Are Investors Driven by Sentiments?

The principal aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the mood an investor is in when making decisions and the actual decisions.In November the questionnaire was presented to 929 panel members, of which 879 completed the questionnaire and 118 indicated that they did not own stock investments [when answering the question “What is (approximately) the total value of the stock in your investment portfolio (against the most recent stock exchange prices)?”]. They were subsequently excluded from the rest of the questionnaire.A single question was repeated in December 2010, namely whether the respondent performed any stock transactions over the past month.In February 2011 the entire questionnaire was again presented to the selected panel members. A single question was repeated in March 2011. In June the questionnaire was repeated in its entirety for the last time; in July a single question was repeated again.