You may have read several studies that successful long term investing requires the ability to invest efficiently, have enormous patience and faith in the markets to eventually deliver the goodies for your retirement. We also saw in an earlier article, that patience, especially to survive the dog years of investing, is a key requirement. How […]
The journey of life is long, complicated and is never a straight path. Same applies to our financial journey as well, as finances mirror our lifestyle and choices. So, we must stay humble and kind. The elegance of steadily compounding financial returns are merely that…just elegant. It’s funny we model financial portfolio growth using […]
This is a guest post from Ben Hamlin. Ben is an aspiring financial entrepreneur and avid investor who became interested in learning to earn money at an early age. Ben ultimately hopes to become financially independent through his various investments. Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are getting a lot of attention lately, and with Japan recently […]
Today’s post is from Troy Bombardia, who blogs over at markethistory.org. I am a strong believer in learning from successful people, and when it comes to investing, especially from the Oracle that I wrote about. What I like about Troy’s post is that he focuses on the importance of understanding history and the learning’s […]
Many people read a bunch of blogs on investing and think they have it pat, right? Even without a detailed analysis on indexing vs. dividend growth, the prescription sounds simple enough: a) Save money b) Buy a low cost stock index fund c) Repeat steps a and b till you make serious bank and then […]
The following is a guest post from Grant Swann. While we are in the midst of our investment series on Dividends vs Index, this post addresses a basic question on why to even bother investing. Since a shocking 80% of the millennial generation don’t invest, fundamental topics like these serve as guidance for millennials and a reminder for the rest of […]
Please read Part 1 first to give you a background to this post. This series is my attempt to look at important cognitive biases that prevent us from taking optimal decisions in life, career and investing.
Image credit: andertoons.com
Our bias to conquer today is the Confirmation Bias. As an investor or as an employee, we have all fallen victim to this at one time or another, or if you are like me, repeatedly!
We all like consistency in our life. It simplifies our thinking and gives us a routine to follow. While habitual consistency is our brain’s ‘low energy’ way to get through our daily life, you pay a heavy price for it when it comes to important decisions. Confirmation Bias is our innate urge to look for those things that confirm your pre-conceived ideas/notions/decisions and ignore other things that raise red flags. This bias dulls key facts that go against ideas and conclusions that we hold dear.
Raman Venkatesh is the founder of Ten Factorial Rocks. Raman is a ‘Gen X’ corporate executive in his mid 40’s. In addition to having a Ph.D. in engineering, he has worked in almost all continents of the world. Ten Factorial Rocks (TFR) was created to chronicle his journey towards retirement while sharing his views on the absurdities and pitfalls along the way. The name was taken from the mathematical function 10! (ten factorial) which is equal to 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800.