Despite the enormous amounts of data and numbers that are available and get looked at, investing for most people still is driven more by emotions than rational thinking.
A fundamental reason behind this is that most individuals would look at information, process it and make an investing decision all by themselves. Meaning there is no one other than yourself that you have to convince before making this decision.
The flaw with this is that you are the easiest person to convince and there's hardly any objection to your story that you are so convinced of.
This is especially exacerbated if you spent a lot of time researching the said company that you are trying to invest in.
The thought in our minds being " I have looked at so much information about this company, surely I understand the business very well by now. Others don't realize the opportunity that I do, maybe because they haven't studied it like me. I understand the risks with the business and I should definitely invest in this company"
Here are a few reasons why this rationale can fall short for investors:
1. Subjectivity
What we consider a lot of information is very subjective. One investor might read about a company and their financials for 2 days v/s another who may learn about it for months. This is not to suggest more time spent equals more knowledge.
A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if I were to run this business do I understand the challenges of running this business to a reasonable degree? If the answer is no, its better to invest more time learning about the industry and the company.
2. Macro Factors
Even if it is a great business, there are macro factors that may affect the business in material ways. With this however all one can do is to make sure there are no looming existential or competitive risks to the business that can have a material impact. It is a futile exercise to try and predict these.
For example trade tensions between US and China could negatively influence Chinese stocks listed on US exchange. If there are escalating tensions at the time, it might be better suited to avoid investing, unless the risk/return is acceptable to you.
3. Volatility
Even if you identified a great business and invested in it, there are usually some periods of high volatility either in the stock price or circumstances in your personal life that results in you having to sell the assets.
A good way to overcome this is to have a cash surplus of about 6 months of living expenses (more if you anticipate large expenses in the short term). This ensures you have a greater peace of mind, and are less likely to be swayed by short term volatility and/or reasonable ups and downs life throws at you.
4. Inaccurate interpretation of historical data
In many instances the information you review about a companies financial can either be misrepresented for short periods due to low frequency events or in some cases due to accounting reasons, example. Sudden increase in earnings of a company after they sell a part of their business or sudden increase in companies expenses due to a large depreciation expense that is a one-off or a temporary spike in sales due to mobility restrictions during COVID.
If you're reviewing more recent data and the trends therein, there is a natural tendency for most people to extrapolate these trends linearly in a positive manner. Very rarely do we think of trends that are non-linear in nature or even declining revenue when historically it has never declined.
All of this leads to a gross misrepresentation of what is likely to happen in the future because we simply look at what has happened in the past and assume things would pan out similarly in the future.
5. Call to Action or FOMO
After we research a particular company for a while, there is a feeling of sunk cost of the time that we spent. We want to get a return on that time and so we try to convince ourselves how this might be a great company to invest and the amount of return it can make us. This exacerbates our bias in that we look for evidence that supports it then being neutral and objective.
Adding to this emotional state is the fear of missing out in case we were actually right about this company and did not pull the trigger and buy the company at this price. Usually when we our positive about a company our mind estimates the upside much higher than the risk and hence the FOMO comes into play.
A good way to overcome this and be objective about it is to speak with someone who is agnostic about this and tell them your thesis. If you can convince someone else to also invest their money based on your thesis (assuming the person is sound in understanding investment thesis and financials), it gives you some validation that you have your personal bias in check.
Closing Thoughts
Having said all of this, I still fall into some of these myself from time to time and I'm a work in progress in learning to keep my emotions under check. The best way I have found so far is to put in place processes or friction points in your investment processes that force you to follow discipline and think a bit more before pulling the trigger.
For instance, I have two brokerage accounts, in one it's super simple to trade through the app and that's where I only keep a relatively small portion of my investments. The other app is configured for two factor authentication so it's always a bit of a hassle to log in to that account and trade. This limits impulse purchases while making the account more secure. This is where all my new capital is invested in.
Do share what works for you in your investment process in avoiding the information fallacy in the comments below.
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