THE EFFECT OF FINANCIAL LITERACY ON BEHAVIORAL BIASES OF INDIVIDUAL INVESTORS IN THE EGYPTIAN STOCK EXCHANGE

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the dimensions of financial literacy could affect the behavioral biases of individual investors in the Egyptian stock exchange. The study examines the data collected from 403 individual investors in Egypt. The findings revealed the presence of some kinds of behavioral biases among individual investors in the Egyptian stock exchange, which could be categorized into three main categories: belief perseverance biases, information processing biases, and emotional biases (Pompian, 2012). This supports the view that individual investors do not necessarily act rationally. The findings also support the general view that financial literacy has a negative effect on behavioral biases; however, the effect differs between the categories of the behavioral biases, with the most effect on information processing biases, moderate effect on belief perseverance biases, and low effect on emotional biases. Also, this study indicated that the impact of financial literacy on behavioral biases is greater on females than males (Baker, Kumar, Goyal, & Gaur, 2019). Financial intermediaries and consultants can possibly become more effective by understanding the decision-making processes of individual investors. This study adds to the limited academic research that attempted to tackle the impact of financial literacy on the categories of behavioral biases.