McCombs Alumni Network News

From McCombs TODAY

Theories on how to play the stock market abound. Buy low, buy companies whose leadership you admire, invest in organizations that reflect your personal values. And don’t count out the ever-popular strategy of throwing darts at the newspaper’s financial pages.

Every investor hopes he or she has figured out how to beat the system and turn a huge profit.

“Perhaps my portfolio is a perfect blend of stocks chosen at the ideal time to bring in enormous returns,” they say wistfully to themselves.

But what if your strategy isn’t determined as much by shrewd analysis (or quality dart throws) as by where you live? Or how old you are? Or if you bought a lottery ticket at the gas station yesterday?

New research by Alok Kumar, assistant professor of finance at the McCombs School of Business, shows these factors—geography, age and even whether or not you gamble—play a key role in how individual investors choose stocks. Read the full article from UT Public Affairs.