Yatırım fonlarının yatırım kararlarında mizaç etkisinin rolü: İstanbul Menkul Kıymetler Borsası' nın analizi

Disposition effect, which refers to the investors? reluctance to realize losses and tendency to realize gains, too soon, has become one of the conspicuous focal points of the recent researchers of Behavioral Finance. Recent empirical evidence indicates that the disposition effect is an irrational behavior which leads to lower profits.Mutual funds are the prefential investment choice of the particularly small investors in the last two decades. The demand for the mutual funds grows explosively throughout the world fuelled by the ascending globalization of the financial markets.The aim of this study is to prove empirically that the individual investors can eliminate the disposition effect in their investment decisions by investing in mutual funds. To achieve this purpose, the theoretical and empirical studies are analyzed about the disposition effect in individual and mutual funds? investment decisions, and a sample mutual fund of Turkish Capital Markets is examined in terms of the stock transactions in Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE).To determine the existence or non-existence of the disposition effect in the sample mutual fund?s investment decisions, the widely accepted methodology of Odean (1998) is followed. The empirical findings of this study indicate that the professional management of the sample fund does not exhibit the disposition effect in its stock investment decisions; hence the individual investors of ISE may choose to invest in this mutual fund to eliminate the disposition effect.Key Words: 1) Disposition Effect, 2) Mutual Funds, 3) Behavioral Finance,4) Behavioral Heuristics and Biases, 5) Prospect Theory