Some of us would love to be investors - what holds us back is temperament. We can't change who we are, but we can learn to anticipate our behaviour and keep our impulses at bay....
There are times when great investment opportunities are as plain as they appear. We tend to expect complexity, so we find it hard to accept that the market sometimes throws up extraordinary bargains. Don't look a gift horse in the month....
Curious Investor Behaviour - Number 1
Phase Myopia
At different phases of the market, our perspective changes.
In the steepening down phase there is a tendency to take an ever-narrower view of the facts, focusing on near-term risk rather than longer-term reward. Conversely, a developing bull market inspires...
Curious Investor Behaviour - Number 2
Heuristic Simplification
According to Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, people are so swamped with information that they react consciously to only a tiny part of it.
We adopt rules of thumb instead of absorbing the entire data. In general, shortcuts serve us well,...
Curious Investor Behaviour - Number 3
Confirmation Bias
Once we have made a decision or formed a view, we subconsciously emphasise information which reinforces that view; at the same time, we tend to downplay contradictory information. The confirmation bias is perhaps the most subversive of all behavioural...
