Events

Professor Byoung-Hyoun Hwang
Professor of Finance
Nanyang Business School
Nanyang Technological University

We conduct GPT-driven field interviews with 1,540 actual investors, one third of whom are “millionaires,” across ten countries to examine how individuals select individual stocks. Textual analysis of the interview transcripts uncovers thirteen recurrent mechanisms that together form a comprehensive and empirically grounded taxonomy of actual investor behavior. Several of the most frequently invoked mechanisms are absent from, or only partially reflected in, current mainstream asset-pricing theories. We further document substantial heterogeneity both across and within investors: while some investors emphasize mechanisms consistent with one theoretical framework, others rely on markedly different ones, and many draw simultaneously on multiple mechanisms. Our evidence points to the need for theoretical refinements and extensions to account for heterogeneous agents with distinct preferences, belief systems, and interactions.