Understanding the Investment Behavior of Individual Investors:An Empirical Study on FOREX Markets

The FOREX market has become a popular ground amongst all kinds of market players. The leverage transactions of the market that may generate higher profit levels with low capital/investments make it very attractive for the individual risk takers. The research investigates the trading behavior of FOREX investors relying on the survey data collected from 167 Turkish investors in 2019. Within the scope of the research, the authors evaluate whether and to what extent behavioral factors, namely demographic characteristics; personal characteristics such as personality traits, love of money, and biases like disposition effect influence investment performance. The results reveal that among the personality traits, openness to experience and conscientiousness have a positive impact while disposition effect and love of money have a negative impact on the performance of investors. Additional analysis suggests that the effects of personality traits and biases on trading performance remarkably change among subgroups of investors regarding their income level. © 2020, IGI Global