Investment in the Palestine Securities Exchange (PSE): an analysis of individual investors' behaviour

• Main Author: Madi, Ahmed K. M.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: HG Finance
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/9599/1/s95701_01.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9599/2/s95701_02.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/9599/

Understanding investors’ behaviour is one of the major objectives in behavioural finance within the context of financial analysis. The Palestinian Securities Exchange (PSE) is unique and has been established within the economically, financially and socially challenged ecosystem. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of intention (I), attitude (Att), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioural control (PBC), financial literacy (FL) and risk propensity (RP) in explaining the influence of individual investor’s behaviour in decision- making in the PSE. Based on the insights of the dynamic view of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The study adopted the TPB; the underlying framework was the TPB that had been modified to incorporate FL and RP as additional explanatory variables. Furthermore, there were 10,958 Palestinian investors in the PSE in The Gaza Strip, and this comprised the study population. Data for the study was collected from real investors across brokerage firms using structured survey questionnaires in order to understand the behavioural constructs developed. The study used the structural equation modelling Smart-PLS (3.0) to test the data obtained from a sample of 756 respondents, and to analyze the hypotheses. The results based on the questionnaire survey of Palestinian investors indicated that (I) and (PBC) significantly influence the behaviour towards investing in the PSE. They also suggested that Att, SN, PBC, FL and RP have positive effects on intention which, in turn, positively affects the behaviour towards investing in the PSE. The findings of the study provide important insights to the PSE in terms of understanding the motivation of investors to invest in the PSE which, in turn, helps the economy to efficiently utilize and preserve capital while seeking opportunities to maximize returns for investors and enhancing its role in serving investors for the enhancement of the Palestinian economic development.