From Joe Wiggins at Behavioural Investment, a few of the many reasons why we don’t invest for the long term: Because … It’s boring. There is always something/somebody performing better. We are obsessed with what is happening right now. We watch financial news. We check our portfolios every day. We compare our returns to the wrong things. We have to have an opinion. We don’t know what information matters. We think short-term news is relevant to long-term returns. We think poor short-term outcomes means that something is wrong. We extrapolate recent trends. We think we can time markets. We think we can forecast economic developments. We think that we know how markets will react to economic developments. The latest fad is alluring. We vividly remember that short-term call we got right. We think we are better than other people. We don’t want to spend much of our time looking ‘wrong’. We think we are more skillful than we are. We make decisions when we are emotional. It is so easy to tra...
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