FACTORS INFLUENCING INVESTMENT DECISIONS IN CAPITAL MARKET : A STUDY OF INDIVIDUAL INVESTORS IN NIGERIA

!e study seeks to determine the main factors in"uencing investment decisions of investors and how these factors are related to the investors’ socio-economic characteristics in the Nigerian Capital Market. !e study covers individual investors using convenient sampling method to obtain information #om 297 respondents through a modi$ed questionnaire developed by Al-Tamimi (2005). Independent ttest, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc tests were employed. !e results indicate that the $ve most in"uencing factors on investment decisions of investors in Nigeria are past performance of the company’s stock, expected stock split/capital increases/bonus, dividend policy, expected corporate earnings and get-rich-quick. Also, the $ve least in"uencing factors include religions, rumors, loyalty to the company’s products/services, opinions of members of the family and expected losses in other investments. !e study $nds that the socio-economic characteristics of investors (age, gender, marital status and educational quali$cations) statistically and signi$cantly in"uenced the investment decisions of investors in Nigeria. With regard to the past performance of the company’s stock as an assessing factor, groups of investors statistically di%ered in factor assessment, as segments of a group considered the factor as the most important/unimportant. Since the identi$ed most in"uencing factors are usually classi$ed as wealth maximising factors, the study recommends that the investment climate and the market environment be made #iendly and conducive to a&ract investors by creatively developing programmes and policies that impact on investors’ decisions in order to maximise the value of the $rms and enhance the wealth of the investors. !e market players should re-organise the market and implement accommodating policies which will eliminate #aud and resolve the leadership crisis in


Redeemer's University, Ogun State, Nigeria
Abstract.e study seeks to determine the main factors in uencing investment decisions of investors and how these factors are related to the investors' socio-economic characteristics in the Nigerian Capital Market.e study covers individual investors using convenient sampling method to obtain information om 297 respondents through a modi ed questionnaire developed by Al-Tamimi (2005).Independent t-test, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc tests were employed.e results indicate that the ve most in uencing factors on investment decisions of investors in Nigeria are past performance of the company's stock, expected stock split/capital increases/bonus, dividend policy, expected corporate earnings and get-rich-quick.Also, the ve least in uencing factors include religions, rumors, loyalty to the company's products/services, opinions of members of the family and expected losses in other investments.e study nds that the socio-economic characteristics of investors (age, gender, marital status and educational quali cations) statistically and signi cantly in uenced the investment decisions of investors in Nigeria.With regard to the past performance of the company's stock as an assessing factor, groups of investors statistically di ered in factor assessment, as segments of a group considered the factor as the most important/unimportant.Since the identi ed most in uencing factors are usually classi ed as wealth maximising factors, the study recommends that the investment climate and the market environment be made iendly and conducive to a ract investors by creatively developing programmes and policies that impact on investors' decisions in order to maximise the value of the rms and enhance the wealth of the investors.e market players should re-organise the market and implement accommodating policies which will eliminate aud and resolve the leadership crisis in the market.

Key words: factors in uencing investment decision, capital market, individual investors, Nigeria
Introduction e basic function of capital markets is to allow the e cient transfer of funds between borrowers and lenders.As a result of the opportunities provided by the market, everyone (borrowers and lenders) is be er o than he would have been without capital market.It is therefore expected that the decision to establish the Nigerian Capital Market was born from the bene ts accruable from the performance of its traditional functions.
e origins of the Nigerian Capital Market date back to the colonial times when the British Government ruling Nigeria at the time sought funds for running the local administration (Ozaze, 2011), and subsequently promulgated the 1946 10-year plan Local Loan Ordinance for the oatation of the rst N300,000, 3% Government stock 1956/61 (Odife, 2006, cited in Ozaze, 2011).However, the market became known in 1960 when the Nigerian Stock Exchange (Lagos Stock Exchange) was opened.As noted in Nwude (2012b), the capital market at present has 10 trading oors in Lagos (1960), Kaduna (1978), Port-Harcourt(1980), Kano (1989), Onisha (1990), Ibadan (1990), Abuja (1999), Yola (2002, Benin (2005) and Uyo (2007).e Capital Market provides facilities for mobilizing and dealings in medium and long term funds.e players on the capital market are the operators who act as intermediaries between the surplus economic units (savers) and the de cit economic units (borrowers).ey include Securities Exchanges, Brokers/Dealers, Issuing Houses, Registrars and Investment Advisors.
e two major factors that have contributed to the development of the Nigerian capital market in recent times were (i) the public sector reform of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1987, which involves the full or partial privatization and commercialization of public owned enterprises, and (ii) the consolidation/ recapitalization of banks in 2005/2006, where banks were asked to raise their minimum paid-up capital from N2 billion to N25 billion.e consolidation exercise made the capital market be very active and shares of the banks were over-subscribed.Many investors were a racted to the market as a result of the high share prices.e banks also enticed the investors with heavy (margin) loans for the purpose of buying their shares in the capital market.However, the tempo could not be sustained as the global nancial crisis had its ripple e ect on the Nigerian economy, and the market crashed in 2009.Accordingly, the market capitalization nose-dived from an all time high of N13.5 trillion in March, 2008, to less than N4.6 trillion by the second week of January, 2009(Olisaemeka, 2009;Nwude, 2012a).Also, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (a gauge for measuring aggregate growth in the capital market) decreased from about 66000 basis points to less than 22000 basis points in the same period.e Nigerian equities market also decreased from a comparative 38.8 percent of Nigeria's GDP in 2008 (at the market's high) to a meager 6.8 percent (Okumagba, 2012).e continuous down movement of stock prices created panic among the investors in the market, leading to disequilibrium between supply and demand, with supply exceeding demand.As Nwude (2012a) observed, the decline was propelled by the actions of pro t takers who disposed stocks in order to reap o quick gains.e actions of the investors con rmed the study by Shanmugsundaram and Balakrishnan (2011) that small corrections in a capital market have o en disintegrated into full-scale crashes fueled by panicked investors, who made rash decisions to avoid losing money in the short term, rather than focusing on an investment's long term potential.e position of the investors is understandable, when viewed from the point of psychological studies, as cited by Shanmugsundaram and Balakrishnan (2011) that the pain of losing money from investments is nearly three times greater than the joy of earning money.
e basic questions arising from the scenario above are: What are the main factors that have a racted the investors to invest in the capital market?Are these factors of investment decisions related to the investors' socio-economic characteristics?e motivation, therefore, for embarking on this research is to answer the questions above and the fact that there have been limited empirical studies that investigated the factors in uencing individual investors' decision making in the capital market in Nigeria.
e main objective of the study is to determine the most in uencing factors on investment decisions of investors, and compare how one of the factors relates to the socio-economic characteristics of the investors in the Nigerian Capital Market.e socio-economic factors include age, gender, marital status, educational quali cation and monthly income.Speci cally, the objectives of the study are to: (i) Identify and prioritise the factors in uencing investment decisions of investors in the Nigerian Capital Market; and (ii) Investigate the e ect of socio-economic characteristics of investors on any of the most a ecting factors.Based on the objectives of the study, the following hypotheses were formulated: (i) Socio-economic characteristics of investors signi cantly a ect their investment decisions.(ii) Factors in uencing investment decisions of investors di er signi cantly according to age, gender, marital status, educational quali cation and monthly income.e paper is relevant and timely in view of the e ect of the recent crisis in the capital market, which if not carefully handled, can destabilize the economy.Also, to the best of the author's knowledge, empirical research on factors in uencing investors' decision in Nigeria is limited.us, the ndings of the study will guide the investors, the regulators and the government on investors' behaviour and investment policy needed to restore con dence in the capital market.
e paper is divided into six sections.e rst section introduces the paper, while the second section presents the literature review.e third section examines the methodology of the study.e fourth section covers data presentation, analysis and discussions of results.e h section provides the main ndings of the study.Finally, the sixth section concludes with the summary and implications of the study.

Literature review
Investment in the capital market can be undertaking by an investor for three basic objectives: (i) wealth maximisation; (ii) liquidity maintenance; and (iii) risk minimisation.is implies that a rational investor is in uenced by these objectives when making investment decisions.As Masomi and Ghayekhloo (2011) observed, under the paradigm of traditional nancial economics, decision makers are considered to be rational and utility maximising.According to Chandra and Kumar (2008), investor rationality is de ned as being reasonable and making decisions that are in their best interest.Somil (2007) observed that the proponent of the theory of rational investor assume that an individual makes a decision on the basis of the principles of maximisation, self-interest and consistent choice.According to Somil (2007), rationality also assumes that an investor has perfect information of his surroundings and makes the decisions with the sole objective of pro t maximisation.e reasoning derivable from this principle of rationality is that the capital market must be e cient.Capital market e ciency implies that all information regarding the market is fully and instantaneously re ected in security prices and available to all investors.But most capital markets operate under ine cient conditions, making rational decisions impossible.Also, Mahmood, Ahmad, Khan and Anjum, (2011) posit that various empirical investigations conducted during 1980 revealed that the market is not e cient as explained by e cient market hypothesis (EMH) of traditional nance theories, because of certain anomalies of the market.As Somil (2007) recorded, the theory of rational investor has been opposed by neoclassical economic theory which proposes that every investor or every person has limited access to information and an individual is bounded by external constraints and one's own behaviour.Simon (1986) believed that investors make irrational decisions and do not behave rationally because of their limitations of capacity to process the information.Tversky andKahneman, (1974), cited in Shanmugsundaram andBalakrishnan (2011) identi ed that the decision-making process is not a strictly rational one, where all relevant information is collected and objectively evaluated, rather, the decision maker makes mental 'short cuts' in the process.e principles of rationality have also been opposed by the behavioral nance theory, which is more concerned about the decision environment and individual di erences between decision makers.e behavioral nance asserted that investor market behaviour derives from psychological principles of decision making, to explain why people buy or sell the stocks (Al -Tamimi, 2005).erefore, the foregoing has clearly demonstrated that investors are not rational in their decision and that their investment decisions are based on some factors.
Al-Tamimi (2005) investigated the factors in uencing individual investor behaviour on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) nancial markets.e study found that the six most in uencing factors in order of importance were: expected corporate earnings, get rich quick, stock marketability, past performance of the rm's stock, government holdings and the creation of the organised nancial markets.He also found the least in uencing factors to be expected losses in other local investments, minimising risk, expected losses in international nancial markets, family member opinions and gut feeling on the economy.But the results of a similar study carried out by Al-Tamimi and Kalli (2009) on UAE investors indicate that the most in uencing factor that a ects the investment decision is religious reasons and the least a ecting factor is rumors.However, the results of the two studies are acceptable based on Hossain and Nasrin (2012) submission that all possible factors in uencing investors' investment decisions are not constant over time and that they may vary widely from investor to investor for distinct demographic features.Mojgan and Ali (2011) studied the e ect of earnings per share and cash dividend per share on investor decision making in the Tehran stock market, and found that the two factors in uenced investors' decision to buy stocks.Azam and Kumar (2011) examined the factors in uencing Pakistan investors' behaviour on the Karachi Stock Exchange and found that the earning per share, foreign direct investment and gross domestic product growth rate have a signi cant impact on stock prices.Merikas, Merikas, Vozikis and Prasad ( 2008) investigated factors in uencing investors' decision in the Greek Stock Exchange and found that investors principally favour expected corporate earnings, condition of nancial statements, and rm status in the industry.Also Masomi and Ghayekloo ( 2011), studying the consequences of human behaviours in economies in Tehran market found that behavioural factors in uenced investment decision making of investors.Kaleem, Wajid and Hussain (2009), in a study of factors a ecting nancial advisors perception in portfolio management in Pakistan, found that age, income, language and orientation of education have a signi cant role in determining the investment style of an investor.Lewellen (1977), cited in Shanmugsundaram and Balakrishnan (2011), found that age, gender, income and education a ect investors' preference and a itudes towards investment decisions.Shaikh and Kalkundrikar (2011), argued that the factors in uencing investors' investment decisions are based on various demographic factors like age, gender, marital status, level of income, level of market knowledge, educational quali cation and the number of dependents.Geetha and Ramesh (2012) studied the relevance of demographic factors in investment decisions in Tamilnadu, India, and claimed that the demographic factors have a signi cant in uence over some of the investment decision elements, while insigni cant in uence was found on some other elements.Also, Jain and Mandot (2012) studying the impact of demographic factors on investment decision of investors in Rajasthan, concluded that various demographic factors like age, marital status, gender, city, income level, market knowledge, occupations and quali cations have a major impact on investment decision of investors.Fares and Khamis (2011) investigated individual investors' stock trading behaviour at the Amman Stock Exchange, Jordan, using the multiple regression technique.ey identi ed four behavioral factors (age, education, accessibility to the internet and interaction between the investor and his/her broker) that in uenced investors' trading decisions.According to the authors, investor's age, education, and his/her accessibility to the internet had a signi cant and positive e ect on stock trading, while the interaction between the investor and his/her broker, had a highly signi cant and negative e ect.
Sultana and Pardhasadhi (2012) investigated factors in uencing Indian individual equity investors' decision making and behaviour.A er applying factor analysis, the 40 a ributes were reduced to ten factors of individual eccentric, wealth maximisation, risk minimisation, brand perception, social responsibility, nancial expectation, accounting information, government and media, economic expectation and advocate recommendation factors.Nagy and Obenberger (1994) examined the factors in uencing investment behaviour and found that classical wealth maximisation criteria are the most important to investors, even though investors employ diverse criteria when choosing stocks.
In Sri Lanka, Cooray ( 2003) identi ed the factors a ecting investment decisions as risk factor, return on investment, liquidity of investment, tax consequences of an investment, in ation and the term of an investment.Sharma and Gupta ( 2011) identi ed factors a ecting investment decisions in India to include risk, return, peer in uence, recommendation of nancial advisors and market trends.Rashid and Nishat (2009) found that in Bangladesh, the most in uencing factors on investors' decisions are e ciency of the company, in ation rate, easy and quick transactions, transaction cost, access to the company and industry information, quality of information and prior knowledge of securities.Also, Hussain and Nasrin (2012) in a study of Bangladesh found that the eight most important principal factors in uencing retain investors are company speci c a ributes/reputation, net asset value, accounting information, trading opportunity, publicity, ownership structure, in uence of people and personal nance needs.
In Nigeria, the study by Aregbeyen and Mbadiugha (2011) found that the ten most in uencing factors on investor's decision in order of importance are: motivation by people who have a ained nancial security through share investment, future nancial security, recommendations by reputable and trusted stock brokers, management team of the company, awareness of the prospects of investing in shares, composition of the board of directors of companies, recent nancial performance of the company, ownership structure of the company, reputable predictions of future increment in share value and bonus payments.
e consensus from the review of literature above is that investors' investment decisions are not rational, based on the limitation of their capacity to process information.Most importantly, investors' decisions are in uenced by certain identi ed factors categorized as wealth miximising factors (corporate earnings, get rich quick, dividend policy, past performance of the rm's stock) and other factors related to the investor's socio-economic characteristics and accounting information among others.

Methodology
e aim of the study is to determine the most in uencing factors on investment decisions of investors, and compare how one of the factors relates to the socioeconomic characteristics of the investors in the Nigerian Capital Market.e socio-economic factors include age, gender, marital status, educational quali cation and monthly income.
e population of the study consists of all individual investors in the Nigerian capital market.Since the population is large, a survey was carried out among a sample of 320 respondents.e respondents, mainly civil servants, academics, business men, the clergy and other professionals were selected based on their informed knowledge about nancial markets.It was the policy of the researcher that for a respondent to be included in the study, he/she must, at least, have a ended the elementary school, which to some extent provides basic understanding of the nancial markets.us, managers of brokerage rms were asked to select respondents based on the minimum primary-six quali cation.
e structural questionnaire developed by Al-Tamimi ( 2005) was employed for this study, with some modi cations.e amended questionnaire consists of thirty ve questions divided into two sections.e rst section contains ten questions relating to socio-economic characteristics of the investors.e second section covers the twenty ve identi ed factors in uencing investors' investment decisions in Nigeria, using a 5-point Likert scale ranking from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).
e motivation for the use of the questionnaire developed by Al-Tamimi ( 2005) was based on the fact that it covered most of the factors speci ed in literature and provided a standardised instrument, which had been previously tested and found useful in determining investors' investment decisions in similar studies (Al-Tamimi, (2005;Al-Tamimi & Kalli, 2009).However, the researcher had carefully amended and adapted the questionnaire to the Nigerian environment in line with the objective of the study, a er conducting a pilot study with ve academics not below the rank of Senior Lecturers and ve General Managers in the brokerage rms.e questionnaires were distributed in Lagos and Abuja for three reasons.First, Lagos was formerly the capital of Nigeria, before the movement of the Federal Government to Abuja.Second, the Stock Exchanges in Lagos and Abuja are the most active capital markets in Nigeria.
ird, the level of economic activities, infrastructural development, income level and population in the two cities ensure excellent representation of investors in Nigeria.e questionnaires were purposefully distributed to the respondents in two ways: rst, the questionnaires were distributed to some Managers of brokerage rms for onward distribution among their clients who had earlier been selected based on the primary six minimum education.Second, following the same procedure, investors who visited Lagos and Abuja Stock Exchanges between October and December, 2012, were given some of the questionnaires to ll in by ve well-trained Research Assistants.Out of the 320 questionnaires distributed, 297 valid questionnaires were available for the study, representing a response rate of 92.81% of the total sample.e questionnaire was subjected to reliability test using Cronbach's Alpha scale.According to Matzler and Renzl (2006), the reliability and validity of a measurement instrument/scale can be tested by looking at the reliability of individual items and the convergent validity of the measures associated with individual constructs.e results of the factor loadings of individual items in the questionnaire (not shown here) indicate that they varied from 0.797 to 0.810.us, it can be concluded that the individual items are reliable.When using the combined construct validity coe cient, a scale is deemed to be viable or valid if the Cronbach's Alpha exceeds the value of 0.7(see Ranganathan & Henley, 2008;Arteaga-Ortiz & Fernandez-Ortiz, 2010).erefore, the viability or validity of the instrument was deemed su cient and satisfactory since the Cronbach's Alpha (α = 0.81) exceeded the minimum acceptable level.A shown in Table 1, 61.6% of the respondents that participated in the study were males, while 38.4% were female investors.e result is reasonable in view of the fact that capital market is sometimes perceived to be risky and women are generally seen to be risk averse.

Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussions
e study con rms the work of Babajide and Adetiloye (2012), who observed that most of the activities in the securities market are carried out by men.e age pro le of the respondents reveals that many of the respondents (27.3%) were in the age category of 36 -45 years, 22.9% were in the age category of 46 -55 years and 19.5% were in the age bracket of 26 -35 years.e results of the age distribution show that most of the investors in the Nigerian Capital Market were in the age category of 26 -55 years, which incidentally coincides with the productive age of the people.In terms of marital classi cation, 67.0% of the respondents were married, 30.3% were single, while 2.7% were divorced.Interestingly, the results show that most of the respondents are highly educated, and hence well informed about activities in the capital market.For instance, 79.8% have Bachelor/Masters/PhD degree, 15.2% have high school or diploma, while only 5.1% have less than high school education.
e distribution for monthly income depicts the low level of income and poverty in Nigeria and that most of the investors were small investors.More than half (50.3%) of the respondents were on income level of less than N100,000 per month (less than $625).Finally, the analysis of the years of capital market investment of the investors, which to some extent determines the experience of the investors' investment selection and/or timing, shows that 29.6% of the respondents had less than ve years capital market experience, with only 13.5% having more than 20 years.As Mahmood et al. (2011) asserted, knowledge of investors regarding nancial market and their past experience contribute a lot towards the risk assessment in various products.

Prioritization of Factors In uencing Investors' Investment Decisions
Table 2 presents the means and standard deviation of the identi ed factors most in uencing investors' investment decisions in Nigeria.
From Table 2, the ve most in uencing factors on investors' investment decision in the Nigerian capital market in order of importance (with their means and standard deviation) are: past performance of the company stock (M = 4.08, SD = .924),expected stock split/capital increases/bonus (M = 4.00, SD = .950),dividend policy (M = 3.99, SD = .988),expected corporate earnings (M = 3.94, SD = 1.015) and get-rich-quick (M = 3.86, SD = 1.015).e results indicated that the ve most important factors are usually categorized as wealth maximising criteria.e nding is consistent with the works of Nagy and Obenberger (1994) and Al-Tamimi (2005).On the other hand, the ve least in uencing factors include: religions (M = 1.97,SD = 1.075), rumors (M = 2.33, SD = 1.182), loyalty to the company's products/ services M = 2.56, SD = 1.193), opinions of members of the family (M = 2.60, SD = 1.165) and expected losses in other investments (M = 2.60, SD = 1.144).

Results of the T-Test and ANOVA of Factors A ecting Investors' Investment Decisions
e e ects of the socio-economic characteristics of investors on the assessing factors of investment were analysed in this section.Meanwhile, more emphasis was placed on the factor of past performance of the company's stock, since it was reported highest by investors.

Gender and Factors Influencing Investors' Investment Decisions
e results of the independent t-test in Table 3 reveal that there was a statistically signi cant di erence for gender in the assessing factors of past performance of the company's stock {t(295) = 2.686, p = .008},expected corporate earnings {t(295) = 2.791, p = .006},and dividend policy {t(295) = 2.866, p = .004}.For instance, results indicate that male investors reported signi cantly higher preference for past performance of the company's stock (M = 4.20, SD = .835)than did the females (M = 3.90, SD = 1.030).e results imply that the gender of investors ma ers when making investment decision based on the past performance of the company's stock, expected corporate earnings and dividend policy.However, it was observed that the assessing factors of expected stock/capital increases/bonus {t(295) = 1.354, p = .177}and get rich quick {t(295) = 1.687, p = .093}has insigni cant e ect for gender.is is reasonable, because both males and females are ambitious and expectant of the bright future gains from their investments.

Age and Factors Influencing Investors' Investment Decisions
Table 4 shows the results of one way ANOVA test between the di erent age groups of the respondents and the ve most in uencing factors.e results of the ANOVA show that there was a statistically signi cant di erence among the di erent age groups and each of the ve most in uencing factors [past performance {F(5,291) = 8.879, p = .001};expected stock split/capital increases/ bonus{F(5,291) = 5.175, p = .001},dividend policy{F(5,291) = 8.270, p = .001},expected corporate earnings{F(5,291) = 5.997, p = .001}and get-rich-quick{F(5,291) = 7.731, p = .000}]at ve percent signi cant level.is shows that age is a factor a ecting investment decision of investors in the Nigerian capital market.
To measure the strength of association (omega square, ω 2 ) between the independent variable and the dependent variable, since there is a signi cant F, from the one way analysis of variance of the e ect of age groups on past performance of the company's stock , F(5, 291) = 8.979, p = .001),the omega square is calculated as: Omega square (ω 2 ) = SS B -(K -1)MS W / (SS T + MS W ) = 33.800-(6 -1) .753/ (252.896+ .753)= 30.035/253.649 = .12e results indicated that the independent variable (six age groups) accounts for approximately 12% of the variance in the dependent variable (past performance of the company stock) for the investors.
Also, the study proceeded to check the assumption that the variances of the age groups are equal for the assessing factor of past performance of the company's stock using Levene's test of homogeneity of variance (Table 5).Levene's test was not signi cant; F(5 ,291 = .995,p = .421,at the .05alpha level.us, the assumption of homogeneity of variance had not been violated.Sche é's post hoc range test was used to identify homogeneous subsets of means that are not di erent from each other (see Table 6).e results indicate that there was a statistically signi cant di erence between the age group of 18 -25 years and the other age groups, although 18 -25 years had marginally statistical signi cant di erence, p = .055,with those in the age group of 26 -35 years.However, the means of the age groups shown in column/subset 2 do not di er signi cantly.In order to quantify the size of the di erence between groups, an e ect size (ES) was calculated.E ect size is a standardized mean di erence between groups, calculated as follows: where, x Š ix Š j represents mean di erence obtained from the multiple comparisons table and MS W is the within mean square from the ANOVA table.

Marital Status and Factors Affecting Investors' Investment Decisions
Table 7 shows the results of one way ANOVA test between the di erent marital groups of respondents and the ve most in uencing factors.e main statistically signi cant di erence was found for all the ve most in uencing factors [past performance -F(2,4) =17.959, p = .001;expected stock split/capital increases/bonus -F(2,4) =13.841, p = .001;expected corporate earnings-F(2,4) =12.134, p = .001;dividend policy-F(2,4) = 8.523, p = .001, and get-rich-quick -F(2,4) =11.287, p = .001)based on the di erent marital groups of the investors at ve percent signi cant level.However, an analysis of the means shows that investors who are divorced (M = 3.00, SD = 1.309) and single (M = 3.74, SD = 1.012) reported signi cantly less a raction to past performance of the company's stock than those who are married.is indicates that marital status is a factor a ecting investment decision of investors.
Again, before examining the e ect of marital status on past performance, the Levene's test of homogeneity of variance of the marital status groups was conducted and found not to be equal for the assessing factor of past performance of the company's stock.is implies that Levene's test was signi cant; F(2,294 = 5.072, p = .007,at the .05alpha level.As shown in Table 8, the assumption of homogeneity of variance was violated.us, the violation of the assumption of homogeneity of variance indicated that an alternative ANOVA had to be conducted.is warranted the use an adjusted F test of Welch statistic, which was found to be signi cant (Table 9).erea er, the Games-Howell post hoc test was applied (Table 10).From Table 10, the Games-Howell post hoc test of multiple comparisons for signi cance indicated that the single group (M = 3.74) was statistically signi cantly di erent from the married group (M = 4.28), with mean di erence of .537and a p value of .001.However, the single and divorced groups did not di er signi cantly.e ve most in uencing factors of past performance {F(4,292) = 5.803, p = .001},expected stock split/capital increases/bonus{F(4,292) = 4.386, p = .002},expected corporate earnings{F(4,292) = 4.837, p = .001},dividend policy{F(4,292) = 3.359, p = .010},and get-rich-quick{F(4,292) = 3.545, p = .008}showed signi cant di erence among the di erent educational groups at ve percent signi cant level.is reveals that education is a factor a ecting investment decision of investors.However, an analysis of the means shows that investors with Master/PhD (M = 4.33, SD = .817)and High Diploma/Bachelor (M = 4.04, SD = .887)reported signi cantly more a raction to past performance of the company's stock than those with High School (M = 3.80, SD = .1.398),Diploma (M = 3.77, SD = .1.003)and less than High School (M = 3.40, SD = .910). is indicates that marital status is a factor a ecting the investment decision of investors.
Levene's test of homogeneity of variance was found to be signi cant; F(4,292) = 3.239, p = .013,at the .05alpha level, which implies that the assumption of homogeneity of variance was violated (Table 12).Again, to solve the problem of homogeneity of variance, the study employed an adjusted F test of Welch statistic (Table 13).e Welch statistic was signi cant, F(4,39.396)= 5.445, p = .001,at the .05alpha level erea er, the Games-Howell post hoc test for the multiple comparisons was conducted (Table 14).e Games-Howell post hoc test of multiple comparisons for signi cance indicates that the investors with Master/PhD were signi cantly di erent from those with less than high school, and also statistically di erent from those with diploma or equivalent.Again, to quantify the size of the di erence between groups, an e ect size (ES) was calculated as follows: E ect Size (ES) = x Š ix Š j /√MS W Graduate degree (Master's or PhD)/ Less than high school, ES = .931/√.802 = 1.03 Graduate degree (Master's or PhD)/ Diploma or equivalent, ES = .559/√.802 = .62 Based on the e ect size calculated above, the e ect size for Graduate degree (Master's or PhD)/ Less than high school shows a large e ect, while that of Graduate degree (Master's or PhD)/ diploma or equivalent represents a medium e ect.For example, ES of 1.03 for Graduate degree (Master's or PhD)/ Less than high school indicates that an average person with Graduate degree (Master's or PhD) is 1.03 standard deviation more a racted to past performance of the company's stock than the average person with maximum of high school.

Monthly Income and Factors Affecting Investors' Investment Decisions
Table 15 revealed the results of the one way ANOVA test between the di erent income groups of the respondents and the ve most in uencing factors.e results indicate that out of the ve most in uencing factors only the factor of expected corporate earnings {F(5,291) = 3.684, p = .003}shows signi cant di erence among the di erent income groups of the respondents at ve percent signi cant level.

Main research ndings
e main ndings of the study are highlighted as follows: 1.
e ve most in uencing factors of investors' investment decisions in the Nigerian capital market in order of importance are: past performance of the company's stock, expected stock split/capital increases/bonus, dividend policy, expected corporate earnings and get-rich-quick.On the other hand, the ve least in uencing factors include: religions, rumors, loyalty to the company's products/services, opinions of members of the family and expected losses in other investments.2.
e identi ed most in uencing factors are mostly classi ed as wealth maximising factors (see Nagy & Obenberger, 1994;Aswath, 2001). is is also in line with the theory of investor rationality (see Somil, 2007). 3.
e most in uencing factors of investors' investment decisions in Nigeria also con rmed the results of similar studies in other countries (Al-Tamimi, 2005;Merikas et al., 2008).4.
e socio-economic characteristics of investors (age, gender, marital status and educational quali cations) have statistically signi cant in uence on the investment decisions of investors in Nigeria. is con rms the studies for countries like Pakistan (Kaleem et al., 2009), India (Geetha & Ramesh, 2012), and Rajasthan ( Jain & Mandot, 2012). 5.With regard to the past performance of the company's stock as an assessing factor, groups of investors statistically di ered in factor assessment, and segments of a group considered the factor as the most important/unimportant.

Conclusions and implications
Investment decisions of investors in Nigeria are in uenced by certain identi ed factors.e most important principal factors are past performance of the company stock, expected stock split/capital increases/bonus, dividend policy, expected corporate earnings and get-rich-quick.ese factors were signi cantly in uenced by gender, age, marital status and educational quali cation of investors in the Nigerian capital market.Speci cally, the investment decisions of investors relating to past performance of the company's stock di er based on their socio-economic characteristics (age, gender, marital status and educational quali cation).
us, policy makers and managers of companies must identify the factors that appeal to di erent groups and segments of investors in an a empt to make the investment climate and the market environment friendly and a ractive to the investors.Nigeria, and other countries in similar economic situations, can creatively adapt the results of this study to improve their investment climate by developing programmes and policies that impact on investors' decisions in order to maximize the value of the rms and enhance the wealth of the investors.Such programmes and policies include the reorganisation of the market, e ective monitoring and enforcement of policy, elimination of fraud, proper information dissemination, the resolution of the leadership crisis in the market, and provisions of infrastructural facilities.All these recommendations will assist to deepen the market and encourage more investment in the capital market by the investors.
e implications of the ndings of the study are that: (i) Investors are enlightened on the factors that are necessary to maximise their wealth in the capital market; (ii) Companies quoted on the Stock Exchange will be able to build-in the identi ed factors that a ect investors' investment decision when designing products in order to appeal to the interests of the investors for the companies to remain relevant and competitive; and (iii) the policy makers will guide against any form of manipulation of share prices meant to deceive unsuspecting investors and ensure the orderly trading on the Stock Exchange.Investors' investment should be seen to be protected in order to guarantee con dence in the market.us, the paper, by identifying the most and the least in uencing factors, provides reasonable managerial implications for the formulation of policies that will enhance a robust performance of the companies operating in the Nigerian capital market by identifying the socio-economic characteristics of investors that impact on their investment decisions.

FIG. 1 .
FIG. 1. Means Plot of Age Group for Assessing the Factor of Past Performance of Company Mean of Because of the past performance of a company's stock

FIG. 2 .
FIG. 2. Means Plot of Education and the factor of Past Performance of the Company 3.1.Socio-EconomicCharacteristics of the Respondentse socio-economic characteristics of the respondents in the Nigerian capital market are presented in Table1below.

TABLE 2 .
Factors In uencing Investment Decisions in the Nigerian Capital Market

TABLE 3 .
T-Test for In uence of Gender on the Respondents in Five Most In uencing Factors

TABLE 4 .
In uence of Age on Investors' Investment Decisions

TABLE 5 .
Test of Homogeneity of Variance

TABLE 6 .
Homogeneous Subsets b. e group sizes are unequal.e harmonic mean of the group sizes is used.Type I error levels are not guaranteed.

TABLE 7 .
In uences of Marital Status on Investors' Investment Decisions

TABLE 8 .
Test of Homogeneity of Variances

TABLE 9 .
Robust Tests of Equality of Means

TABLE 10 .
Games-Howell Post Hoc Test of Multiple ComparisonsTable11presents the results of one way ANOVA test between the di erent educational groups of respondents and the ve most in uencing factors.

TABLE 11 .
In uences of Educational Quali cations on Investors' Investment Decisions

TABLE 12 .
Test of Homogeneity of Variances

TABLE 13 .
Robust Tests of Equality of Means

TABLE 14 .
Games-Howell Post Hoc Tests of Multiple Comparisons

TABLE 15 .
In uences of Income on Investors' Investment Decisions