By Carol Pocklington via Iris.xyz
People don’t make rational decisions, including decisions about investing.
The degree to which we make ludicrous choices depends on our DNA. (No, really; bear with me.) Decision making by both investors and advisors can be less reckless if we don’t understand more about individual behaviors and why we make the financial decisions we do. Are we hardwired to derail our own investments?
Factor into this mix emotion and a lack of financial education, and this further increases the likelihood that decision making can be faulty for both advisors and investors. Getting inside our brains to see what’s going on when we make decisions is not only doable, it’s also measurable.
As behavioral finance (think How and why we make the financial decisions we do) goes mainstream, investor behavior has become more accepted as the major influence on investment performance. If advisors have no read on how or why investors make certain decisions, mistakes will be made.
So how does one become what I would call Behaviorally Smart? According to its annual Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior, Dalbar – a financial services market research firm – says investment losses to individual investors due to their behavior is an average of 8 percent per year over the last 30 years.
And this is not just limited to the investor. Based on a study by Cabot Research, professional investment managers are leaving 1 percent to 3 percent a year on the table, which is significant when you realize the size of these large portfolios. So even the professionals who use sophisticated technology and extensive research make mental errors in decision making.
Click here to read the full story on Iris.xyz.