Investor Psychology

Educated investors are often too confident in their own capacity to evaluate a deal.

For any period of less than five years, says Oakmark's Bill Nygren, "you are evaluating serendipity rather than skill."'

The more you trade, the less you earn because you pay commissions and taxes on your gains.

Confused by Mitt Romney’s 47% remarks? Here are 9 ways to cut through all the statistical mumbo-jumbo and make informed judgments.

You can glean some useful investing tips from Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's strategies for baseball.

A financial therapist can help you overcome deep-rooted money hang-ups.

Emotional baggage can sabotage your financial goals -- here's how to recognize it.

There's no such thing as predictable risk in market trading. So embrace uncertainty, for better and for worse.

Just the thought of money can make us focus more on ourselves than on others.

Be an Anglophile and adopt this British investing approach to ease young investors into stocks.

It's not that the rules changed. It's more that strategies for long-term growth have always been riskier than we like to think.

Be a DIY investor with stocks, bonds, funds and ETFs.

We tend to pay off the card with the smallest balance first, regardless of the interest rate.

This book on how our minds’ intuitive and logical parts work together can help us recognize investing mistakes.

I now find myself tempted to check my returns against my benchmark several times a day.

Giving up a lump sum in favor of a series of payments may wreak havoc with our mental accounts.

The forthcoming exchange-traded fund is getting lots of buzz, but will it be able to stand up to the hype?

Both of these extreme spending personalities suffer pain and guilt when faced with opening up their wallets. Here's how you can strike a better balance.

The relationship between happiness and income can be summed up in a simple equation, but really, it's complicated.

Congratulations! You just landed your first full-time job. Think you're ready for it? Take our ten-question quiz to see if you're really ready for the ...

Believing in the illusion of control, or the ability to forecast the future, can cause overconfidence in investors and harm to your portfolio.

Focus on your income prospects first. That will inform your investment strategy best.

Financial advice that sounds simple is often difficult to execute because of our mental baggage.

The key to successful investing is in how you divvy your assets between U.S. stocks, foreign stocks, bonds, cash and other types of investments.

Step one: Recognize -- and overcome -- the psychological hurdles that influence our behavior.

By Lisa Gerstner, Staff Writer, Kiplinger's Personal Finance October 2011 When you’re just starting out, learning the ropes of health insurance is ...

Don't let tricky marketing ploys influence your financial decisions and get you to spend more.

In times of panic, shrewd investors may find an opportunity to buy stocks on sale.

Successful bargain hunters must brave going against the crowd and, at times, looking foolish.

Young investors can learn a lot from the market's recent volatility.

Don't let an inundation of news scare you away from your long-term investing strategy.

Set goals and monitor your spending and saving to strengthen your financial resolve.

We tend to make the best investing choices when we're given fewer options.

If you treat your portfolio as a gambling stake instead of a nest egg, the consequences can be dramatic. See where you fall on the investor-gambler spectrum.

As we grow older, our ability to make sound financial decisions degrades, but if we prepare, we can maintain healthy finances well into old age.

Learn the pros' secrets to successful investing.

By Kathy Kristof, Contributing Editor May 2011 If you’re an active investor who occasionally buys or sells a stock based on tips, you might be ...

Don't take on more risk just because the market's rising.

Improve your odds of winning by overcoming mental glitches.

We naturally tend to seek out others with similar opinions, but this phenomenon can be harmful to our portfolios.

Wall Street lore is filled with proverbs that purport to be sound rules for investing your money. But how true are these truisms? Here are ten investing ...

During the depths of the market crash, women were less likely than men to cut and run from stocks.

We can improve our ability to make investing decisions by procrastinating a bit, focusing on fewer options and settling for good enough.

Learn how to benefit from the psychological phenomenon that makes us think of our money as divided into separate accounts.

Investors torn between wanting safety and craving yield have created a market filled with wonderful opportunities both to own stocks and sell them short.

In something of a surprise, a study shows positive earnings forecasts from companies are more reliable.

Admitting to our prejudices as investors is the first step to overcoming them.

Use our tips to improve your chances of selling stocks successfully.