The placebo effect is both fascinating and real, with compelling evidence of its impact in both a medical and marketing context. Whilst it is in these areas that discussion around placebos tends t…| Behavioural Investment
Most investors would be better off doing less. Whether it is the folly of market timing or the irresistible lure of performance chasing in mutual funds, more activity is likely to be bad for us. In…| Behavioural Investment
3 posts published by Joe Wiggins during September 2025| Behavioural Investment
High yield credit spreads are tight. At the time of writing, the US index trades at a spread of 279 over Treasuries. This is not the tightest on record but the reward for taking additional credit risk is historically slim. Taking the view that spreads are rich is easy; however, knowing what to do about … Continue reading Thinly Spread| Behavioural Investment
It seems a fair bet that in a few years’ time we will come to see the two most dangerous words in investing as “democratisation” and “innovation”. Although one might feel like something of a luddite when criticising progress, it is difficult to escape the notion that too many ‘solutions’ in investing are designed to … Continue reading Good for Who?| Behavioural Investment
As an investment theme AI has it all: the potential for transformational societal and economic change, huge capital investment and the prospect of dramatic corporate winners and losers. It would be…| Behavioural Investment
1 post published by Joe Wiggins during August 2025| Behavioural Investment
Perhaps the defining feature of modern corporate life is the meeting. Meetings have come to dominate how companies (and all types of groups) function. While frustrations are consistently and fruitl…| Behavioural Investment
It is difficult to go a day without coming across another article explaining US equity exceptionalism. This is unsurprising given that performance has been outstanding both in terms of its magnitud…| Behavioural Investment
6 posts published by Joe Wiggins during April 2025| Behavioural Investment
3 posts published by Joe Wiggins during July 2025| Behavioural Investment
The rise of private markets has been supported by the perceived existence of an ‘illiquidity premium’ – or the extra return provided to investors as compensation for holding assets that are difficult to trade. Although the concept has seemingly become commonly accepted, there is no clear definition of precisely what it is or how it … Continue reading What is the Illiquidity Premium?| Behavioural Investment
When you disagree with someone about an investing issue, is it because you have distinct interpretations of a specific topic or because your starting beliefs and aims are entirely incompatible? It is almost certainly the latter. Most financial market debate and discussion amounts to people shouting at each other in different languages. We can think … Continue reading Language Barriers| Behavioural Investment
There are three types of investors: momentum, valuation and noise. Momentum investors care about price movements, valuation investors care about fundamentals and noise investors care about a random…| Behavioural Investment
One of my favourite Daniel Kahneman quotes is: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it”. It beautifully encapsulates our tendency to significantly exaggerate the importance of whatever is on our minds at any given moment. This is an issue that is particularly troublesome for investors. … Continue reading Being Human Means Being a Bad Investor| Behavioural Investment
Other things equal, a higher valuation for an asset should make it less attractive. Returns are being pulled from the future to the present. So why does the reverse often seem to be true? Why do investors often behave as if their return expectations are increasing alongside valuations? * It is easy to characterise … Continue reading Why Do Some Assets Become More Attractive As they Become More Expensive?| Behavioural Investment
You are running a multi-asset portfolio and know for certain that over the next five years there is a 20% chance of an occurrence that will cause it to suffer severe losses. Fortunately, there are …| Behavioural Investment
Back in December, I wrote a piece expressing concerns about the ubiquity and strength of the “US exceptionalism” narrative. A heady mix of overconfidence in our ability to predict an always-uncerta…| Behavioural Investment
What will the Fed do next? How will conflict in the Middle East impact the oil price? What does a new bout of stimulus mean for the Chinese Equity market? Is the US economy heading into a recession…| Behavioural Investment
Investors love talking about ‘skin in the game’. It has become something of a truism that a fund manager with substantial sums of their own money invested in their strategy will make better decisio…| Behavioural Investment
Although I am averse to making financial market forecasts, I can say with some level of confidence that over any long-run horizon most investors will have to encounter painful periods of losses in …| Behavioural Investment
