How do individual investors trade?

In this paper, we study how investors trade on a high-frequency time scale. We investigate how information on the past price process is fed back into the investors’ trading decisions. Specifically, we examine whether investors’ decisions to open or close a position are different if they already hold a position compared with when they do not. We also investigate whether stop-loss orders contribute to self-reinforcing price movements and whether take-profit orders impede them (Osler 2005).