wealthschema/archetypes/b-02-overconfident-diy-investor
B-02BehavioralAccumulationmoderate tax complexity

Overconfident DIY Investor

Self-directed investor with overconfidence bias, concentrated positions, excessive trading, underperforming benchmark.

B-02 isolates the self-directed mass-affluent investor whose return drag is behavioral rather than structural — concentrated single-stock positions, frequent trading, and a documented allergy to advisor onboarding. It is the testing surface for suitability friction, concentration warnings, and Reg BI rollover conversations.

Age Range
35–55
Net Worth
$100k–$1M
Cohort
Behavioral

About this archetype

B-02 sits at the intersection of mass-affluent balance sheets ($915k median net worth, $170k median income) and behaviorally driven underperformance. The household typically holds a concentrated single-stock position from current or former employer equity, runs an active trading account that materially underperforms a passive benchmark, and self-reports a strong preference for self-direction. From a regulatory and product standpoint, this is the cohort where Reg BI rollover suitability conversations get hard: balances are large enough to attract solicitation, the investor has documented advisor resistance, and the suitability narrative has to account for tax-cost basis lots, embedded gains, and 10b5-1-style unwind preferences. It is also where FINRA 4111 restricted-firm scrutiny on excessive-trading flags would land if the same trading frequency happened in an advisor-managed account.

The cash-flow profile is high-income W-2 with meaningful retirement-plan participation (all 18 households have a retirement goal), but the asset side carries idiosyncratic risk that does not appear in same-income generic accumulators. Mortgages on 11 of 18 households, student loans on 10, and credit cards on all 18 are typical mass-affluent liability shapes; the diagnostic is the asset side, not the debt side. Households at this wealth tier should be on track for retirement at this income — when they are not, the explanation usually points to concentration, trading drag, or stale allocation rather than savings rate.

The distinguishing pattern versus neighbouring behavioral archetypes is the direction and competence of action. Unlike B-01 (avoider) the household acts; unlike B-03 (spender) the household saves. The behavior gap is allocation quality and trading discipline. That makes B-02 the right corpus for testing concentration-risk dashboards, tax-loss harvesting prompts, drift-band rebalancing alerts, and conversation-starter UX that respects the investor's self-direction while surfacing risk.

Defining characteristics

  • Concentrated single-stock position
    Typically employer equity from a current or former tech or finance role. Position sizes are large enough to trigger concentration warnings at most platforms but small enough that exchange funds and 10b5-1 unwinds remain edge cases.
  • Excessive trading
    Turnover ratios well above passive benchmarks. The corpus is the right population for testing trading-cost transparency UI, payment-for-order-flow disclosures, and active-trading nudges.
  • Advisor resistance
    Household-level flag indicating prior advisor rejection or refusal to engage with managed-account flows. Critical for testing Reg BI rollover conversations and hybrid robo-plus-human onboarding.
  • Overconfidence bias
    Self-reported confidence in market-timing and stock-picking ability sits well above realised performance. Useful as a control population for behavioral-finance nudge studies on conviction and humility prompts.
  • Home bias and recency bias
    Portfolios skew heavily US large-cap with overweights to recent winners. International diversification is structurally low across the corpus.
  • Mass-affluent balance sheet
    Median net worth of $915,368 with median investable assets of $626,330 — large enough to draw managed-account solicitation, small enough that bespoke alternatives are not yet in scope.

Corpus signature

n = 18 households

Aggregated across the 18 B-02 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.

Median income
$170k
p25–p75 $164k–$177k
Median net worth
$915k
mean $1.0M
Liquid net worth
$439k
median
Investable assets
$626k
median
Income distribution
$125k–150k
3
$150k–175k
9
$175k–200k
6
Net-worth distribution
$475k–975k
11
$975k–1.5m
5
$1.5m–2m
2
Goals across the corpus
Retirement18 / 18
Education funding10 / 18
Debt payoff10 / 18
Home purchase7 / 18
Emergency fund3 / 18
Liability composition
Credit cards18 / 18
Mortgages11 / 18
Student loans10 / 18
Auto loans9 / 18
  • 11 of 18 (61%) are homeowners; the remainder rent.
  • TX, KY, CA account for 6 of 18 households — 33% of the corpus.
  • Median adult-member age is 45 (range 36–56 across primaries and spouses).
  • 10 of 18 (56%) carry one or more dependents.

Representative household

B-02-seed-12
David C.Single·HI Metro Area, HI

David sits at the corpus income median and slightly below the net-worth median — the household that has accumulated meaningfully but is leaving alpha on the table. Liquid net worth of $258k against investable assets implies the bulk of the balance sheet is at-risk in a single brokerage rather than diversified across qualified plans. He is on-track flagged for retirement and debt payoff, which makes this the diagnostic case where the platform's job is to surface concentration and trading-drag risk to an investor who does not believe he has a problem.

Gross income
$170,104
Net worth
$700,562
Liquid NW
$257,757
Age
36
Top goals on this household
Retirement
$2,901,600
Debt payoff
$12,988

Schema fields covered

Every B-02 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.

members[].age
income.combined_gross
net_worth.total
filing_status
risk_profile.tolerance_score
compliance.suitability_flags
members[].cognitive_status
assets.concentration_pct

Who builds against this archetype

Three buyer profiles draw on B-02 most heavily. Compliance teams use it to populate Reg BI rollover suitability scenarios where the investor has $400k+ in qualified-plan assets and a documented preference for self-direction — the exact conversation FINRA and SEC examinations have focused on since 2020. Brokerage platforms use it to test concentration-risk dashboards, tax-loss harvesting eligibility, and drift-band rebalancing alerts against investors who actively trade rather than buy-and-hold. Behavioral-finance product teams use it as the engaged-but-misallocated counterpart to B-01: the right population for conviction-check prompts, single-stock exposure warnings, and disclosure UX around payment-for-order-flow and trading costs.

Testing scenarios this corpus is calibrated for

  • 01Reg BI rollover suitability scenario testing where the investor has substantial qualified-plan assets and documented advisor resistance.
  • 02Concentration-risk dashboards: every household carries a single-stock position large enough to trigger most platforms' warning thresholds.
  • 03Tax-loss harvesting eligibility and wash-sale handling on portfolios with active trading and embedded gains.
  • 04Drift-band rebalancing alerts and tolerance-breach UI on portfolios that the investor will resist accepting automated trades on.
  • 05Trading-cost transparency UX: bid-ask, PFOF, and turnover-cost disclosures against a population with above-benchmark turnover.
  • 06Hybrid robo-plus-advisor onboarding flows where the conversion narrative has to overcome documented self-direction preference.

Edge cases and what's not in this corpus

B-02 households do not carry the alternative-investment, GRAT, or family-office complexity of H-02 or H-03 — net worth caps out below $2M for nearly all of the corpus. If you need overconfident concentrated-position investors at HNW or UHNW scale, layer the B-02 behavioral flags onto H-02 or H-03 rather than reaching for B-02 directly. Founders with paper wealth pre-liquidity belong in P-01 or P-02 even when behavioral patterns overlap. Crypto-concentrated risk-taking with the same overconfidence profile is N-01 (mass-affluent crypto) or CR-01 (deeper DeFi); reach for those when the asset is digital rather than employer equity. Households where the trading drag has already produced material loss and bankruptcy is on the table are S-02 territory.

Calibration notes

Income and net-worth bands during v3 synthesis were anchored to the mass-affluent segments of the Survey of Consumer Finances and to Cerulli self-directed-investor benchmarks. Concentration ratios, turnover ratios, and advisor-resistance flags were synthesised as overlay attributes; there is no public probabilistic prior we can defend for those specifically. The single-stock allocation is intentionally calibrated to be high enough to trigger most platforms' default concentration warnings (commonly 10% of account or 20% of investable assets) without entering 10b5-1 / exchange-fund territory. Per CLAUDE.md §9 the v3 corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code, so calibration claims are descriptive of the shipped fixtures rather than reproducible from a seed.

How this differs from related archetypes

Frequently asked questions

What does the B-02 archetype represent?+

B-02 — Overconfident DIY Investor represents a mass-affluent self-directed investor with concentrated single-stock positions, above-benchmark trading frequency, and documented resistance to advisor engagement. Median net worth is $915,368 and median income $170,131, large enough to draw managed-account solicitation and to surface Reg BI rollover suitability conversations.

How is B-02 different from A-06 (Tech Employee with Equity)?+

A-06 concentration is structural — RSUs vesting on schedule, ISOs with AMT exposure, ESPP look-back discounts. B-02 concentration is behavioral — the investor chose and is holding the position. Different test surfaces: A-06 exercises grant-schedule and equity-comp tax flows; B-02 exercises concentration warnings and active-trading drag.

Why does this corpus help with Reg BI testing?+

Reg BI rollover suitability is hardest when balances are substantial and the investor is documented advisor-resistant. B-02 households sit at $400k+ in qualified-plan assets with advisor-resistance flags, which is exactly the conversation FINRA and SEC examinations have focused on. Same-balance compliant rollover scenarios are easy; this corpus is the hard-case test set.

Does B-02 cover crypto-concentrated investors?+

No. B-02 concentration is conventional equity — single-stock positions from employer comp or self-selected single names. Crypto-heavy mass-affluent investors with similar overconfidence dynamics are N-01; deeper DeFi exposure is CR-01.

How were B-02 households generated?+

Deterministically from a seeded sampler (Mulberry32 PRNG) in src/lib/generation/, with behavioral flags (concentration ratio, turnover ratio, advisor-resistance) applied as overlay attributes during synthesis. Per-domain version constants are surfaced in each household's _meta block.

Is the B-02 corpus regenerable?+

No. The shipped 1,451-household v3 corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code (drift confirmed 2026-05-09). Sampler improvements land in a future v4 release with per-archetype golden fixtures in CI to prevent silent drift.

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