Investing Behaviour

“The hardest virus to kill is an idea,” said the character of Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Inception. This idea – of the difficulty of killing an idea – is widely prevalent.

We see this in businesses where once a management gets an idea that sounds wonderful, it is very difficult to ask it to change its plans even if the idea is destined to fail.

Things aren’t any different in stock market investing.

Investors seldom expect to be wrong, and thus hold on to bad ideas – bad stocks – even when it seems clear that their original idea was faulty.

But this is a typical behavioral attribute and you can’t blame anyone who shows this kind of a tendency – of not accepting that his idea is bad, and therefore must be killed.

In this post, we look at the relevance of killing bad ideas in stock market investing, and how you as an investor can do that.
[Read more…] about Kill That Idea Before It Kills Your Wealth

Dictionary defines bankruptcy as the state of being or becoming bankrupt. And you are bankrupt if you are unable to satisfy any just claims made upon you.

Some also define bankruptcy as a legal proceeding in which you put your money in your pants pocket and give your coat to your creditors.

These definitions apply to you once you are already bankrupt.

But the question is – How do you go bankrupt?
[Read more…] about The Easiest Way to Go Bankrupt

Do you remember the 2009 swine flu pandemic that caused worldwide panic? An estimated 14,300 people died of this virus.

If you think that’s a big number, you would be surprised to note that more people die every year due to seasonal flu.

But even then, swine flu caused much greater panic than the regular flu. What could be the reason for that?

Or consider the following example. In the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, travellers made the decision that travelling by car was a far safer way than by air.
[Read more…] about This Big Investing Mistake Can Cost You Heavy

“I hate it! It’s like the end of world for me!” said my friend Ravi hanging his head in desperation.

“What happened?” I asked. “You lost someone in your family? Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“Oh no, not that!” he said.

“Then what? Your dog died?”

“No, no!”

“Someone stole your Blackberry?”

“Vishal, will you let me speak?”

“Yeah, c’mon tell me what happened?” I smiled at him and asked.
[Read more…] about Want to Become a Better Investor? First Get Your Brain Damaged

The spread of business channels and other financial media has had grave consequences for investors over the past few years.

One of them is the need to justify each and every move of the market.

The other is the tendency to buy or sell stocks first and think about the rationale of buying/selling later.

The third, and the worst, consequence for investors of watching business channels and reading financial media has been the nonsensical focus on the movement of the Sensex or the Nifty.
[Read more…] about The Stock Market Nonsense Called ‘Consensus’

After last week’s crash landing, this week wasn’t any better for stock markets around the world.

The Indian markets, represented by the BSE-Sensex, closed the week down by 466 points, or 2.7%. This took the Sensex to sub-17,000 levels for the first time since June 2010.

Source: Yahoo FinanceAs we stand now, nobody knows anything.

Is this market going up or down? [Read more…] about Is This Market Going Up or Down?

When in doubt, follow. This is an apt quote on the behaviour of us humans.

We generally draw comfort in going with the majority, or the consensus.

The problem is that we have very less control on such behaviour, as evolution has equipped us with this tendency of running a rat race.

Yes, you read that right. We are all running several rat races, whether in our work lives or when it comes to investing our money.
[Read more…] about The Problem With a Rat Race is That Even If You Win…

Here is a snapshot of the home page of today’s Economic Times.

It’s good that the newspaper is updating people – minute by minute – on the latest on the global crisis. But it is images/pages like these that add to people’s panic.
[Read more…] about This is How Media Adds Fuel to Panic