Authors - Mrityunjaya Chavannavar, Melita Simoes , Nikhil Shetty , Chirivella Vishal Abstract - Over the years, there is a rapid growth of social media-based financial content. Finfluencers have been emerging as influential sources that provide investment information to young retail investors. This research is inclined towards understanding the influence of finfluencers on numerous behavioural biases that include herd mentality, overconfidence, and FOMO. This study also examines their influence on decision-making when it comes to investments and the overall risk perception in the current digitally enabled investment landscape. There is interplay between social media platforms, financial influencers, and behavioural biases and can be observed among young retail investors in India. Most traditional theories in finance assume that a majority of investors behave rationally while behavioural finance acknowledges the impact of cognitive and emotional biases influence investment decisions. This quantitative study makes use of a descriptive-analytical approach. The primary data used here was gathered with the help of structured online questionnaires distributed to 120 young retail investors. Data analysis was carried out with the help of IBM SPSS Statistics. Tests such as correlation analysis, multiple regression models, and ANOVA with post-hoc Tukey HSD were undertaken. Findings showed that general social media usage frequency had no significant relationship with the four behavioural biases examined. Perceived credibility of finfluencer content demonstrated significant negative relationships with all four biases (overconfidence: β = -0.387, p = 0.001; herding: β = -0.252, p = 0.044; confirmation: β = -0.321, p = 0.006; availability: β = -0.354, p = 0.003). This indicates that high-quality financial influencers may serve a corrective rather than amplifying function. Indiscriminate following of numerous finfluencers positively predicted confirmation bias (β = 0.191, p = 0.025). Investors with over five years of experience revealed significantly lower biases. This study can be used for better investor protection, and financial literacy initiatives and can be embedded in various regulatory frameworks.
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