We study the informativeness of trades via discount and full-service retail brokers. We find that trades via full-service retail brokers are statistically and economically more informative than are trades via discount retail brokers. This finding holds in every year over the 12-year sample period and in various subsamples. We also find that past returns, volatility, and news announcements positively relate to the net volume of discount retail brokers, but these variables are unrelated to the net volume of full-service retail brokers. Our results suggest that broker type selection bias is an important consideration in studying individual investors’ trades.

Bitcoin is defined as digital money within a decentralized peer-to-peer payment network. It is a hybrid between precious metals with intrinsic value and fiat cu

This paper examines how sentiment affects homebuyers’ housing transaction decisions with a focus on auction sales. Utilizing housing transaction data in Sydney from 2000 to 2014, we find that transaction prices are significantly higher for auction sales compared with private sales, consistent with the notion of a “winner’s curse.” Four sentiment proxies, including three weather-based sentiment proxies and a survey-based sentiment index, are used to derive novel measures of sentiment, revealing that higher sentiment is associated with higher transaction prices, particularly for auction sales. Moreover, sentiment boosts sale prices particularly when the housing market is in boom; however, investors are not more prone to sentiment bias than are owner-occupiers. Sentiment exhibits an asymmetric effect in that low sentiment dampens price to a greater extent compared with the price-boosting effect of high sentiment. Our result is robust to using national sport events as sentiment shocks, selection bias, and participation constraints. Potential mechanisms include present-biased preferences and sentiment-related projection bias. Overall, our evidence sheds light on the role of sentiment in housing market decisions. This paper was accepted by Tyler Shumway, finance.