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The impact of internal behavioural decision-making biases on South African collective investment scheme performance

Market efficiency, based on people acting rationally, has been the dominating finance theory for most of the 20th and 21st Century’s. This classical finance theory is based on assumptions that people are rational, they absorb all available information and maximise utility. This view is outdated; it has been shown that people are in fact irrational and that this could be the cause of anomalies in the market. Behavioural finance takes into account people, and their natural biases. Behavioural finance has integrated classical financial theories and psychological theories to illustrate the way in which irrational people can impact market efficiency. This research looks at the way collective investment scheme manager decision-making can impact market efficiency. Specifically the behavioural biases: overconfidence, over optimism, loss aversion and frame dependence and whether or not collective investment scheme performance is affected by these. This research was carried out using a questionnaire distributed directly to CIS managers and risk-adjusted returns were used in order to allow for comparative results. The results from the questionnaire show evidence that actively managing South African CIS managers do indeed suffer from overconfidence and loss aversion and they do not appear to suffer from frame dependence or over optimism in this research context. There was also evidence showing that managers who suffer from these biases also demonstrated lower investment returns. “The investor’s chief problem, and even his worst enemy, is likely to be himself.” - Benjamin Graham

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:1209
Date January 2015
CreatorsMuller, Stacey Leigh
PublisherRhodes University, Faculty of Commerce, Management
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MCom
Format156 leaves, pdf
RightsMuller, Stacey Leigh

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