The Impact of Covid-19 on the Investment Behaviors of Individual Investors: A Comparative Analysis of the Pre-Covid-19 and the Covid-19 Process

There are many factors that prevent individual investors from acting rationally in their investment decisions. One of these factors is the uncertainty caused by epidemic diseases. During the Covid-19 period, individuals may hesitate to act rationally and change their investment behavior. The aim of this study is to determine whether there is a difference in the investment behavior of individual investors during the pre-Covid-19 period and the Covid-19 period. In this context, overconfidence, over-optimism, loss aversion, regret avoidance, representation and herd tendencies, which are frequently used in the literature, are included in the research as part of the investor tendencies. As a result of the study, changes were determined in the personality traits and moods of individual investors compared to the pre-Covid-19 period. While skeptical and cautious personality traits came to the fore in the Covid-19 process, the number of individual investors with nervous moods increased. However, the number of individual investors with happy and peaceful moods decreased in this process. Statistical differences were found in investor tendencies according to the gender, mood and frequency of following their investments before and during the Covid-19 period. It is noteworthy among the results of the study that female investors have a higher herd tendency than male investors, especially during the Covid-19 process.