Muddled Minds Harm Investors

We need to be aware that muddled minds harm investors. Psychological isolation and confused thinking has a direct and bad effect on investment performance. The greatest source of such muddles is isolation. Isolation can quickly generate confusion adding mental blocks to good decisions.

This lesson 9 of Market Minds of Superior Investors continues the discussion of emotions, psychology and investing. Links at the end guide you to related content if you want to learn more.

Isolation: The 9th Mental Block Is A Bad Investment Choice

9. Isolation: You can form a mental cocoon and let yourself become isolated. Doing so means you can miss critical information and market signals. You can rationalize a completely inappropriate or even harmful strategy. Once the walls of isolation begin closing in, wrong or ill-advised decisions can daisy chain into an avoidable disaster.

We really are all in the market together. Your national, provincial, state and community bonds and thus your local taxes are there. Your national, local or corporate and private pension are there. Your direct worth as well as that of all others in society are at play in the market. Trying to take that it all on by yourself is foolish and impossible. Choosing isolation is an expensive and unhealthy error.

Solution: Seek help, most especially when first learning about the market. Be engaged and involved. I am not suggesting that you need the approval of others or that you should seek or act on any consensus. Rather you should use sounding boards and seek impartial advice. Get multiple sources of information and advice. In time, as you grow into your own investing person will recognise what is right for you.

Investment advisors charge fees but the right ones are well worth it and a good sounding boards. The best are excellent sources of impartial advice. Investing is a lifetime game. You have lots of time to learn, to grow and to play your own way. Learn before you try to fly on your own.

If you are going to use an investment advisor be certain to do your homework. Interview them and check them out as thoroughly as you can.

Confusion: 10th Mental Block

10. Confusion: Market noise and media racket plus unending mixed and conflicting signals as well as legions of experts with differing and conflicting information, opinions and solutions can confuse you.

Well the experts are also confused. Heck, they have even hand out Nobel Prizes for concepts and formulas that have been proven nutty ideas and bad research! Your confusion keeps élite company with some high status people and ideas!

Solution: An old academic joke...any two economists together will give you three opinions. On the other hand I could be wrong! Learning and thinking are the solutions for us.

We can work together to build filters for the noise. As our knowledge grows more of that noise will change into information. Two things happen, we recognize most of the racket as noise. It is that and just that.

Tune out the noise and soon we begin to discern useful patterns. We see them emerge and we begin understanding them. That helps. Then we can use the information to our advantage.

In coming conversations we will work step by step to understand exactly how to do that.

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Related: Muddled minds harm investors

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Tapering groupthink costs investors

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Email me at WhiteTop@WhiteTopInvestor.com.

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Market mind of superior investors, lesson links:

Introduction to Market mind of superior investors Lesson 1

Thinking investors grow money Lesson 2

Girls make winning investors Lesson 3

3 Wealth assassins lurk Lesson 4

Irrational behavior in normal markets Lesson 5

Mental blocks paralyze returns Lesson 6

Attached stubborn helpless investor Lesson 7

Optimism and unrealistic investor minds Lesson 8

Muddled minds harm investors Lesson 9

Next course suggested: Monitor Markets to Protect Wealth

Have a prosperous investor day! Bryan White Top Investor whitetop@WhiteTopInvestor.com WhiteTopInvestor.com Let’s connect, follow me; Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Image courtesy FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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