One in 10 investors “seek help from social media”

The Covid-19 pandemic brings companies and industries to the online platform more than ever, one in ten investors start looking for social media to get help in investment in 2020. As Covid brings more people online, investors also start seeking help from social media.

A report by behavioural finance firm Oxford Risk found that the investors who got more time in their hand due to pandemic start giving more importance to social media as their key sources of information for their decision.

The younger channel now believes and admits that social media is the most powerful and useful platform to get to know the information which will help them in managing their investments, compared with just 4 per cent of those over the age of 35.

The report also shared the drawback of overreliance on the information sources of social media as it brings conflicting emotions that can confuse the investors at any point in time. This is the warning of the report because when any investor takes it more seriously and invest according to the emotions, the chance of losing money increases.

“The quickfire comments seen on social media are far too often based on amateurs’ knee-jerk responses to market fluctuations, which leads to all kinds of bad decisions and losses,” says Greg B Davies, head of behavioural finance at Oxford Risk.

“Investors need to base their decisions on long-term views with a realistic view of their goals and attitudes to risk,” he warns.