BUSI 606 Week 3 DB Forum 2: Parts A and B Example

Reviewed by Thomas Kerrigan, MBA, CPA · Liberty University · Updated

This BUSI 606 Week 3 sample holds the first two parts of the second forum, a key topic on retail investors and commission-free trading apps and a thread that rests on five peer-reviewed studies from 2021 and 2022. The thread asks whether the surge of individual investors after 2020 helped or harmed stock markets. It weighs evidence that app users chase attention-grabbing stocks and that their buying sprees predict poor returns, a finding that their aggregate portfolio nonetheless performed well, research on brokerage outages showing how different retail investors affect liquidity, a model of trading driven by social networks and evidence that retail buying cushioned markets during the 2020 lockdown. This MBA forum carries 125 points in Liberty University BUSI 606, awarded once all three parts are complete.

CourseBUSI 606 Global Financial Markets (BUSI606)
Module/Week3
AssignmentDB Forum 2: Parts A and B
Paper typeKey topic submission and discussion thread
Lengthabout 573 words (thread and replies). Course guide: a key topic submission (Part A) and a thread of at least 500 words citing 5 recent scholarly articles published within the last 5 years (Part B), graded together with the Part C replies
FormatAPA 7 citations and reference list
Points125
SchoolLiberty University Online
ProgramMBA
Where it sitsModule/Week 3 in Liberty's published BUSI 606 course guide; current sections can differ
UpdatedOctober 2026

Free sample paper for BUSI 606 Week 3

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Discussion Board Forum 2: Parts A and B, Key Topic and Thread

BUSI 606 Global Financial Markets, Discussion Board Forum 2: Parts A and B (key topic and thread)

Thread by [Student Name]

The key topic was chosen for this sample, and the section labels stand in for the course's own forum instructions; the five articles are real and published within five years of the course date, and the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for BUSI 606.

Part A: Key Topic Submission

Why this part earns its pointsThe topic statement ties a current market development to the chapters, which is what the instructor checks in Part A.
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My key topic is the rise of retail investors using commission-free trading apps and its effect on stock market quality. The topic connects to this module's chapters on equity markets, where the roles of investors, brokers and market makers in setting prices and providing liquidity are explained.

Part B: Thread

Individual investors returned to the stock market in large numbers after 2019, when major brokers eliminated trading commissions, and especially during the 2020 pandemic, when many people had time, savings and stimulus payments. Trading apps made buying a share as easy as ordering a meal. The surge peaked in early 2021, when social media coordinated buying in GameStop and other heavily shorted stocks. Recent research asks whether this wave of retail trading made markets better or worse. The question matters beyond the United States: retail participation also rose sharply in India, South Korea and parts of Europe in the same years, and regulators in several countries have debated how trading apps should be supervised. The answer depends on what is being measured, the returns retail investors earn, the liquidity they provide or the volatility they create.

Why this part earns its pointsEach paragraph answers one part of the question, returns, then liquidity, then volatility, so the five studies are compared rather than listed.
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Some evidence points to harm for the investors themselves. Barber et al. (2022) studied Robinhood users and found that they were especially prone to attention-induced trading, buying stocks that appeared on the app's lists of top movers, and that episodes of intense herding by these users were followed by negative returns. The design of the app, by highlighting certain stocks, appeared to shape what users bought, and the users who followed those lists most closely tended to be the newest and least experienced investors. Welch (2022), however, examined the aggregate holdings of Robinhood investors and found that the crowd's portfolio performed respectably over his sample period, tilted toward large, well-known firms and not obviously worse than a market portfolio. Retail investors can make poor trades individually while holding reasonable portfolios collectively.

The effects on market quality depend on which retail investors are trading. Eaton et al. (2022) used brokerage outages as natural experiments: when Robinhood's platform went down, the stocks its users favored showed better liquidity and lower volatility, while outages at brokers serving more traditional retail investors had the opposite effect. Ozik et al. (2021) found that during the 2020 lockdown, stocks with more retail trading experienced smaller increases in illiquidity, suggesting that retail buying helped cushion markets when institutions pulled back. Pedersen (2022) offered a model in which investors learn from their social networks, which can produce bubbles and sudden crashes when influential voices push prices away from fundamentals, a description that fits the meme stock episodes.

Taken together, the research suggests that retail investors are neither the market's saviors nor its villains, and that treating them as a single group hides important differences between new app users and longtime individual investors. Their trading adds liquidity in some conditions and noise in others, and app design and social media can amplify both effects. For companies, the lesson is that a stock owned heavily by individuals who trade through apps may experience sharp swings unrelated to its performance, which matters for decisions about issuing shares. For brokers, practices that draw attention to trending stocks deserve scrutiny, and for regulators, the evidence argues for disclosure about how apps present stocks rather than limits on retail participation. As the textbook explains, efficient markets depend on investors acting on information; tools that draw attention away from information can work against that goal.

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References

Barber, B. M., Huang, X., Odean, T., & Schwarz, C. (2022). Attention-induced trading and returns: Evidence from Robinhood users. The Journal of Finance, 77(6), 3141-3190. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13183

Eaton, G. W., Green, T. C., Roseman, B. S., & Wu, Y. (2022). Retail trader sophistication and stock market quality: Evidence from brokerage outages. Journal of Financial Economics, 146(2), 502-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2022.08.002

Ozik, G., Sadka, R., & Shen, S. (2021). Flattening the illiquidity curve: Retail trading during the COVID-19 lockdown. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 56(7), 2356-2388. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022109021000387

Pedersen, L. H. (2022). Game on: Social networks and markets. Journal of Financial Economics, 146(3), 1097-1119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2022.05.002

Welch, I. (2022). The wisdom of the Robinhood crowd. The Journal of Finance, 77(3), 1489-1527. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13128

What the BUSI 606 Week 3 instructions ask

BUSI 606 opens its second forum in Module/Week 3, when the reading moves to chapters 7 through 10 of the Valdez and Molyneux text, accompanied by one presentation. The forum keeps the three-part design of the first: the student submits a key topic in Part A, writes a Part B thread that clears 500 words, puts the readings to work and draws on five journal articles less than five years old, and in Module/Week 4 answers classmates in Part C. No grade is posted for Parts A and B until Part C is finished, and the complete forum is worth 125 points. Topics should connect to the week's chapters on the markets where securities are issued and traded. The topic should be narrow enough that five recent studies can address the same question.

How this BUSI 606 Week 3 example is built

Part A states the topic and its link to the chapters on equity markets. The thread opens with the question, whether the post-2020 wave of retail trading improved or damaged market quality, and organizes the five articles as a debate. Barber and colleagues' evidence on attention-induced trading and Welch's study of the aggregate Robinhood portfolio offer contrasting verdicts on retail investors' choices; Eaton and colleagues' outage study and Ozik, Sadka and Shen's lockdown study address effects on liquidity; and Pedersen's model explains episodes such as GameStop. The thread ends with implications for issuers, brokers and regulators.

BUSI 606 Week 3 grading rubric: where the points go

The forum is graded as a unit after Part C. Part B is assessed on reaching 500 words, applying the module's chapters to the key topic, representing five journal articles from the past five years accurately and following APA format. Instructors look for market concepts used correctly, such as liquidity, bid-ask spreads, order flow, market makers, volatility, price discovery and market efficiency, and for a thread that weighs conflicting findings rather than summarizing articles one after another. Evidence on how a market development affects investors, issuers and the market itself shows the understanding of market structure the chapters aim to build. The thread's own judgment, stated at the end, shows that the student has weighed the evidence.

BUSI 606 Week 3 help: mistakes that cost points

Choose a key topic within the chapters' coverage of securities markets and confirm that enough peer-reviewed research has been published on it in the last five years; fast-moving topics often have working papers but fewer published articles. Read each article's abstract and conclusion closely enough to state its finding in one sentence, then group the articles by the question they answer. Make the thread's own judgment clear at the end. Note each article's publication year so the five-year requirement can be checked, and keep the post well above 500 words without padding. When studies disagree, explain what differs in their samples or methods, since that is usually why they disagree.

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What is BUSI 606 Discussion Board Forum 2?

Forum 2, worth 125 points, spans two weeks: in Module/Week 3 the student names a topic and posts a thread grounded in five journal studies from the last five years, and in Module/Week 4 the student responds to classmates.

Where can I find a free BUSI 606 Week 3 sample paper?

This page presents complete BUSI 606 Week 3 forum Parts A and B, a thread on retail trading apps and market quality built on five articles published since 2021.

Did retail trading apps hurt stock markets?

The evidence is mixed: app users' buying sprees in attention-grabbing stocks predicted poor returns and some retail flows reduced liquidity, while retail buying also supported liquidity during the 2020 lockdown and the aggregate app portfolio performed well.

What is attention-induced trading?

Buying driven by what catches investors' attention, such as lists of top-moving stocks on a trading app, rather than by information about a company's value, which can cause herding and later price reversals.

What else is due in BUSI 606 Module/Week 3?

Only the first two parts of Forum 2, with the textbook's chapters 7 through 10 and one presentation; the Annotated Bibliography follows in Module/Week 5.

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