Attracting attention from peers: Excitement in social trading

I study the impact of peers showing interest in investors’ trading on the latters’ future trading activities. To this end, I investigate the trading patterns of investors who attract attention of their peers on a social trading platform. My empirical findings suggest that social traders who draw attention of their peers show an increased trading activity and are more willing to take risks. This finding may be explained by investors becoming more excited about trading once they receive attention from their peers.