Assessment of Investment Decisions and its Determinants among Retail Investors in Emerging Economies: Sequential Mixed Method Analysis

Abstract

Investigation of investment decisions among retail investors is a central tenet of the study. It examines investment decisions and its determinants by approaching the retail investors of Pakistan, one of the emerging economies.The researcher used a mixed method approach to document the responses of the target audience in three stages to explore the investment crises and motives for portfolio selection at Pakistan stock exchange. In the first step, the relevant literature was examined to form the proposed framework. Secondly, Semi-structured interviews were directed to explore sentiments, motives, and reasoning associated with the investment decision of retail investors. Finally, based on the qualitative findings, a questionnaire that was structured, used for collect data from 355 respondents. The study findings show that generally market information and organizational factors are the most significant factors and personal factors are the least significant factors influencing the decisions of individual investors. More specifically, the findings show that Economic &political stability, market uncertainty, financial returns, herding behavior experience of investors and risk perception of investors, are the most considerable factors but social status, getting rich quickly and opinion of family members are the least influencing factors for the stock selection process of investors. This research will be able to provide new insights for investors, brokerage firms, management, and government, helping them to make an appropriate decision.