Chakrabarty, BidishaMoulton, PamelaTrzcinka, Charles2020-09-112020-09-112016-01-228103552https://hdl.handle.net/1813/71347Using a database of daily institutional trades, we document that a majority of short-term institutional trades lose money. In aggregate, over 23% of round-trip trades are held for less than three months, and the returns on these trades average -3.91% (non-annualized). These losses are pervasive across all types of stocks, with the lowest returns occurring in small stocks, value stocks, and low-momentum stocks. Short-term trades lose more in more volatile markets. Across funds, the worst short-term returns accrue to funds that do the most trading, and there is no evidence of persistent skill or disposition effect in short-term institutional trades.en-USRequired Publisher Statement: Copyright held by the authors.institutional tradingshort-term tradestrading skillinformationpreprint