She's built for it: differential investment performance in South Africa based on gender

Research in behavioural finance has shown that individuals do not always behave rationally. As a result of this they do not make investment decisions in such a way as to maximise their expect- ed utility. Certain behavioural biases have been found to explain this behaviour. Furthermore, differences have been observed in how these biases manifest in men and women. Men have been found to be more overconfident when estimating their own skills and chances of success. Hence, they tend to exhibit stronger self-efficacy and self-attribution biases. Differentials in the risk preferences of men and women are apparent: men display higher risk tolerances and women are more risk averse. A sample of 19,021 individual investors from a South African investment house was analysed over five years (2007 - 2011) in order to draw conclusions on the trading behaviour.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Finance and Tax

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Willows, Gizelle

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• West, Darron

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12075

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12075