The Analysis of Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors Effecting the Risk Taking Behaviour of Individual Investors

The 2008 financial crisis are quite noteworthy in terms of exposing the volatility in the risk appetite of the global markets. The instantaneous and collective movements of the investors’ risk preferences have attracted the attentions to the concept of risk, which is one of the fundamental criteria of the investment decisions. Personal characteristics, socio-economic and psychological factors determine the risk level that investors take by effecting their risk perceptions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the socio-economic and demographic factors that affect the risk taking attitude of the individual investors in Istanbul Stock Exchange. The findings show that there are significant differences between some socioeconomic and demographic groups in terms of risk taking attitude.