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Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.

Includes abstract.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Els, Stefan
Other Authors: Strugnell, Dave
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: School of Management Studies 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Els, Stefan
author2 Strugnell, Dave
author_browse Els, Stefan
Strugnell, Dave
author_facet Strugnell, Dave
Els, Stefan
author_sort Els, Stefan
collection Thesis
description Includes abstract.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/5884
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:39.476Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher School of Management Studies
publisherStr School of Management Studies
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/5884 Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els. Els, Stefan Strugnell, Dave Gilbert, Evan Management Studies Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references. With three major stock market crashes in less than two decades, understanding the forces at work in the modern stock market is more important than ever before. The anchoring and adjustment heuristic has often been described as one of the psychological forces influencing investment decisions but little research has been done to support this belief. The aim of the present dissertation is to empirically study the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market decisions. To do this, a small group of equity analysts from South African investment firms were used for a pilot study before a survey was presented to a sample of 295 fourth year actuarial and finance students from the University of Cape Town. An experimental research design was used with a salient peak or trough on a share chart (the anchors) as the independent variable and participants’ estimates of a firm’s fundamental value as the dependent variable. No significant relationship between the anchor and participants’ estimates of fundamental value was found. More specifically, the research results suggested that participants experienced an anchoring effect but were debiased before providing an estimate of fundamental value. This is believed to have occurred due to the inclusion of multiple salient anchors in the research materials consistent with the nature of information available to analysts in real-world investment decision-making contexts. As these findings contradict those of most studies in anchoring and adjustment, it is recommended that more research is conducted on the relationship between the anchoring bias and stock market decisions in realistic investment settings. Additional research is also needed to clarify the effect that multiple anchors have on the anchoring bias. 2014-07-31T12:37:04Z 2014-07-31T12:37:04Z 2013 Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5884 eng application/pdf School of Management Studies Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Management Studies
Els, Stefan
Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
title_full Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
title_fullStr Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
title_full_unstemmed Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
title_short Examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by Stefan Els.
title_sort examining the presence of anchoring and adjustment in stock market investment decisions by stefan els
topic Management Studies
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5884
work_keys_str_mv AT elsstefan examiningthepresenceofanchoringandadjustmentinstockmarketinvestmentdecisionsbystefanels