“We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.” (Aldous Huxley). The madness of crowds None of us are rational investors. We’re humans – fuelled by fear, overconfidence, and sometimes greed – to survive. Psychologists have long argued that we…
“What we believe is heavily influenced by what we think others believe.” (Thomas Gilovich) Do you remember 2017? It wasn’t that long ago, but few of us can probably recall what markets did that year. For the record, it was a great year for stock markets. The JSE All Share Index was up 21%. The…
Chances are you think you make rational decisions – about investments and about life. But science has shown that this is not the case. Accepting that you are not a rational investor is one of the first steps to achieving investment success. B is for bias Broadly speaking, there are two types of bias. Cognitive…
2023 will be defined as the year where predominantly negative global economic expectations never materialised and most stock market analysts and economist forecasters were proved wrong. All eyes were on the impact the steep rise in interest rates would have on the global economy, with recession seen as an inevitable outcome. With equity markets already…