Non‐professional investors' behavior: an empirical study of female Saudi investors

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that may affect female Saudi students who are considered potential non‐professional investors.

A structured questionnaire was distributed to the participants; the obtained data were analyzed using the probit model and the Likert scale.

The results indicate that female students are more likely to own stocks if they have a high level of financial education. Variables such as age, income, grade point average (GPA), grade obtained in financial courses, and risk tolerance also affect stock ownership decision. The respondents also depend on 21 factors to analyze and evaluate stocks before making investment decisions.

Several studies have been conducted on investors' behavior; however, few of them have focused on non‐professional investors and none of these has focused on young, educated, female Saudi investors.