A explosão dos investidores pessoa física na bolsa de valores brasileira em tempos de pandemia do coronavírus: uma explicação à luz do viés da aversão à perda

Abstract

During the period of the coronavirus pandemic, characterized by uncertainty and economic instability, the Brazilian stock exchange had a 123% increase in the number of individual investors, contrary to the behavior expected by the traditional economic theory of risk aversion and the search for security. At the time, one of the measures adopted by the Federal Government to mitigate the effects of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was the reduction of the SELIC rate, which reached the lowest level of the entire historical series. This work aims to analyze, through the interpretation of surveys carried out in 2020 by B3 and AMBIMA on the profile and behavior of Brazilian investors, the reasons for the increase in the number of equity investors, based on the interpretation of the behavioral bias of loss aversion, proposed by Kahneman and Tversky. Data analysis showed that a negative real profitability of fixed income investments in the period, given that return on investments were below the inflation indexes, boosted the entry of new individual investors into the stock exchange, despite of the economic scenario resulting from the pandemic, as predicted in the loss aversion bias.