Financial Lessons from Poker
Common advice about controlling spending is to track all your purchases and add them up each week or month. I believe that this is effective, but have been fuzzy on why it seems to work so well. Why can’t people just spend less without the constant reminder of how well they are doing? I got some insight on this question from, of all places, poker. For poker players there is a certain thrill to dragging in a pot of chips. The thrill is there whether it is a $1 pot or a $10 pot. The $10 pot gives a bigger thrill, but not 10 times bigger. Similarly, losing a $10 pot feels worse than losing a $1 pot, but not 10 times worse. This leads to some players playing in such a way that they maximize happiness by taking in many small pots, but losing some big ones. As long as they don’t count their dwindling chips, they can actually be happy playing this way. Counting your chips is a lot like adding up your spending at the end of the month to see what happened. You may feel good about ...
This series of pics should be the next cover of The Journal of Behavioural Finance. Love it!
ReplyDeletePerfect! It kills me to see posts that say "I've had enough -- I'm selling all my stocks" right at the end of one of the worst months in market history.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Preet. This was one of the rare times that I was inspired to do something mildly artistic. It was fun!
ReplyDeletePatrick: I agree. I've seen too many comments like this as well. Even bloggers who say all the right things like "stay the course" often then go on to advise shifting out of riskier assets, etc. Of course, this just means selling some stocks rather than selling all stocks. Even people who should know better seem unable to stop themselves from selling low and buying high.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, picture # 2 is how most people seem to invest.
ReplyDeleteCC: I assume you mean that most people try to invest based on the "Fantasy" picture. Sadly, some end up with the reverse of the "Fantasy" picture where they buy at the top and sell at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteOops. I meant to say the reverse of picture # 2 is how people seem to invest, at least, judging from studies that show actual stock returns are much less than market returns.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. I was going to post earlier in the week, but I couldn't think of anything insightful to say... still haven't.
ReplyDelete