Investor Behavioural Pattern: An Empirical Study of the Ghana Stock Market

Abstract

Behavioral finance has diffused steadily into academia and practice throughout the globe mainly as a result of works of scholars. It seeks to identify psychological factors that influence investor decision making, refuting the assumption of investor rationality and market efficiency championed by classical finance scolars. With the use of questionnaires; data was collected from investors who have invested in stocks listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. The study found the existence of biases of representativeness, availability, risk aversion, mental accounting, anchoring and overconfidence in the Ghanaian Stock Market. Apart from the irrationality of the investor, market inefficiency was also identified.