Impact of Behavioral Factors in Making Investment Decisions and Performance: Evidence from Pakistan Stock Exchange

Abstract

Market irregularities and irrational behavior triggered investor’s changes in the stock market, and this has led to an investigation into the impact of various behavioral biases and factors affecting decision-making for individual investors. The quality of individual investor behavior in making stock investment decisions is very important to be understood as a reference of the movement of the capital market. This study investigated the role of behavioral finance and investor psychology in investment decision-making at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE). Using a sample of 147 individual investors, the study established that behavioral factors such as Herding, Heuristic, Market and Prospect that affected the decisions of the investors operating at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE). As there are a few studies in Pakistan related to behavioral finance, so this study mainly contributes to the field of behavioral finance in Pakistan. This study focusses on existing theories of behavioral finance which led to develop the hypothesis. The result of the analysis is that the four variables have greatly influenced the investment decision and return on investment. All behavioral variables have a significant impact on the decision-making process of investors, which led to the acceptance of all assumptions regarding the level of influence of behavioral factors in decision making for individual investors