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An Exploratory Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on the Financial Behavior of Individual Investors

An Exploratory Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on the Financial Behavior of... This article explores the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in Belgium on the financial behavior of individual investors. Specifically, the article is the first to examine whether exceptional market circumstances have induced individual investors to increase their equity positions. Using a proprietary database of almost 6.5 million individual investor transactions, this article shows that most individuals increased their equity positions during the pandemic, suggesting a contrarian strategy. Especially investors between 18 and 35 years old and those being less active are found to increase their equity positions compared to other age and activity level categories. Male investors seem to dominate equity markets in Belgium, even during the COVID-19 confinement period, and they increased their equity positions more in comparison to women. The patterns documented in this article are robust for the shares being constituents of the main Belgian equity index (i.e., Bel 20), for all listed shares on Euronext Brussels, and for small caps. JEL codes: D53; E22; E32; E44, G01, G41 Keywords: individual investors; investment strategy; equity investments; COVID-19; behavioral finance; MiFIR http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Economics, Management, and Financial Markets Addleton Academic Publishers

An Exploratory Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement on the Financial Behavior of Individual Investors

Randy Priem
Economics, Management, and Financial Markets , Volume 16 (3): 32 – Jan 1, 2021
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Publisher
Addleton Academic Publishers
Copyright
© 2009 Addleton Academic Publishers
ISSN
1842-3191
eISSN
1938-212X
Publisher site
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Abstract

This article explores the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in Belgium on the financial behavior of individual investors. Specifically, the article is the first to examine whether exceptional market circumstances have induced individual investors to increase their equity positions. Using a proprietary database of almost 6.5 million individual investor transactions, this article shows that most individuals increased their equity positions during the pandemic, suggesting a contrarian strategy. Especially investors between 18 and 35 years old and those being less active are found to increase their equity positions compared to other age and activity level categories. Male investors seem to dominate equity markets in Belgium, even during the COVID-19 confinement period, and they increased their equity positions more in comparison to women. The patterns documented in this article are robust for the shares being constituents of the main Belgian equity index (i.e., Bel 20), for all listed shares on Euronext Brussels, and for small caps. JEL codes: D53; E22; E32; E44, G01, G41 Keywords: individual investors; investment strategy; equity investments; COVID-19; behavioral finance; MiFIR

Journal

Economics, Management, and Financial Markets – Addleton Academic Publishers

Published: Jan 1, 2021

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