This study investigates the existence of heuristics biases in Colombo Stock Exchange and their effect on investment performance from individual investor’s point of view. In specific, the effects of anchoring, availability bias, gamblers fallacy, overconfidence and representativeness are investigated. Further, the study inspects whether the heuristics biases differ between younger and older investors. The primary data were collected by survey from 425 individual investors. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis such as Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structure Equation Modeling (SEM). The results show that there is a statistically significant effect of anchoring, availability bias, overconfidence and representativeness bias on investment performance. However, gamblers fallacy not significantly affects investment performance. Furthermore, statistically significant differences are found between the answers of younger and older investors. This study, hopefully, will help investors to be aware of the impact of their own heuristics bias on their decision making in the stock market, thus increasing the rationality of investment decisions for enhanced market efficiency.

The research aims to examine the influence of irrational behaviour on stock investment decision, specifically, anchoring, disposition effect, home bias, herding, overconfidence and the risk perception. The research further investigates the moderating role of gender between irrational behaviour and stock investment decision. Finally, it reveals which irrational behaviour is most prevalent. A survey collected the primary data from 425 individual investors. The survey evidence shows that, of six irrational behaviours, anchoring, disposition effect, overconfidence and risk perception were influence the investment decision of individual investors, and risk perception comes out to be the significant irrational behaviour on stock investment decision. It further explores that gender has a significant moderation for anchoring, disposition effect, herding, overconfidence, risk perception, and stock investment decision. We recommend that if individuals are aware of the behavioural biases, it will help them for making the right stock investment decisions. The study also relevant for financial advisors, stockbrokers and policymakers as it facilitates them in gaining a better understanding of their clients’ irrational behaviour. The present study gives a unique insight into the individual investors’ profile of gender corresponding to each main irrational behaviour on investment decision under consideration of stock investment.

(Anastasi, 1950). The study was delimited to only 600 children's of age group 6 to 11 years. Two statistical techniques difficulty level and discrimination index were used for item analysis.

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Despite several works on corporate governance examine the ownership structure on earnings management, the empirical research on Real Earnings Management (REM) is limited. Thus, the main purpose of the research is to examine the effect of family and managerial ownership on real earnings management of selected non-financial listed companies at Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) in Sri Lanka. The researchers use quantitative approach to address this current issue, and the data were collected using a sample of 206 firms listed at the CSE during the highest market capitalization period from 2015/2016 to 2019/2020, and eliminated the companies listed in the industry of bank, finance and insurance because the companies are governing by rules and regulation. The study found that family and managerial ownership play a prominent role and negatively related with real earning management activity. The finding of the study contributes to knowledge in earnings management of agency theory literature in developing economies, and help the investors, supplier auditors and policy makers for their decision-making activities by detecting the real earning management in different ownership structure.