Measuring behavioral trends in individual investment decisions: A research in Gümüşhane province

Traditional finance models assume that individual investors are rational when making their investment decisions, aim for the highest benefit, markets are effective, all investors have similar expectations, and the prices of securities occur by chance. However, these theories have been criticized as insufficient to explain most events occurring in the market. This led to the emergence of a new approach called behavioral finance. Behavioral finance theory assumes that emotions and mood affect people's behavior and therefore people cannot make rational decisions. In the literature, it has been observed that behavioral finance is mostly investigated on individual securities investors. One of the important players in the financial markets is gold investors. Studies which is evaluating gold investors in terms of behavioral finance are quite limited. Accordingly, the study has been prepared to investigate the behavior of gold investors. Gold investors living in Gümüşhane has been included in the scope of the study. In the study, a questionnaire was applied to gold investors. In practice, the data of 405 investors were analyzed in SPSS 24 program. Frequency analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, validity analysis and difference analysis were used as analysis methods. Keywords: Individual Investor, Behavioral Finance, Behavior Models, Psychology, Investment Decisions