Economic theory had, for centuries, blindly assumed the common man was a rational being in perpetual possession of perfect information.
Behavioural finance is the ‘knock-me-down-with-a-feather’ body of knowledge that admits people are not and do not. Many financial professionals had of course known for a long time that this fellow did not fit quite so well into the professors’ neat models, though the findings of behavioural finance genuinely seem to have taken parts of the academic world by complete surprise.
Nonetheless, for us the use of academia’s new favourite is diagnostic. Behavioural finance names and shames many of the potential ‘biases’ that can afflict investors. And awareness is the first step towards remedy.
A bias is a departure from rational decision-making: humans often have great difficulty in seeing both sides of an argument, and that can have a detrimental impact on investment results. Biases fall into two camps: the cognitive and the emotional. Cognitive biases arise because our brains are faulty computers. Emotional ones exist because we get scared, greedy, and sometimes just plain stupid.
Starting with the cognitive, I am sorry to tell you that your brain has some information-processing problems. If it were an iMac you would demand a full refund. The ‘framing bias’, for example, results in a different answer depending on how a question is phrased. PhD students are more likely to register early if there is a penalty late fee than if there is a discount for early registration, even though the financial costs are identical.
The ‘availability bias’, on the other hand, weights an answer by how easily it comes to mind. Your brain is a partially-complete library with the archive section behind a bolted door. It is therefore unsurprising, for example, that when asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death, participants give excessive weightings to the more ‘newsworthy’ events like aeroplane crashes or terrorist attacks.
We also tend to cling stubbornly to our existing beliefs, even in the face of new information. The ‘confirmation bias’ makes us dismiss anything that contradicts our beliefs and instead nudges us to actively seek data to support our view.
We form a view, close our eyes, stick fingers in our ears, and sing ‘la la la’. The remedy for such cognitive errors is methodical hard work that constantly seeks out opposing views, and bases decisions in cold fact and reason.
Emotional biases are much harder to remedy. ‘Loss aversion’ is the inclination to hold your portfolio losers to avoid banking a loss, and sell your portfolio’s winners to crystallise a small gain, regardless of an investment’s current attractiveness.
A rational investor should disregard the current profit or loss figures, but focus instead on the future prospects of the investment. Elsewhere, the ‘overconfidence bias’ gives us undue faith in our own abilities and can lead to excessive risk-taking. We are not only faulty, but thoroughly convinced we are fantastic.
Remember we are built for survival on the savannah, not patient and diligent investment decision-making. However, only by being aware of the many types of faults to which we are all inclined can we seek to mitigate them. There are many tools available to lessen these biases, though they all have a common theme: a disciplined approach backed up with thorough and detailed research.
Jim Wood-Smith is head of research at Hawksmoor Investment Management
