Beyond Trading Frequency: Personality, Affect, and Anticipated Emotions as Determinants of Trading Style
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper investigates whether personality traits, affects, and anticipated emotions measured before a stock market simulation explain participants’ trading style. The study relies on a sample of 133 undergraduate students from the University of Mons, Belgium, who participated in a four-hour CAC 40 trading simulation with a virtual portfolio of EUR 100,000. Regressions were estimated on several dimensions of trading style: number of transactions, minutes per order, average transaction size, average cash holdings, and portfolio volatility. The results show that psychological variables explain little of trading frequency or pacing but are informative about the structure of market exposure. Negative affect is associated with higher cash retention, whereas positive anticipated emotions are associated with lower cash holdings. Gender and openness also predict position size, while gender, age, and openness are significant predictors of portfolio volatility. Overall, the findings suggest that psychology explains less how much individuals trade than how they structure their market exposure.
Institution: University of Mons
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7156569668
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