Individual Investors and Portfolio Diversification in Late Victorian Britain: How Diversified Were Victorian Financial Portfolios?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Open University - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050718000207
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 435-471
• 关键词: women investors; assets; BIAS; late-19th-century; INVESTMENT; selection; england; GENDER; equity; RISK

摘要

This article investigates Victorian investor financial portfolio strategies in England and Wales during the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that investors held on average about half of their gross wealth in the form of four or five liquid financial securities, but were reluctant to adopt fully contemporary financial advice to invest equal amounts in securities or to spread risk across the globe. They generally held under-diversified portfolios and proximity to their investments may have been an alternative to diversification as a means of risk reduction, especially for the less wealthy.