Success Factors for Individual Stock Pickers
September 23, 2013 - Individual Investing
Which individual stock pickers beat the market? In their September 2013 paper entitled “The Information Content of Investors’ Expectations for Risk and Return”, Thomas Berry and Keith Jacks Gamble examine the performance of the most recent stock picks of members of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) who participated in an online survey. They issued the invitation to participate on June 15, 2011 and collected responses over the next two weeks. Questions solicited demographic data, level of investment experience (excellent, good or limited) and information about the participant’s most recent stock purchase. They exclude responses naming non-U.S. stocks and stocks priced below $5. They measure returns to various cross-sectional portfolios of these stocks over the next six months based on initial equal weighting. They adjust returns for market, size, book-to-market ratio and momentum factors to measure portfolio alphas. Reported returns exclude trading frictions. Using 2,218 survey responses and monthly returns for purchased stocks and risk factors during July 2011 through December 2011, they find that: Keep Reading