The individual investor\u27s circumstances and investment behavior have received relatively little attention since it was discovered in the late sixties that he was withdrawing as a direct participant in the American equities market. The first major response to this withdrawal phenomenon was the 1974 Individual Investor Research Project (IIRP). For the first time, the individual investor\u27s circumstances and decision processes were examined directly and not through broad-based trading statistics or portfolio simulations.
This current survey identifies the significant changes in investment objectives, strategies, and tactics since the IIRP. These changes were discovered when seven demographic variables were cross-classified with various investment behavioral characteristics from a sample of 130 individual investors. This research effort also identifies the socio-economic characteristics of the individual investor that serve as significant influences on investment behavior
