Do the disposition and house money effects coexist? A reconciliation of two behavioral biases using individual investor-level data

Abstract

This paper uses investor-level data to examine jointly the tendency of investors to succumb to the disposition effect and the house money effect; two behavioral biases premised on seemingly contradictory responses to prior gains/losses. We document three novel findings. First, the two effects can contemporaneously coexist in a single stock market and the majority of investors (53.5%) simultaneously succumb to both effects. Second, we demonstrate the importance of distinguishing prior outcomes across two dimensions; unrealized/realized and stock/portfolio level. Third, we find that the house money effect moderates the disposition effect, suggesting that cognitive biases need not always have negative consequences.