Finansiell psykologi : En empirisk studie av olika faktorers påverkan inom finansbranschen

Sammanfattning: Investors have been shown to be driven by emotional and psychological factors. This contradicts classical financial theories, for example the Efficient Market hypothesis which states that all investors act rationally. Behavioural Finance is an area of study which describes various psychological factors which may result in irrational investor behaviour. The primary question of the study is: which factors do operating people in the financial sector consider themselves to be influenced by? The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors which affect the process of creating forecasts or making financial decisions. The study examines in addition if there is a correlation between length of investor experience and overconfidence in forecasting accuracy and investment decision making. The study includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The study has a basis of survey data which has been supplemented with interviews to obtain further explanation of the results. The result showed that the factors being studied had varying degrees of influence on forecasting accuracy and investment decision making. It was further found through the survey undertaken that there is a moderate correlation between length of investor experience and overconfidence. This correlation was contradicted however by interview data, in which all interview participants proposed that overconfidence decreases the more experienced an investor or analyst is. It was argued by interviewees that increased experience affords an individual more realistic insight into their own abilities.