PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that may affect female Saudi students who are considered potential non‐professional investors.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was distributed to the participants; the obtained data were analyzed using the probit model and the Likert scale.FindingsThe results indicate that female students are more likely to own stocks if they have a high level of financial education. Variables such as age, income, grade point average (GPA), grade obtained in financial courses, and risk tolerance also affect stock ownership decision. The respondents also depend on 21 factors to analyze and evaluate stocks before making investment decisions.Originality/valueSeveral studies have been conducted on investors' behavior; however, few of them have focused on non‐professional investors and none of these has focused on young, educated, female Saudi investors.

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This paper compares and evaluates the performance of eight different multifactor assetpricing models to identify and explain Anomalies in Saudi stock market (SSM). Data set of daily stock prices and returns are collected for all companies that issue shares (152 companies) which represent all sectors in the SSM during the period from 2009 to 2013. The 25 size-BE/ME portfolios are formed by the intersection of size and BE/ME quintiles (5x5 Size-BE/ME sorts). The empirical results show that each of capital asset pricing models CAPM, the Fama-French three-factor model, the Cahart model, the four factor model of Chan and Faff four factor model and the five -factor model (Adding liquidity to four factor model) have coefficients of the factors (Bp, Sp, hp, wp and L ) to be significantly different from zero. Furthermore adjusted R 2 s range from 29% to 78% but all of them produce an intercept that is significantly different from zero for 12-16 portfolios. However, by adding leverage and test the six-factor asset pricing model, the evidence confirms the significance of this model to explain return variation with adjusted R 2 ranges from 39% to 83% and the intercept are not significant for 17 portfolios out of 25. Moreover, the results of testing six-factor model by adding standard deviation of residualprovide supportive evidence to the six-factor model.

This study aims to investigate potential opportunities in international portfolio diversification. The study searches the opportunities for Egyptian investors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), European, Asian and United States stock markets. The study investigates the relationship of the Egyptian' s stock market equity indices with world markets through examining the co-integrating behaviour, Granger causality tests, Variance Decompositions and Impulse Responses. A domestic portfolio has been composed to be used as a benchmark in comparing the benefit of international portfolio diversification using the mean-variance Portfolio Optimization (PO) approach. The results reveal that however the Egyptian market is integrated to the world market, there are still some gains could be achieved from international diversification.