This paper explores the link between personal experience with COVID-19 and US retail investors’ financial decision-making during the first COVID-19 wave. Do retail investors that have personally experienced COVID-19 change their investments after the pandemic outbreak, and if so, why? We use a cross-sectional dataset from an online survey of US retail investors collected in July and August 2020 to assess if and how respondents change their investment decisions after the COVID-19 outbreak. On average retail investors increase their investments during the first wave of COVID-19 by 4.7%, while many of them decrease their investments suggesting a high heterogeneity of investor behaviours. We provide the first evidence that personal experience with the virus can have unexpected positive effects on retail investments. Investors who have personal experience with COVID-19, who are in a vulnerable health category, who tested positive, and who know someone in their close circle of friends or family who died because of COVID-19, increase their investments by 12%. We explain our findings through terror management theory, salience theory and optimism bias, suggesting that reminders of mortality, focussing on selective salient investment information, and over-optimism despite personal vulnerable health contribute to the increase in retail investments. Increased levels of savings, saving goals and risk capacity are also positively associated with increased investments. Our findings are relevant to investors, regulators, and financial advisors, and highlight the importance of providing retail investors with access to investment opportunities in periods of unprecedented shocks such as COVID-19.

本文探讨了 COVID-19 的个人经历与美国散户投资者在第一波 COVID-19 浪潮中的财务决策之间的联系。亲身经历过 COVID-19 的散户投资者是否会在大流行爆发后改变他们的投资，如果是，为什么？我们使用来自 2020 年 7 月和 2020 年 8 月收集的美国散户投资者在线调查的横截面数据集来评估受访者在 COVID-19 爆发后是否以及如何改变他们的投资决策。平均而言，散户投资者在第一波 COVID-19 期间增加了 4.7% 的投资，而其中许多人减少了投资，这表明投资者行为的高度异质性。我们提供了第一个证据，证明个人感染病毒的经历会对零售投资产生意想不到的积极影响。对 COVID-19 有亲身经历、处于弱势健康类别、测试呈阳性并且认识亲密朋友或家人中有人因 COVID-19 死亡的投资者，他们的投资将增加 12%。我们通过恐怖管理理论、显着性理论和乐观主义偏见来解释我们的发现，表明死亡率的提醒、对选择性显着性投资信息的关注以及尽管个人健康状况不佳但过度乐观都有助于零售投资的增加。储蓄水平、储蓄目标和风险承受能力的提高也与投资增加呈正相关。我们的发现与投资者、监管机构和财务顾问相关，