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Behavioural Investing by James Montier
  • Behavioural Investing

  • A Practitioners Guide to Applying Behavioural Finance

  • by James Montier
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    • Product code: 238009
    • ISBN: 0470516704, ISBN13: 9780470516706, 728 pages, hardback
      Published by John Wiley & Sons on 2007
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    Description of Behavioural Investing

    Behavioural investing seeks to bridge the gap between psychology and investing. All too many investors are unaware of the mental pitfalls that await them. Even once we are aware of our biases, we must recognise that knowledge does not equal behaviour. The solution lies is designing and adopting an investment process that is at least partially robust to behavioural decision making errors. "Behavioural Investing: A Practitioner's Guide to Applying Behavioural Finance" explores the biases we face, the way in which they show up in the investment process, and urges readers to adopt an empirically based sceptical approach to investing. This book is unique in combining insights from the field of applied psychology with a through understanding of the investment problem. The content is practitioner focused throughout and will be essential reading for any investment professional looking to improve their investing behaviour to maximise returns.Key features of this book are it: is the only book to cover the applications of behavioural finance; contains an executive summary for every chapter with key points highlighted at the chapter start; provides information on the key behavioural biases of professional investors, including The seven sins of fund management, Investment myth busting, and The Tao of investing; offers practical examples showing how using a psychologically inspired model can improve on standard, common practice valuation tools; and, is written by an internationally renowned expert in the field of behavioural finance.

    Contents of Behavioural Investing

    Preface

    Acknowledgments

    SECTION I: COMMON MISTAKES AND BASIC BIASES

    1 Emotion, Neuroscience and Investing: Investors as Dopamine Addicts

    Spock or McCoy?

    The Primary of Emotion

    Emotions: Body or Brain?

    Emotion: Good, Bad of Both?

    Self-Control is Like a Muscle

    Hard-Wired for the Short Term

    Hard-Wired to Herd

    Plasticity as Salvation

    2 Part Man, Part Monkey

    The Biases We Face

    Bias #1: I Know Better, Because I Know More

    The Illusion of Knowledge: More Information Isn’t Better Information

    Professionals Worse than Chance!

    The Illusion of Control

    Bias #2: Big _= Important

    Bias #3: Show Me What I Want to See

    Bias #4: Heads was Skill, Tails was Bad Luck

    Bias #5: I Knew it all Along

    Bias #6: The Irrelevant has Value as Input

    Bias #7: I Can Make a Judgement Based on What it Looks Like

    Bias #8: That’s Not the Way I Remember it

    Bias #9: If you Tell Me it Is So, It Must be True

    Bias #10: A Loss Isn’t a Loss Until I Take It

    Conclusions

    3 Take aWalk on the Wild Side

    Impact Bias

    Empathy Gaps

    Combating the Biases

    4 Brain Damage, Addicts and Pigeons

    5 What Do Secretaries’ Dustbins and the Da Vinci Code have in Common?

    6 The Limits to Learning

    Self-Attribution Bias: Heads is Skill, Tails is Bad Luck

    Hindsight Bias: I Knew it All Along

    Skinner’s Pigeons

    Illusion of Control

    Feedback Distortion

    Conclusions

    SECTION II: THE PROFESSIONALS AND THE BIASES

    7 Behaving Badly

    The Test

    The Results

    Overoptimism

    Confirmatory Bias

    Representativeness

    The Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT)

    Anchoring

    Framing

    Loss Aversion

    Keynes’s beauty contest

    Monty Hall Problem

    Conclusions

    SECTION III: THE SEVEN SINS OF FUND MANAGEMENT

    8 A Behavioural Critique

    Sin city

    Sin 1: Forecasting (Pride)

    Sin 2: The Illusion of Knowledge (Gluttony)

    Sin 3: Meeting Companies (Lust)

    Sin 4: Thinking You Can Outsmart Everyone Else (Envy)

    Sin 5: Short Time Horizons and Overtrading (Avarice)

    Sin 6: Believing Everything You Read (Sloth)

    Sin 7: Group-Based Decisions (Wrath)

    Alternative Approaches and Future Directions

    Sin 1: Forecasting (Pride)

    9 The Folly of Forecasting: Ignore all Economists, Strategists, & Analysts

    Overconfidence as a Driver of Poor Forecasting

    Overconfidence and Experts

    Why Forecast When the Evidence Shows You Can’t?

    Unskilled and Unaware

    Ego Defence Mechanism

    Why Use Forecasts?

    Debasing

    10 What Value Analysts?

    Sin 2: Illusion of Knowledge (Gluttony)

    11 The Illusion of Knowledge or Is More Information Better Information?

    Sin 3: Meeting Companies (Lust)

    12 WhyWaste Your Time Listening to Company Management?

    Managers are Just as Biased as the Rest of Us

    Confirmatory Bias and Biased Assimilation

    Obedience to Authority

    Truth or Lie?

    Conclusions

    Sin 4: Thinking You Can Outsmart Everyone Else (Envy)

    13 Who’s a Pretty Boy Then? Or Beauty Contests, Rationality and Greater Fools

    Background

    The Game

    The Solution

    The Results

    A Simple Model of Our Contest

    Comparison with Other Experiments

    Learning

    Conclusions

    Sin 5: Short Time Horizons and Overtrading (Avarice)

    14 ADHD, Time Horizons and Underperformance

    Sin 6: Believing Everything You Read (Sloth)

    15 The Story is The Thing (or The Allure of Growth)

    16 Scepticism is Rare or (Descartes vs Spinoza)

    Cartesian Systems

    Spinozan Systems

    Libraries

    A Testing Structure

    The Empirical Evidence

    Strategies to Counteract Naïve Belief

    Sin 7: Group Decisions (Wrath)

    17 Are Two Heads Better Than One?

    Beating the Biases

    SECTION IV: INVESTMENT PROCESS AS BEHAVIOURAL DEFENCE

    18 The Tao of Investing

    PART A: THE BEHAVIORAL INVESTOR

    19 Come Out of the Closet (or, Show Me the Alpha)

    The Alpha

    The Evolution of the Mutual Fund Industry

    Characteristics of the Funds

    The Average and Aggregate Active Share

    Persistence and Performance

    Conclusions

    20 Strange Brew

    The Long Run

    Death of Indexing

    Getting the Long Run Right

    The Short Run

    Tactical Asset Allocation

    Equity Managers

    Break the Long-Only Constraint

    Add Breadth

    Not Just an Excuse for Hedge Funds

    Truly Alternative Investments

    Conclusions

    21 Contrarian or Conformist?

    22 Painting by Numbers: An Ode to Quant

    Neurosis or Psychosis?

    Brain Damage Detection

    University Admissions

    Criminal Recidivism

    Bordeaux Wine

    Purchasing Managers

    Meta-Analysis

    The Good News

    So Why Not Quant?

    23 The Perfect Value Investor

    Trait I: High Concentration In Portfolios

    Trait II: They Don’t Need to Know Everything, and Don’t Get Caught in the Noise

    Trait III: A Willingness to Hold Cash

    Trait IV: Long Time Horizons

    Trait V: An Acceptance of Bad Years

    Trait VI: Prepared to Close Funds

    24 A Blast from the Past

    The Unheeded Words of Keynes and Graham

    On the Separation of Speculation and Investment

    On the Nature of Excess Volatility

    On the Folly of Forecasting

    On the Role of Governance and Agency Problems

    On the Importance (and Pain) of Being a Contrarian

    On the Flaws of Professional Investors

    On the Limits to Arbitrage

    On the Importance of the Long Time Horizon

    On the Difficulty of Defining Value

    On the Need to Understand Price Relative to Value

    On Why Behavioural Errors don’t Cancel Out

    On Diversification

    On the Current Juncture

    On the Margin of Safety

    On Beta

    On the Dangers of Overcomplicating

    On the Use of History

    25 Why Not Value? The Behavioural Stumbling Blocks

    Knowledge ≠ Behaviour

    Loss Aversion

    Delayed Gratification and Hard-Wiring for the Short Term

    Social Pain and the Herding Habit

    Poor Stories

    Overconfidence

    Fun

    No, Honestly I Will Be Good

    PART B: THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE: VALUE IN ALL ITS FORMS

    26 Bargain Hunter (or It Offers Me Protection)

    The Methodology

    Does Value Work?

    The Anatomy of Value

    The Siren of Growth

    Growth Doesn’t Mean Ignoring Valuation

    The Disappointing Reality of Growth

    Analyst Accuracy?

    Value versus Growth

    Key points

    Regional Tables

    Global

    USA

    Europe

    Japan

    27 Better Value (or The Dean Was Right!)

    28 The Little Note that Beats the Market

    The Methodology and the Data

    The Results

    The Little Book Works

    Value Works

    EBIT/EV Better than Simple PE

    Quality Matters for Value

    Career Defence as an Investment Strategy

    What About the Long/Short View?

    The Future for the Little Book

    Tables and Figures

    Regional Results

    29 Improving Returns Using Inside Information

    Patience is a Virtue

    Using Inside Information

    A Hedge Perspective

    Risk or Mispricing?

    Evidence for Behavioural Errors

    Evidence Against the Risk View

    European Evidence

    Conclusions

    30 Just a Little Patience: Part I

    31 Just a Little Patience: Part II

    Value Perspective

    Growth Perspective

    Growth and Momentum

    Value for Growth Investors

    Value and Momentum

    Implications

    32 Sectors, Value and Momentum

    Value

    Momentum

    Sectors: Value or Growth

    Stocks or Sectors

    33 Sector-Relative FactorsWorks Best

    Methodology

    The Results

    Conclusion

    34 Cheap Countries Outperform

    Strategy by Strategy Information

    PART C: RISK, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

    35 CAPM is CRAP (or, The Dead Parrot Lives!)

    A Brief History of Time

    CAPM in Practice

    Why Does CAPM Fail?

    CAPM Today and Implications

    36 Risk Managers or Risk Maniacs?

    37 Risk: Finance’s Favourite Four-Letter Word

    The Psychology of Risk

    Risk in Performance Measurement

    Risk from an Investment Perspective

    SECTION V: BUBBLES AND BEHAVIOUR

    38 The Anatomy of a Bubble

    Displacement

    Credit Creation

    Euphoria

    Critical Stage/Financial Distress

    Revulsion

    39 De-bubbling: Alpha Generation

    Bubbles in the Laboratory

    Bubbles in the Field

    Displacement: The Birth of a Boom

    Credit Creation: Nurturing the Boom

    Euphoria

    Critical Stage/Financial Distress

    Revulsion

    Applications

    Asset Allocation

    Alpha Generation

    Balance Sheets

    Earnings Quality

    Capital Expenditure

    Long-Only Funds

    Summary

    40 Running with the Devil: A Cynical Bubble

    The Main Types of Bubble

    Rational/Near Rational Bubbles

    Intrinsic Bubbles

    Fads

    Informational Bubbles

    Psychology of Bubbles

    Composite Bubbles and the De-Bubbling Process

    Experimental Evidence: Bubble Echoes

    Market Dynamics and the Investment Dangers of Near Rational Bubbles

    Conclusions

    41 Bubble Echoes: The Empirical Evidence

    Conclusions

    SECTION VI: INVESTMENT MYTH BUSTERS

    42 Belief Bias and the Zen Investing

    Belief Bias and the X-System

    Confidence Isn’t a Proxy for Accuracy

    Belief Bias and the Zen of Investing

    43 Dividends Do Matter

    Conclusions

    44 Dividends, Repurchases, Earnings and the Coming Slowdown

    45 Return of the Robber Barons

    46 The Purgatory of Low Returns

    47 How Important is the Cycle?

    48 Have We Really Learnt So Little? (Part I – Earnings; Levels not Trends)

    49 Some Random Musings on Alternative Assets

    Hedge Funds

    Commodities

    Which Index?

    Composition of Commodity Futures Returns

    The Times They are A-Changin’

    Conclusions

    SECTION VII: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ETHICS

    50 Abu Ghraib: Lesson from Behavioural Finance and for Corporate Governance

    Fundamental Attribution Error

    Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

    Milgram: The Man that Shocked the World

    Conditions that Turn Good People Bad

    Conclusions

    51 Doing the Right Thing or the Psychology of Ethics

    The Ethical Blindspot

    The Origins of Moral Judgements

    Examples of Bounded Ethicality and Unconscious Biases

    Implicit Attitudes (Unconscious Prejudices)

    In-Group Bias (Bias that Favours Your Own Group)

    Overclaiming Credit (Bias that Favours You)

    Conflicts of Interest (Bias that Favours Those Who Can Pay You)

    Mechanisms Driving Poor Ethical Behaviour

    Language Euphemisms

    Slippery Slope

    Errors in Perceptual Causation

    Constraints Induced by Representations of the Self

    Combating Unethical Behaviour

    52 Unintended Consequences and Choking under Pressure: The Psychology of Incentives

    Evidence from the Laboratory

    Evidence from the Field

    Child Care Centres

    Blood Donations

    Football Penalty Kicks

    Basketball Players

    Back to the Laboratory

    Who is Likely to Crack Under Pressure?

    Conclusions

    SECTION VIII: HAPPINESS

    53 If It Makes You Happy

    Top 10

    54 Materialism and the Pursuit of Happiness

    Aspiration Index

    Materialism and Happiness: The Evidence

    Problems of Materialism

    What to Do?

    Why Experiences Over Possessions?

    Conclusions

    References

    Index

    About James Montier

    James Montier is Global Strategist at Societe Generale and author of 'Behavioural Finance'.

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