual Trading Measure

in our sample. Stocks are sorted by market capitalization and put into three groups: small (deciles
1, 2, 3, and 4), mid-cap (deciles 5, 6, and 7), and large (deciles 8, 9, and 10). For each size group and
for the entire market we compute the dollar imbalance of individuals aggregated across all stocks
in the group, and provide time-series summary statistics for this dollar imbalance measure.
Mean Std. Dev. Min 25% Median 75% Max
(million $) (million $) (million $) (million $) (million $) (million $
Entire sample -240.58 170.98 -1,063.72 -316.19 -217.38 -13

Small stocks -87.78 7.96 -40.29 -13.85 -7.62 -3.05 20.44
Mid-cap stocks -28.54 19.36 -115.77 -39.86 -27.48 -14.17 31.70

Large stocks -203.27 157.28 -956.59 -269.45 -184.80 -107.48 1,740.01
percentage of variance across the 1,000 random subsamples.42 We use simula

tions to generate principal components for independent random matrices, and
use these as a benchmark for evaluating the percentage of variance explained
by the principal components in the real data (details of the methodology are
provided in the Appendix).43
Panel A of Table IX shows the results of the principal components analysis
of the net individual trading measure and also of daily returns. We present the
daily return analysis just to provide a sense of the magnitude of co-movement
observed in the cross-section of stocks. For example, 21.25% of the daily vari
ation in returns of stocks in our sample is explained by the first five principal
components. However, the third line of the panel shows that the percentage of
variance explained by the first five principal components of the simulated inde
pendent data is 5.33%, and therefore the difference between these two numbers,
roughly 15.92%, is a better measure of the structure in the real data. As for NIT,
we cannot find strong evidence of a common component in the imbalances of

individual investors across stocks. Indeed, the first (and largest) principal com
ponent of NIT explains only 1.70% of the variance (adjusted using the simulated
data) compared with 12.07% for returns.

Since some papers (e.g., Lee et al. (1991) and Kumar and Lee (2005)) claim
that "noise" trading of individuals is potentially stronger in small stocks, we
42 We choose 180 stocks as the size of a subsample because it is approximately a tenth of the
number of stocks, and is therefore roughly comparable to the number of stocks in a size decile. We
present the principal components analysis of size deciles later in this section.
43 We use simulations to create a benchmark because any arbitrary decision on the size of the
subsamples affects the estimates. E.g., the percentage of the variance explained by the first prin
cipal component is at least 1% in a 100-stock subsample because each stock contributes one unit
of variance to the analysis. The simulated benchmark helps us determine whether the structure
observed in the data is really there, as opposed to being generated by our particular choices or
simply by chance (see Freedman and Lane (1983)).
Table IX ?
Principal Components Analysis
This table presents a principal components analysis of returns and the net individual trading measure (NIT) at the dai
of a principal components analysis of 1,000 subsamples of 180 stocks each (since we have more stocks in our sample tha
a principal components analysis on each subsample, and report the mean (Real Mean) and standard deviation (Real
of the variance explained by the first 10 principal components. We then construct 1,000 additional 180-stock random s
mean and standard deviation of the variable of interest (say, NIT) and generate an artificial time series for each stock
the same mean and standard deviation. We perform a principal components analysis on the simulated data of each su
Mean) across subsamples of the percentage of the variance explained by the first 10 principal components. We then re
the variance explained by the different principal components (PCI, PC2, sum of PC1-5, sum of PC1-10) between the r
reports the results of a principal components analysis of NIT done separately on each size decile. We sort the stocks
over the sample period into 10 deciles. We perform a principal components analysis on each decile and report the per
the first 5 and the first 10 principal components (PC 1-5 and PC 1-10, respectively). We then use the mean and s
artificial time series drawn from the normal distribution to form 500 independent subsamples for each decile
each subsample and save the mean across the subsamples of the percentage of the variance explained by the first 5
the difference in the percentage of the variance explained by the principal components between the real data and the simulated data.
Panel A: Percentage of Variance Explained by Principal Components
PCI PC
Returns
R
Real
st
Simulated mean 0.0111 0.0108 0.0533 0.

Difference 0.1207 0.015
NIT Real mean 0.0280 0.0239 0.1007 0
Real std. 0.0022 0.0017 0.0044

Simulated mean 0.0111 0.0108 0.0533
Difference 0.0170 0.0131 0.047
Panel B: Percentage of Variance of NIT Explained by Principal Componen
Decile
(small)
Decil
Decile
PC Real 0.0805 0.0945 0.0872 0.0941 0.0946 0.0994 0.0995 0.109

1-5 Diff. 0.0313 0.0454 0.0382 0.0450 0.0456 0.0503 0.0504 0.060
PC Real 0.1427 0.1536 0.1456 0.1552 0.1526 0.1558 0.1573 0.167
1-10 Diff. 0.0474 0.0583 0.0506 0.0599 0.0576 0.0605 0.0619 0.07

sort the sample into 10 deciles according to each stock's average market cap
italization over the sample period.44 Panel B of Table IX presents the results.
Contrary to what one might have expected based on the above papers, the per
centage of the NIT variance explained by the first five principal components
(adjusted using the simulations) is higher for large stocks (10.31% for decile
10) than for small stocks (3.13% for decile 1).
Our findings do not seem as strong as those of Kumar and Lee (2005), who
examine correlations among order flow imbalances of portfolios of stocks traded
by clients of a U.S. discount broker (using the 1991 to 1996 data set). They find
that their measure of order flow imbalance is moderately correlated across

portfolios of stocks, concluding that there is evidence of a systematic compo
nent in retail investor trading. They also note that the difference between their
results and ours could be due to a different research methodology, sampling

frequency (daily for us versus monthly for them), aggregation mode (individ
ual stock imbalances here versus portfolio imbalances there), data source, and
sample period (ours is 2000 to 2003 while theirs is 1991 to 1996). It is also in
teresting to note that when Kumar and Lee look at portfolios of different sizes,
the correlation becomes smaller as the size of the portfolio decreases, raising
the possibility that the relation would not be as strong at the individual stock
level. This question therefore awaits additional research.45
IX. Conclusions
Our analysis of the trading of individual investors on the NYSE provides two
important results. First, we document that net individual trading is positively
related to future short-horizon returns: Prices go up in the month after intense
buying by individuals and go down after intense selling by individuals. This is
the first time such a pattern is documented for individual investors trading in
the United States and a large portion of the paper investigates this pattern.
Second, we find that the predictive ability of net individual trading with re
spect to returns is not subsumed by volume or the return reversal phenomenon.
Our results seem to contrast with Subrahmanyam (2005), who finds that net
trade imbalances do not predict returns. Perhaps the net order flow of individ
uals that we consider is a better measure of the demand for liquidity than the
net trade imbalance of Subrahmanyam, who uses the Lee and Ready (1991)
algorithm to indirectly infer whether trades are initiated by buyers or sellers.
The Lee and Ready algorithm establishes which party to a trade used a market
order (by comparing the transaction price to the quote midpoint), and classi
fies that party as a liquidity demander. In contrast, we classify individuals as
44 Each decile contains less than 200 stocks, and therefore we do not need to draw random
subsamples to analyze the data. Nonetheless, we still need to adjust the estimates using simulations
of independent normally distributed data (details are provided in the Appendix).
45 Barber, Odean, and Zhu (2003) do not focus on the correlation in individual trading across
many stocks, but they show that clients of two different brokers tend to trade the same stocks at
the same time. They also show temporal persistence in that if individuals are buying a stock one
month, they are more likely to be buying it the following month as well.

liquidity providers regardless of how they execute their orders, which allows for
very different interpretations of the data. For example, institutions that want
to move large positions might use dynamic limit order strategies and their de
mand for immediacy might be accommodated by contrarian individuals who

offer their shares with market orders. In this example, the Lee and Ready algo
rithm would classify the institutions as liquidity providers and the individuals
as liquidity demanders, while we would make the opposite classification.

In general, the contrarian behavior we document of individual investors on
the NYSE seems important for understanding short-horizon return predictabil
ity. The underlying reason individuals act in such a way is not well understood,
and one can find arguments in the behavioral literature supporting both con
trarian tendencies (e.g., loss aversion in Odean (1998)) as well as a tendency to
buy winners (e.g., positive feedback trading in De Long et al. (1990b) or attri
bution bias in Daniel, Hirshleifer, and Subrahmanyam (1998)). Whatever the
reason, the contrarian choices of individuals lead them to implicitly provide
liquidity to other market participants who demand immediacy.
In theory, the extent to which price reversals are observed depends on the
risk aversion of the liquidity providers and the amount of capital available for
liquidity provision. Suppose that individual investors are the only ones pro
viding liquidity in the market. If contrarian individual investors are in some
sense too active relative to the demand for immediacy, there will be an excess
supply of liquidity in the market. If this is the case, then the return pattern
compensating the individuals for providing liquidity could be overwhelmed by
the (presumed) information content of the institutional order flow, leaving no
excess returns (or even excess returns going in the opposite direction). On the
other hand, if there are too few contrarian investors relative to the demand
for immediacy, then the excess returns we observe when individuals implicitly
provide liquidity could be even more pronounced.
In reality, liquidity is provided by professional traders (e.g., NYSE specialists)
as well as those individuals who buy when prices go down and sell when prices
go up. One would expect that the amount of capital that these professionals
devote to their market-making activity is determined by the aggregate demand
for liquidity as well as the amount of liquidity implicitly supplied by individual
investors. In equilibrium, these professional traders will supply liquidity up
to the point where their trading profits just cover their costs. Over the past
20 years, institutional trading has increased and the importance of individual
investors has declined, suggesting that there may have been a positive shift
in the demand for immediacy and a negative shift in the supply of liquidity.
If this is indeed the case, and if the amount of capital devoted to liquidity
provision is slow to adjust, then this shift could create a potential short-term
profit opportunity for those traders that provide liquidity.
The evidence in this paper is consistent with the view that a short-term
liquidity provider could have generated profits by mimicking the trades of in
dividual investors during our sample period. There is also anecdotal evidence
suggesting that in response to this opportunity, there has been an increase in
the number of professional investors who specialize in short-term contrarian

trading strategies, and thus indirectly provide such services.46 Indeed, the pres
ence of these traders may be responsible for the reduction we document in the
return reversals first observed by Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990).

Why don't the strategies implemented by these short-term traders eliminate
the excess returns associated with the trading of individuals? This is a difficult
question that clearly warrants additional research. The most natural explana
tion is that these high-frequency strategies are quite costly to implement, and
thus we expect to observe high pretransaction costs returns. It is also possi
ble that the remaining return is needed to compensate those firms for the risk
associated with undertaking the liquidity-supplying trading strategies. More

over, it may be the case that mechanical strategies are unable to implement
the strategies implicitly implemented by individual investors. While the trades
of all market participants (including individuals) are public information, the

Account Type information identifying the orders of individual investors could
not be used to implement a trading strategy in real time because it was not
publicly available during the time period considered (it was not available even
to the specialists who oversee trading on the NYSE floor). Therefore, institu
tions could not simply use NIT to formulate their strategies; rather, they would
have to base a strategy on an imperfect proxy for net individual trading.
The evidence we present suggests that understanding short-horizon return

predictability requires understanding the implicit liquidity provision of indi
viduals as well as the explicit liquidity provision of professional investors. In
particular, liquidity provision may be viewed as the interplay between different
types of investors who populate the market. At the very least, our work sug
gests that understanding the behavior of one investor type, individuals, holds
some promise for explaining observed return patterns.
Appendix
Our sample consists of 2,034 stocks and 1,004 trading days. For the analysis
in Panel A of Table IX, we first construct 1,000 random subsamples of 180
stocks each from among the stocks that have a complete set of daily returns.
We perform a principal components analysis using the Principal Axis method
for each subsample, and then compute the mean and standard deviation across
the 1,000 subsamples of the percentage of the variance explained by the first
10 principal components. These summary statistics are reported in the panel
as "Real Mean" and "Real Std."
46 E.g., Automated Trading Desk (ATD) is one of the firms that pioneered the use of computerized
expert systems applied to liquidity provision. While currently they also work on an agency basis
for institutional investors, their core competency has been proprietary limit-order strategies that
provide liquidity to the market and profit from short-term price movements. ATD's trading in 2003
accounted for about 5% of Nasdaq volume and more than 2% of the volume in listed stocks. It is
also interesting to note that there has been a tremendous drive for consolidation among NYSE
specialist firms in the past 15 years. The number of specialist firms trading NYSE common stocks
declined from 52 in 1989 to 7 in 2004. One argument made to support these consolidations was
that liquidity will be enhanced by having better-capitalized market-making firms.

The adjustment using simulations is conducted as follows. We construct an
other set of 1,000 random subsamples of 180 stocks each. We calculate the mean
and standard deviation of the variable analyzed (say, the net trading of individ
ual investors) for each stock in a subsample. We then generate an artificial time
series for each stock drawn from a normal distribution with the same mean and
standard deviation. We conduct a principal components analysis on the 180 in

dependent time series and note the percentage of the variance explained by the
first 10 principal components. We repeat this process for each subsample 10

times and average the percentage of the variance explained by each principal
component in order to get estimates that are less noisy. We end up with 1,000
estimates for subsamples of simulated, independent data (reported in the table
as "Simulated Mean"), and look at the differences ("Difference") between the
real and simulated means.
The results demonstrate the importance of considering a simulated bench
mark. For example, the first principal component in Panel A explains on av
erage 1.11% of the variance of the simulated, independent data. The fact that
the first eigenvalue explains considerably more than 1/180 of the variance of
a 180-stock sample of randomly generated returns is not entirely surprising.
It is well known that the distribution of the spacing x between adjacent eigen
values of a random matrix whose elements are i.i.d Gaussian is closely ap
proximated by the "Wigner surmise" P(x) ^ Axe~Bx (see, e.g., Porter (1965)).
Furthermore, numerical experiments show that the surmise holds for a wide
range of distributions (e.g., Lehman (2001)). Therefore, the use of a simulated
benchmark aids in evaluating the strength of the structure found in the real
data.
For the analysis in Panel B of Table IX we sort the sample into 10 deciles
according to each stock's average market capitalization over the sample period.
We perform a principal components analysis on each decile separately. To create
the simulated benchmark for these estimates we start by using the mean and
standard deviation of each stock to generate 500 artificial time series drawn
from the normal distribution. We then use these simulated data to run 500
separate principal components analyses for each decile, and we report in the
table the difference between the estimate of the percentage of variance in the
real data and the mean of the 500 estimates of the simulated data.
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Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE VOL. LXIII, NO. 1 FEBRUARY 2008

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns

For a variety of reasons, financial economists tend to view individuals and

behavior of different investor clienteles or their interaction in the market affects

returns. In this paper we focus on the interaction between individual investors

and stock returns.

Specifically, we examine the short-horizon dynamic relation between the buy

274 The Journal of Finance

of intense individual selling.

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns 275

returns. In a double-sort on net individual trading and returns we find a rela

evidence of correlated actions of individuals across stocks: The first principal

results and provide additional evidence on competing explanations. Section VII

offers a discussion of the literature on the dynamic relation between individual

276 The Journal of Finance

I. Data and Sample

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns 277

AvgCap AvgPrc AvgTurn AvgVol StdRet

Mid-cap stocks Mean 1,311.8 25.94 3.22 42.47 0.0667

Panel B: Summary Statistics of Individual Trading from the NY

Individuals Individuals Individuals Individuals

Dollar Volume Share Volume Executed Order Execute

(1000s $) (shares) Size (dollars) Size (shares)

All stocks Mean 4,304.1 169,243 15,822.0 770.9

Median 377.1 32,475 7,896.8 722.5

Mid-cap stocks Mean 2,144.2 177,000 15,723.4 711.5

Median 1,417.1 55,460 14,323.0 613.5

Large stocks Mean 11,147.6 329,988 26,083.4 675.0

and thus we do not have to rely on classification algorithms such as

278 The Journal of Finance

We construct a daily measure of net individual investor trading by subtract

Could Topple Best-Price Rule," March 5, 2004).

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns 279

stocks on some weeks. If we were to think in terms of a representative (ag

II. Dynamic Relation between Net Individual Trading and Returns

to short-horizon returns. We believe that such return patterns should manifest

280 The Journal of Finance

Summary Statistics of Individuals' Trading Imbalances

Panel A: Cross-Sectional Distribution of Stocks' Average NIT

Ql (small stocks) -0.0613 0.2208 -2.0811 -0.1245 -0.0318 0.0371 0.6708

Portfolio Mean Std. Dev. 25% Median 75%

Mid-cap stocks -0.3487 0.1557 -0.4507 -0.3207 -0.2326

Mid-cap stocks 0.1118 0.0555 0.0784 0.1016 0.135

Individual Investor Trading and Stock Returns 281

282 The Journal of Finance

measures. We use the Newey-West correction in computing the ^-statistics due

Returns around Intense Individual Trading

Panel A: Cumulative Market-Adjusted Returns around Intense Individual Trading fb

Portfolio fc = -20 fc=--15 & =-10 k = -5 k = 0 k = +5 k =

Intense Selling Mean 0.0315** 0.0299** 0.0247** 0.

(decile 1) ^-statistic (22.62) (22.22) (23.5

Selling Mean 0.0302** 0.0281** 0.0231** 0.0146*

(deciles 1&2) ^-statistic (24.86) (23.73) (24.

Buying Mean -0.0251** -0.0234** -0.0192** -0.0124** -0.0087** 0.0025**

(deciles 9&10) ^-statistic (-24.12) (-24.43) (-24.07) (-23.85)

Intense Buying Mean -0.0247** -0.0236** -0.0200** -0.0131** -0.0111

Intense Selling Mean 0.0315 0.0299 0.0247** 0.

Selling Mean 0.0302 0.0281 0.0231** 0.0146*

Buying Mean -0.0251 -0.0234 -0.0192 -0.0124 -0.0087 0.0025

Intense Buying Mean -0.0247 -0.0236 -0.0200 -0.0131 -0.0111

Intense Buying Mean -0.0013 -0.0038 -0.0072 -0.0131 -0.0111

-0.0030 -0.0215 0.0004 0.0007**

-0.0057* -0.0316 0.0005 0.0010**

0.0004 -0.0033 0.0004 0.0003

-0.0004 -0.0158 0.0003 0.0003

-0.0031 -0.0122 0.0004 0.0007

-0.0057* -0.0180* 0.0005 0.0009

0.0003 0.0005 0.0004 0.0003

-0.0007 -0.0121 0.0003 0.0003

1964-1967 0.0039 -0.0765 0.0054 -0.0925 0.0036** -0.0

1968-1971 0.0013 -0.0920 0.0013 -0.1084 0.0