Determining the factors affecting the investment decisions of securities investors: The case of Şırnak province

Securities investors are influenced by many factors when making investment decisions. These factors may be personal, economic or social. Since investors' understanding of investment risk and investment risk appetite differ, the factors that influence their decisions also differ. According to traditional finance theories, investors act rationally based on the relationship between the risk and expected return of investments, whereas behavioral finance theories suggest that investors do not act rationally but are influenced by psychological and sociological factors. Markowitz, one of the modern portfolio theorists, stated that it is necessary to create a portfolio that will provide maximum return with minimum risk in an uncertain environment. Today, with the widespread use of the Internet, the borders between financial markets have been removed and this situation has brought different risks and uncertainties. In an environment of these risks and uncertainties, investors have to make investment decisions. For this reason, our study aims to determine the types of investment instruments in which individual securities investors living in Şırnak province invest their savings, the factors that affect their investment decisions, and the factors that influence their investment decisions when making investment choices among investment instruments. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on 402 individual securities investors living in Şırnak. According to the results of the analysis of the findings of the survey, all 6 hypotheses were accepted and not rejected. In addition, when the results of the survey are evaluated, it can be said that securities investors in Şırnak are predominantly male, married and young people between the ages of 18-42. The majority of respondents are middle-income and invest their savings mainly in equities. Participants stated that their own knowledge and experience was the most utilized source of information during the investment decision phase. Almost half of the investors stated that their primary expectation from securities investments is to protect the value of their savings against inflation. As a result, respondents tend to sell their securities after achieving the expected return on their investments, indicating that some of these investors invest for speculative purposes.