The Role of Investor Behavioral Biases in Investment Decisions

Purpose - This study is an effort to assess the role of behavioral biases in investment decision making, specifically for mutual funds, and the moderating role of the investor. Individual investment behavior is concerned with choices about purchasing various securities. However, behavioral finance disputes the concept of perfect rationality and identifies psychological factors and their impact on decision-making. Research design, data, and methodology - A survey questionnaire was designed and used to collect responses using a judgmental sampling technique from 290 investors in the Gwalior Region. Cronbach's Alpha, factor analysis, and linear regression were all used to test the influence of behavioral biases on investment decision. Results - We found that the behavioral biases have a positive impact on investment decisions. Conclusions - This study's results identified three factors influencing investor behavior(rationale, investment skills, and profit making) and four factors influencing investor decisions (profit maker, market analysis, investment plan, seller). The overall results of the study also show that there is no significant relationship between investor behavior and investment decisions by gender in the market.