Observations on
Psychology and the Markets
We've fallen into a sort of daily routine for our Spring Break in Sicily. Lazy morning at home, load the car up around 10:00, go exploring. Lunch on the fly and a bonus gelato stop when we need a morale boost. With very little English spoken, every step of this journey has been an adventure. However, the most hair-rising and invigorating challenge has been driving in Sicily.
I was a guest speaker this week on MarketWatchers LIVE over at StockCharts.com. Tom Bowley and Erin Swenlin do a fantastic job breaking down the markets. Simple charts with powerful messages!
I've spoken often about behavioral biases and how to minimize their impact on your investment decisions. So if I'm so familiar with all of these biases, then I'm able to completely avoid them in my own investing, right? A recent interview with Professor Patricia Devine from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows why the answer is a big "no."
With some healthy volatility returning to the markets, I've seen lots of commentaries speculating on the reasons for this correction. I thought it would be helpful to remind everyone that there are exactly three reasons why markets correct...
Being a mindful investor means you learn from the past, focus on the present, and plan for the future. One way to learn from the past is to review the top and bottom performing stocks over a certain time period and think about what you got right and what you may have missed.
There is no doubt that automation and AI will continue to impact the financial industry in the coming years. But as I read about Wells Fargo using AI to rate stocks, three things came to mind that bring to light the benefits and the challenges of automating the research process...
As I continue my quest to clean out my Pocket queue, I came across an article from Ben Carlson on his A Wealth of Common Sense blog called "The Art of Doing Nothing." In my endless pursuit of the perfect work/life balance, I have often thought about the trap of "busyness" and the perils of pursuing perpetual productivity...
When I saw this Bloomberg article on bubble conditions, I immediately thought of last weekend at the Behavioral Finance Symposium in San Francisco. I helped run a workshop on the relationship of behavioral finance to trading and technical analysis...
