The Final Chapter | Know Your Behavioural Biases

And so we reach the end. After some time spent Googling the number 17, there’s not much in the way of memorable facts about it. It’s the atomic number of chlorine, the number of sides in a heptadecagon and the number of syllables in a haiku… but otherwise it’s a pretty ordinary number.

Except you now know that 17 is also the number of behavioural biases that we all harbour whether we like it or not, so a little bit of heptadecaphobia – the fear of the number 17 – is probably a healthy thing. Over the past few months we’ve poked around the darkest recesses of the mind to shine a light on all the evolutionary quirks that help us to avoid being eaten, but annoyingly eat into our profits. They lead us into thought patterns that make no sense as investors and are often simply dangerous.

In this, the final post of the series, we’re giving you a one-page ready reckoner, a recap on all the types of bias we’ve covered. It’s a compact spotter’s guide to help you identify bias and stop it in its tracks.

Let’s not say goodbye…

It’s literally been an emotional journey and we’ve enjoyed revealing your financial demons to you. While many of them may have come as a surprise, hopefully you feel more informed about why your brain does what it does and why it’s important to give serious thought to your decisions, or better yet, get a qualified and experienced wealth planner on board.

At Metis Ireland, we’d love to hear about what really matters to you, what you’d like to do with your life and where you’d like to be financially. We’re good listeners, and once we understand where you’re headed, we’ll put together a tailored plan to help you get there. If you’d like to know more about how we can help just get in touch.

Incidentally, it takes 17 muscles to smile, which we hope this series has made you do. We’ll leave you with a haiku.

Biases persist
But spotting them makes us wise
Think twice and act once

Keep bias at bay

It’s surprising how hard it can be to simply let things be. Knowing why we react in the ways we do is the first step to avoiding the counterintuitive actions that can damage what we set out to achieve with our investments.

You can download Making Better Decisions: Know Your Behavioural Biases in full today.

Carl Widger
Co-Founder & Director
Email: cwidger@metisireland.ie