A strong financial market with broad participation is essential for a developing economy like India. But, the proportion of retail investors in India’s equities markets is strikingly low. In the globally integrated financial markets, financial advisors have a big role in attracting individual investors, because people often must rely on the relative expertise of financial advisors while making investment decisions.  At times the advices provided by these incentivised advisors even though they are suitable for clients, they may not be optimal for their investment needs. This may due to the reason that these advisors do not take into consideration the investor behaviour, including their biases while giving recommendation. This study based on a survey of investors from two districts of Kerala finds these biases are prevalent among investors. This work looks at three such biases namely, overconfidence, loss aversion and optimism exhibited by investors and discusses on what should be done by the advisors in such situations. This work is limited to the extent that only three of the biases are discussed, further studies can be done to look at other biases and also the interaction between them.

KEYWORDS: Investor preferences, financial advisors, behaviourial biases, behavioural finance.