Up until now, the empirical analysis of what makes investors trade has
been hindered by limited and incomplete data about the financial markets.
Work by Odean ~1998!, Shapira and Venezia ~1998!, and Choe, Kho, and
Stulz ~1999!, among others, either focuses on a small segment of the market
that may not be representative and0or limits the analysis of trading to single
issues, like contrarian behavior or the aversion to losses.