Behavioral Bias in Individual Investment Decisions: Is It a Common Phenomenon in Stock Markets?

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the behavioral factors that influence individual investment decision making at a developing country stock market; the Sudanese Stock Exchange Market. The Study employs a cross-sectional survey design as well as analytical methods to collect the necessary data and establish the relationship between the study variables. Data is collected through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 203 individual investors and Correlation and Regression methods are used to conduct the analysis. The findings of the paper provide evidence that behavioral biases play a noticeable role in individual investment decision making process regardless of the degree of development of the stock market. The paper demonstrates that heuristic and market factors play a dominant role in the process of individual decision making in the Khartoum Stock Exchange. The factors that have a significant impact on individual investment decision making process include Representativeness, Overconfidence, Anchoring, Historical cost of stock, Customer preferences, Loss aversion, Mental accounting, Other investors’ trading volume, and Quick reaction to changes in other investors ‘decisions. Factors that have an insignificant impact include Availability bias, Change in stock prices, Regret aversion, and Other investors’ decisions and choices.