The nature of individual investors' heterogeneous expectations

This article investigates whether heterogeneity in investors' perceptions of the risk/return characteristics of a particular stock and the stock market can be explained in terms of these investors' demographic characteristics (sex, age. income and education). Results indicate that these specific demographic characteristics are not particularly useful in differentiating among investors holding divergent opinions. Hut findings confirm previous results that investors' risk perceptions vary systematically and do not result simply from measurement error.