A study on the investors’ preference towards various investment avenues with special reference to gender

The advent and evolution of behavioral finance has brought with it a revolution in the finance industry. Investors do not act rationally in taking decisions relating to investment. They have certain weaknesses like cognitive and emotional which take a predominating role in taking investment decision of individuals. They have behavioral biases in the event of taking investment decision. They simply react to the information available with them and accordingly react to the environment. There are lots of investment alternatives where investor can invest such as Gold, silver, real estate, bank deposits, PPF, shares, derivatives, etc. Several number of studies have conclude that women invest their asset portfolios more unadventurously than their male counterparts, a finding that is generally consistent with the “common wisdom” of financial services providers. The present paper tries to find out the perception of male and female investors regarding various variables while investing in different alternatives. The paper tries to study the attitude of male and female investors towards different investment avenues. The researchers have selected 60 male investors and 40 female investors from Moradabad region. The study uses independent t-test, mean scores to test the hypothesis. The paper concludes that investors whether male or female should look in all avenues while investing their funds. Some investments are risky and some are not, so as per the age of investors they should decide about risky or less risky investments.