Education

At the outset, readers need to accept and realize that we humans are hard-wired in a strange manner and are full of Cognitive Biases. In other words, to be able to learn the basic tenets of Behavioral Investing, we have first to unlearn many parts of our investing behaviour. Once we commit to change, we are on our way to becoming ‘well behaved’ investors. The importance of Behaviour in the investing game cannot be understated. In reality, Behavioral Investing per se has nothing to do with Finance or Economics. Behavioral Investing is plain vanilla common sense investing.

Of late, behavioural psychology and the study of how we behave and why we behave the way we do is being actively studied by technology companies. As a result, many non-financial businesses have started recruiting Behavioural Economists.

The biases highlighted as part of this course are universal. In other words, all of us have our behavioural quirks. Hence, being aware of the inherent irrationality in human behaviour helps. I hope the content enables students of Behavioral Investing to grasp the basics of ‘common sense investing’ and also to understand how important it is for us to be ‘well behaved’.