A lot of investors have bad habits; they either take too
little or too much risk in their investments that are long term. They would
panic and sell which would follow a large drop in the market; and buy winners
of the last years by chasing the returns. Deep insights into why investors so
often make mistakes that are highly expensive can be provided by a proper study
of the “Behavioral Finance.” These mistakes are done by the investors over and
over again. By studying of psychology can affect finance logical explanations
for an irrational behavior can be obtained.
Author Hersh Shefrin of Harvard Business School in his book,
Beyond Greed and Fear describes patterns that are common in investor behavior.
He states that a principle behavior is that the investors depend on the
judgments that are based on stereotypes or the rules of the thumb.
Watch out for the
rule of the thumb
Traditional finance is of the assumption that investors will
formulate decisions that are on the basis of unbiased data. Unlike the traditional
finance, behavioral finance is of the opinion that investors often depend on
the rules of thumb to formulate their decisions. There is a good chance of the
rules of thumb being inaccurate. So the investors end up making decisions that
are bad. The typical faulty rule of thumb is to believe that the performance of
the past indicates the performance of the future aptly. Investors who follow
this fallacy are seen chasing hot funds by wrongly believing that the
performance which is over period which is as short as a year will indicate that
the manager of the fund is skilled, not lucky.
Construction of a strong portfolio or properly maintaining
it is impossible by operating with the rules of the thumb. The common mistake
made by most of the investors is that they trade too much. They are of the
belief that to invest means to try to pick out of the winners and they would
try with great dynamism.
Studies in the academics tell us though the traders that are
frequent would normally earn average returns. A study was organized by Terrance
Odean and Brad Barber (“Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” The Journal of
Finance, April 2000). The trading histories of investors that were more than
66,000 over the period of six years ending in 1996 were looked by the authors.
Their findings were that the investors who traded the most had returns that
were the worst.
Summary
Deep insights into why investors so often make mistakes that
are highly expensive can be provided by a proper study of the “BehavioralFinance.” These mistakes are done by the investors over and over again. By
studying of psychology can affect finance logical explanations for an
irrational behavior can be obtained