Can I Sleep at Night?
Since the dawn of behavioral finance, many traditional economic theories have taken a backseat because of practical shortcomings. Individuals are not rational economic beings and instead make emotional decisions that are suboptimal. One practical decision-making tool that I would espouse to individuals is what I will call the sound sleep principle. When faced with tough […]
Financial Habits and Lifestyle Creep
In our last blog, we encouraged you to start the new year off right by setting a few financial goals for yourself. Setting personal financial goals is so important, but, just like fitness goals, they can get pushed to the back burner of life. Time moves quickly. In the blink of an eye, you have […]
Common Investor Mistakes – Part 3: Put Your Money to Work!
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed Emotional Trading and the behavior and cognitive biases displayed when making this mistake. In Part 2, we expanded on that discussion, going through Risk Tolerance, which is the foundation of portfolio construction and can help you avoid making emotional trading decisions. In Part 3 of this series, […]
Common Investor Mistakes – Pt. 2: Risk Tolerance
This is Part 2 of my series on common investor mistakes. In Part 1, I went into detail about the common investor mistake of Emotional Trading. This blog expands on that topic by talking about risk tolerance and portfolio construction which can influence people making emotional trading decisions. First, let us start by defining […]
Common Investor Mistakes – Pt. 1: Emotional Trading
Are you making avoidable mistakes in your portfolio because of some behavior bias? If you answered no to this question, you might be suffering from having an overconfidence bias which will ultimately lead to making mistakes. Much of today’s academia concentrates on traditional finance. Traditional finance ignores how individuals actually behave and instead focuses on […]
Dollar-Cost Averaging – What Is It?
Dollar cost averaging has many different names which include constant dollar plan, unit cost averaging, incremental trading, and cost average effect. But they all speak to the same strategy. Simply put, dollar-cost averaging is dividing up the total amount invested across periodic purchases. The act of dollar-cost averaging was first popularized by Benjamin Graham in his classic investing book, The […]
4 Common Wealth Building Mistakes
Building wealth can be confusing and complex at times. To be successful, one must take a holistic approach, requiring an understanding of many different aspects of wealth management. Many of these components are intertwined. For example, ask yourself if you have a sound financial plan? If you answered yes, does the plan take into consideration […]
Recency Bias: Are You at Risk?
Jim Gore, CIO of THOR Investment Management, discusses some of the behavioral biases we are seeing by investors in the stock market today.