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PurposeThis paper investigates individual investors' responses to stock underpricing and how their trading decisions are affected by analysts' forecasts and recommendations.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study uses mutual fund fire sales as an exogenous source that causes stock underpricing and analysts' forecasts and recommendations as price-correcting information. The study further uses regression analysis to examine individual investors' responses to fire sales and how their responses vary with price-correcting information.FindingsThe authors first show that individual investors respond to mutual fund fire sales by significantly decreasing net buys, and this effect appears to be prolonged. Next, the authors find that the decrease of net buys diminishes following analysts' price-correcting earnings forecast revisions and stock recommendation changes. Hence, the authors suggest that individual investors are not “wise” enough to recognize flow-driven underpricing; however, this response is weakened by analysts' price-correcting information.Originality/valueThere is an ongoing debate in the literature about whether individual investors should be portrayed as unsophisticated traders or informed traders who can predict future returns. The authors study a unique information event and provide new evidence related to both perspectives. Overall, our evidence suggests that the “unsophisticated traders” perspective is predominant, whereas a better information environment significantly reduces individual investors' information disadvantage. This finding could be of interest to both academic researchers and regulators.

This paper examines the impact of large-scale alternative data on predicting consumer delinquency. Using a proprietary double-blinded test from a traditional lender, we find that the big data credit score predicts an individual’s likelihood of defaulting on a loan with 18.4% greater accuracy than the lender’s internal score. Moreover, the impact of the big data credit score is more significant when evaluating borrowers without public credit records. We also provide evidence that big data have the potential to correct financial misreporting.

With thousands of co-existing and competing platforms, the Chinese peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market experienced both high growth and high failure rate. We hand collect unique data for these P2P platforms and investigate the differences in performances and survivals for platforms with and without affiliations with state-owned enterprises (SOEs). P2P platforms with SOE affiliations have higher trading volumes, attract more investors, and offer lower interest rates. These platforms also survive significantly better than those without the SOE affiliations, especially during market downturns. Using P2P platforms with fake SOE affiliations as identification, we show that the SOE affiliation itself (not related to the fundamentals) is an important signal for P2P market participants. These results can be helpful to investors and regulators, especially those from other emerging markets.

This paper examines the financial literacy of mutual fund retail investors and its relationship with their investment outcomes. Using a unique dataset on Chinese mutual fund retail investors containing a survey on financial literacy, we find that women display significantly lower financial literacy than men. Investors with a higher level of education and richer investment experience have higher financial literacy. A one-standard-deviation increase in advanced financial literacy is associated with a probability decrease of an individual investor suffering a major loss by 1.940 percentage points, >13% of the sample average. Highly literate investors also show more sophistication concerning fee-related issues: they are more likely to be aware of investment charges, to avoid high-fee funds sold by intermediaries, and to trade less. Moreover, we find that advanced literacy has a significantly larger impact on investment performance than basic literacy. These results can be helpful to the policy debate on the effects of financial education.