From Carolyn Gowen, investment manager at Bloomsbury Wealth, in reply to the question from Brendan Mullooly, "What do you consider to be your biggest behavioural bias (as it pertains to investing or personal finance) and how do you work to control it?": Having been a spendthrift for most of my late teens, I really only started investing in my early 20s. By my early 30s I was earning enough to have lump sums to invest and this was when I discovered my biggest behavioural bias. I realised pretty quickly that I am that person who loves the thrill of investing — the anticipation of the "big win". In reality I was gambling, not investing, but I didn’t have enough experience to realise it. Gold was my weakness (as I think it can be for many investors). I finally realised that I was not in control of my emotions when investing when I sold a perfectly good, diversified holding to invest in the shares of a tiny SA gold mining company, as a result of receiving a "tip" from a stockbroker I kne...
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