Investor Psychology

Example Picture.1 

Mood Stronger than Ratio: Know yourself and knowledge of the stock market will soon follow. Ego and emotions determine far more of investors´ stock market decisions than most would be willing to admit. For years, we have dealt with professional money managers and committees and found they were as much subject to crowd following and other irrational emotional mistakes as any novice or new investor. They were, for the most part, better informed, but facts alone are not enough to make profitable decisions. The human element, which encompasses a range of emotions from fear to greed, plays a much bigger role in the decision-making process than most investors realize. In a practical sense, most investors act exactly opposite to the rational wisdom of buying low and selling high based on very predictable emotional responses to rising or falling prices. Falling prices that at first appear to be bargains generate fear of loss at much lower prices when opportunities are the greatest. Rising prices that at first appear to be good opportunities to sell ultimately lead to greed induced buying at much higher levels. Reason is replaced by emotion and rationalization with such cyclical regularity, that those who recognize the symptoms and the trend changes on the charts can profit very well from this knowledge. Investors who manage to act opposite to the mood of the crowd and against their own emotions are best positioned to earn money in the financial markets. Financial risk and emotional risk correlate inversely.

Example Picture.2

Optimism, Pessimism, Greed and Fear: Why aren't more people making more money in the financial markets? Because, as we have seen, people are motivated by greed (optimism) when buying and by fear (pessimism) when selling. People are motivated to buy and sell by changes in emotion from optimism to pessimism and vice versa. They formulate fundamental scenarios based on their emotional state (a rationalization of the emotions), which prevents them from realizing that the main drive is emotion. The chart above shows that if investors buy based on confidence or conviction (optimism) they buy near or at the Top. Likewise, if investors act on concern or capitulation (pessimism) they sell near or at the bottom. Investors remain under the bullish impression of the recent uptrend beyond the forming price top and during a large part of the bear trend. Vice versa, they remain pessimistic under the bearish impression from the past downtrend through the market bottom and during a large part of the next bull trend. They adjust their bullish fundamental scenarios to bearish after having become pessimistic under the pressure of the downtrend or after having become optimistic under the pressure of the uptrend. Once having turned bearish, investors formulate bearish scenarios, looking for more weakness just when it is about time to buy again. The same occurs in an uptrend when mood shifts from pessimism to optimism. Investors formulate bullish scenarios after having turned bullish, which is after a large part of the bull trend is already over. Emotions are the drawback of fundamental analysis. Investors must learn to buy when they are fearful (pessimistic) and sell when they feel optimistic. This may sound easy but without Technical Analysis it is hard to achieve.

Note: some of the notes are taken form Credit Suisse report on technical analysis.