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Stocks 407: Psychology and Investing

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1.
In the world of investing, what does overconfidence refer to?
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The ability to think that one is smarter than one really is. Overconfidence stretches normal confidence to unhealthy levels.
2.
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.
3.
In investing, self-handicapping might be considered the opposite of _______.
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Overconfidence. Self-handicapping involves looking for excuses beforehand to explain why something might not work. If it indeed does not work, we have handicapped ourselves.
4.
What does representativeness lead to?
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Giving too much weight to recent performance. Representativeness is a mental shortcut that causes investors to give too much weight to recent evidence--such as short-term performance numbers--and too little weight to evidence from the more distant past. For instance, a look at a companys profit trends over the past six years is likely to yield more insight than looking at that companys stock performance over the past six months.
5.
What does investing with the crowd often lead to?
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Choosing investments that are inappropriate for your goals. Following investment fashion can lead to fading performance or inappropriate investments for your particular goals.
6.
In the psychology of investing, the "framing effect" refers to _______.
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Using a reference point to make investment decisions. Because this reference point can be subjective, it can lead to some rash decisions.
7.
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.
8.
Confirmation bias is the practice of _______.
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Giving preference to information that supports what we already believe. This practice can sometimes limit our success with investing by shutting out other opportunities.
9.
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.
10.
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.