Individual investors in the late nineteenth century: what did they invest in, and why?

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• Professor Janette Rutterford, The Open University Business School
• Monday 25 January 2016, 17:00-18:30
• Darwin College (Seminar Room, No. 1 Newnham Terrace - entrance via Porters Lodge on Silver St).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Duncan Needham.

In this paper, we explore actual portfolios containing 2,316 individual securities, held by a sample of 508 British investors at death in the period 1870 to 1902. We examine how many securities these investors held, whether they diversified, and how these portfolio characteristics changed over the period. By so doing, we can provide data on actual numbers of securities held in portfolios and begin to analyse the diversification strategies of individual British investors during the period, in a pre-portfolio theory and capital asset pricing model world. We find evidence of an understanding of diversification of risk, correlation and top down investment management well before these were formally articulated in financial theory.

This talk is part of the Financial History Seminar series.

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