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Investing Basics Beginner: Psychology and Investing

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1.
Investors who exhibit "herding" behavior tend to think that other investors have more information than they do.
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True. Herding refers to investing along with the crowd. This usually entails believing that others have information that you dont.
2.
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.
3.
If you are holding two beliefs that are seemingly at odds with each other and you are uncomfortable doing so, then you are suffering from _______.
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Cognitive dissonance. Because of the discomfort, you will need a way to resolve the dissonance.
4.
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.
5.
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.
6.
With regard to investing behavior, mental accounting refers to following the crowd.
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False. Mental accounting refers to keeping ones money in different buckets for different purposes.
7.
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.
8.
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.
9.
What is a good way as an investor to avoid falling prey to the framing effect?
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Consider the total return of your investments. Seeing your choice in terms of the total return can help you avoid framing it in relative terms, which can be costly.
10.
In investing, overconfidence means thinking that we are more capable than we really are.
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True. Overconfidence is an unhealthy extension of confidence.