Factors influencing investment decision and behaviors of Thai mutual funds investors

Abstract

Mutual fund is are one of investment vehicle that capture attention for many reasons such as the increase in number of mutual fund investor, the increase in types of mutual fund, the behavior of investor and the change in technology and media. It is important for asset management companies to continue to attract new investors and understand the difference investment behavior of investors. In order to describe their behavior and explain influencing factors on their investment decision, this study use Chi-square test, as well as Ordinary least squared method. From the sample size of 281 observations, I find 178 of the respondents invest in mutual fund and 103 of the respondents do not invest. While lacking of knowledge in mutual fund investment is the reason for those non-mutual fund investors, the main purpose for those who invest is for capital gain. The difference characteristics between mutual fund investor and non-investor are education, income, and investment experience. The result from the least squared analysis, show the positive significant relationship between frequency of trading and income, investment experience and primary information source while age, education, old information source and environment factors shows the negative significant relationship. When using the average holding as dependent variables, only investment experience has the positive significant relationship while primary information has a negative significant relationship.