Does the annual income earned influence the decision-making in the Indian Secondary equity market?

The annual income earned plays a very important role in stock investing as it influences several dimensions of the investment process. The main goal of this research was to examine the role of the annual income earned by the secondary equity investors in the decision- making process. The research is exploratory in nature where a questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 436 secondary equity investors residing in the Chennai city of India. The data was analysed using quantitative techniques like ANOVA, Multinomial Logistic Regression, Discriminant and Cross Tabulation. The ANOVA results revealed that except in economy analysis and company analysis, the investors belonging to the various income groups differed in all the other decision-making techniques. When divided in terms of gender and age as well, the results were significant. The Multinomial logistic regression analysis resulted in a robust model which showed that industry analysis, technical analysis, gender*advocate recommendation and gender*equity investment knowledge are significant predictors of the annual income. The Discriminant model developed to predict the returns earned in equity investments showed that only the industry analysis and company analysis have a positive relationship with the equity returns. The demographic and financial profile of the high- and low-income investors were examined in the Cross-tabulation analysis. The main outcomes of the study are (i) older investors are less likely to belong to the low income group compared to the average income group; (ii) the low-income investors are likely to be male investors with decreased equity investment knowledge; (iii) investors who employ industry analysis are more likely to belong to the high income group and those who employ technical analysis are less likely to belong to the high income group compared to the average income group and (iv) investors with more equity investment knowledge are more likely to belong to the high income group compared to the average income group. The results also show that adopting industry analysis and/or company analysis may lead to a higher probability of earning higher returns in the equity market whereas the adoption of economy analysis, technical analysis and/or advocate recommendation lead to lower returns. This study would guide investors and advisors to examine the direct and indirect influences of the income earned. Government bodies and investor associations need to focus on the low income investors who are more vulnerable to financial blunders owing to their financial issues.