The 19th Academic Luncheon of the Digital Technology and Finance

Abstract：

It is long been discussed in the literature on what makes star mutual fund managers and whether they are able to earn risk-adjusted return, yet little is known about the determinants of a star individual investor. We explore this question by presenting empirical evidence based on an online social platform with transaction data, Snowball. This paper demonstrates how investors' performance, investment style and demographics distinguish star investors; and provides evidence that star investors do make abnormal returns through information channel. Additionally, this paper finds that star investors have a real impact on their followers, with a significant number of individual investors mimicking their star counterparts using real money in the stock market, and such following decision brings them higher return.

Speaker Introduction：

Yonghao Xu is a lecturer at the School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics and application from the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, a bachelor's degree in economics from the National School of Development, Peking University, and a doctorate in finance from the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. His main research focuses on the study of financial technology, behavioral finance, household finance and asset pricing. The main research results have been published in Economics Letters and Management World.