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Which Students Trade The Most? – Five Years Of Evidence From Simulations In An Introductory Investments Course, Steven Welch

Accounting and Finance Faculty Publications

In investment literature, overconfidence among male investors has been shown bytheir relatively high trading frequency in spite of the evidence that more trading reduces returns by way of transactions costs. In this study, given the assumption that modern, college-educated students taking an investments class should be better educated than the average investor, we posit that female and male students should not have a significant difference between them in (over)confidence, and therefore, trading frequency. We also introduce a new concept of whether domestic or international students trade more frequently, and posit some possible explanations for the results.