ABSTRACT

                            Every investor and investment planner talk about risk tolerance and what people think is appropriate because there’s so much more to risk tolerance than what you can capture. Defining and understanding risk are important challenges for financial planners for their clients because it can be relate with their demographic variables. This paper has significant implications in the area of personal financial planning. An assessment of a client’s risk tolerance, typically through a questionnaire, is the major basis for a financial planner’s recommendation on portfolio asset allocation. This article investigates the relationship between selected demographic, socioeconomic, and attitudinal characteristics and financial risk tolerance level. 500 equity investors were chosen randomly to collect data from Surat city (Gujarat) using risk tolerance questionnaire. The result supported the proposition about being the relationship of demographic, socioeconomic and attitudinal characteristics with risk tolerance. The risk tolerance score is significant related with marital status, housing ownership, self esteem, personality type, age, annual income, education, occupation, number of dependents, expectations from stock market. The factors called gender and liabilities are insignificant.

Key Words: Risk Tolerance, Financial Planner, Demographic, Equity Investor