Evaluating Behavioral Portfolio Theory on Investors’ Purchase De-cision in Tehran Stock Exchange

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Abstract

More than 50 years ago Friedman and Savage stated that investors who purchase lottery tickets (risk taking behavior), buy insurance coverage (risk averse behavior) at the same time. They proposed an “S” shape utility function that features concave as loss and convex as winning. Eisenhauer and many other researchers have confirmed risk behavior as suggested by Friedman and Savage. Shefrin and Statman combined: 1) Prospect Theory of Kahnman and Teversky, 2) Lops’ Security, Potential, and Aspiration (SP/A) Theory, and 3) Thaler’s Mental Account Theory and presented a new descriptive model show-ing that investors design their portfolios as a layered pyramid consist-ing of  many different layers according to their investment goals and dominant emotions. The objective of this survey research is to trace the existence of layered pyramid portfolios according to Behavioral Portfolio Theory among the potential investors at Tehran Stock Ex-change. 356 respondents among the potential investors at TSE were chosen through random sampling and they completed the question-naire. Research data was analyzed with the help of explorative factor analysis. Research findings indicated six main factors that influence Iranian investors’ purchase decisions namely: ambiguity aversion, hope, fear, optimism, pessimism, fear and aspiration.

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