Demographic Factors, Self-Perceived Knowledge and Attitudinal Characteristics of Equity Investors

The modern finance theories in Behaviour Finance challenge the thought of traditional finance theories that investors are rational. The empirical theories also evidenced the behaviour anomalies existing among the investors in decision making. The investors decisions based on the premise of anomalies are determined by many individual factors. Such among significant factors identified from the research literature is demographic factors. Further to avoid the behaviour anomalies leading to investment mistakes psychological theories suggest that individuals should know themselves to understand the realities in any situation and behave appropriately. In the present study the self -perception theory is applied in the context of assessing self-perceived investment knowledge among individual equity investors as an antecedent of investor attitudinal characteristics. Further the analysis on finding the impact of demographic factors on self-perceived investment knowledge and investor attitudinal characteristics found to be significant.