There have been many investors asking do I need an adviser? The answer to this question would be ‘no’ except for one fact ….you are human. And humans are emotional beings.
If your broker/agent takes your order and does whatever you ask. You don’t need an adviser. But if you are looking for advice and someone to help you through the maze of investments. You need an investor coach/fiduciary adviser.
You can never overcome your own humanity. As much as we would prefer to think that we make investment decisions based purely on logic, advertiser and journalists are well aware that emotion ultimately drives most investment decisions.
As a quick demonstration, consider the statements below. See if you can match each statement with the emotion being expressed. (Answers listed in the key below.)
Greed….Regret….Trust…Loyalty…Envy
- “It doesn’t matter how sophisticated his charts are or how much sense he makes, I just don’t feel comfortable letting him handle my money.”
- “I’m not sure I should have put my money in that fund. It lost 15% already. Maybe I’ll sell some of it tomorrow.”
- “My boss got 25% on his money. I only made 8%! I wish I got 25%.”
- “I’d wish I’d known that stock was going up, I would have bought more shares.”
- “My dad worked in that company all of his life and he left his shares to me in his will. It would be wrong to sell it just to diversify my portfolio.”
Answer key: 1. Trust 2. Regret 3. Envy 4. greed 5. Loyalty
We as people are naturally predisposed toward or against specific investing tactics. What is interesting is that no matter what our emotional tendency maybe, we can almost always find what looks like purely factual data to support our view. It is easy to overweight information that validates our perspective while minimizing any information that goes against what we inherently believe.
The Good News: Simple awareness of your emotions when it comes to financial and investing matters can make the difference between good and bad investment decisions. The recent up and now down markets have many investors on edge, asking….should I get out of the market for good?
Along with the six year old bull market have investors on edge.
This is really what the financial institutions want…they make money when money moves.
Here is a great example of why investors need an investor coach/fiduciary adviser. Your coach will help you build a prudent portfolio designed for you AND keep you disciplined to that strategy in both up and down markets.
As an investor you must remain disciplined to your strategy…you must own equities…globally diversify…..rebalance.
