Understanding the psychological factors that influence investment decisions is crucial for predicting stock investment retention. This study investigates the mediating role of the Big Five personality traits in stock investment retention, utilizing a modified version of the theory of planned behavior. By examining the influence of investors’ perceived risk and attitudes toward stock investment, data collected via an online survey with The Association of Thai Securities Companies (ASCO) were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings reveal that extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness significantly impact attitudes toward stock investing, which in turn affects investment retention. However, personality traits do not directly influence risk perception. This research provides unique empirical evidence of the independence between the Big Five personality traits and risk perception among Thai stock investors, underscoring the importance of personality in shaping investment behavior through its effect on attitudes.

Purpose: Expected returns and risk are critical variables in financial analysis. This study demonstrates that investors’ perceptions of these factors are shaped not only by fundamental economic variables, as traditional finance suggests but also by psychological states such as distress and mood.Design/methodology/approach: Data from Thai investors were collected through an online survey. We used regression and logistic regression to test the hypotheses.Findings: Positive moods increase perceptions of expected returns and risk, while negative moods reduce these perceptions. Higher depression levels negatively impact investors’ perceptions of expected risk. Investors’ mood intensity, especially negative moods and higher depression levels, negatively impacts risk perception in the short term. Additionally, negative moods decrease the likelihood of optimism toward risk perception in the long term.Practical implications: Financial advisors and investment firms can enhance their services by integrating psychological assessments into their client evaluations. Such assessments must be handled with great care, ensuring that clients give explicit consent and that their psychological data are protected in accordance with ethical standards. This approach allows for a deeper understanding of clients’ emotional and psychological states, leading to more personalized investment strategies. Additionally, investment firms can develop tailored products that address investors’ emotional and psychological needs, promoting more balanced decision-making and improving overall satisfaction.Originality/value: We assess perceptions of expected returns and risk by collecting data directly from investors. We also evaluate investors’ psychological traits and moods with widely recognized psychological tools, including the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule.

Understanding the relationship between psychological states and financial decision-making is crucial for a comprehensive view of investor behavior. This study examines how mood, depression, and trading performance influence forecast bias in stock market predictions. Drawing on fixed-effects regression models applied to panel data collected over three waves spanning nine months, the findings reveal that mood fluctuations and depressive symptoms systematically affect investors' return expectations. Specifically, the results show that investors experiencing a negative mood exhibit less optimistic bias in their forecasts of market returns over both the short term and the long term. Depressive symptoms, however, increase positive forecast bias for the long-term period, possibly reflecting compensatory optimism or altered risk perception during depressive episodes. Additionally, investors with stronger trading performance tend to express more optimistic forecasts, indicating a self-reinforcing bias linked to prior success. These results underscore the impact of emotional and cognitive factors, such as framing effects, overconfidence, and self-serving biases, on financial decision-making.