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Stocks 407: Psychology and Investing

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1.
Self-handicapping bias occurs when we try to explain any possible future poor performance with a reason that may or may not be true.
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True. In other words, its like making excuses beforehand.
2.
What does anchoring often lead to?
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An unwillingness to part with laggard investments. Investors often cling to investments in order to wait for a point at which they will break even, even if the underlying business has fundamentally changed for the worse.
3.
The practice of herding refers to _______.
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Going along with the crowd. This is the practice of buying and selling based on the fact that it is popular to do so at the time.
4.
What does regret often lead to?
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Making a bad sell decision because youve confused a bad outcome with a bad decision. You may feel regret after a bad outcome, such as a stretch of weak performance from a given stock, even if you chose the investment for all the right reasons and the underlying business remains strong. Regret can lead you to make a bad sell decision.
5.
The framing effect can lead you to treat buying decisions in relative terms.
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True. This effect can affect the choices you make when you buy investments.
6.
If you find yourself habitually buying shares of a company that has treated you well in the past, even when the data suggest it would be unwise, you could be operating under confirmation bias.
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True. Though its not always a bad thing, investing against the reality of the company can sometimes be detrimental.
7.
Which of the following examples illustrates selective memory?
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Remembering only the successes. Selective memory, as a rule, selects those memories that we want to preserve.
8.
In investing, sunk costs refer to costs that have already been incurred.
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True. If the costs of an investment are high, we might become reluctant to dump it due to how much we have put into it.
9.
Mental accounting is a psychological practice that refers to keeping our investments in good condition.
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False. Mental accounting really means putting our money in different buckets for different purposes. Its not always harmful, but sometimes it can inadvertently lead to wasteful spending.
10.
What does overconfidence in investing often lead to?
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Rapid trading. Overconfident investors trade more rapidly because they think they know more than those on the opposite end of the trade.