The Psychology Behind Poor Investments and Other Important Decisions

When we make important decisions, we are often not as rational or objective as we’d like to believe. The base rate fallacy is the tendency to misjudge the probability of a situation by not accounting for all relevant information. This cognitive bias affects everything from first impressions to voting preferences to broad market behavior.

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The GameStop Saga: Hedge Funds, Reddit Investors, and Why They’re All Wrong

GameStop

Well, I wouldn’t normally post two posts in a week, much less two in two days! But by popular demand, I have a few words on this GameStop fiasco. What do you guys think I am, some kind of journalist?!

I hate when news stories like this come out. These sorts of headlines give rise to the kind of stock market talk that promotes the age-old myth: the entire system is run by wealthy Wall Street Fat Cats, the small people can’t get a piece of the pie (or only lose money), and boy wouldn’t it be great if we could tear it all down!

This is flawed thinking. Here’s why:

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Bitcoin and Other Things You Shouldn’t Own

Things aren’t always as they seem. Today’s Wall Street darling can quickly fade to black with a single headline. The company that everyone is talking about around the water cooler, while popular, could make for a terrible investment. Helping to fund a new neighborhood restaurant might sound like a fantastic idea, but are the fundamentals there to generate a sustainable return? Today we examine the pitfalls of investing in individual enterprises or commodities, like Bitcoin. But hey, we can still have our fun. Here’s how.

I’ll begin with a story.

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