Do factors have explanatory power in investment returns or are they merely descriptive? This is an important difference because the first characteristic would give them predictive powers, while the second would merely reflect past performance. In this second part on trait psychology, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli looks for clues in criticism of this branch of psychology.

In this second instalment of the four part series on the criticisms of behavioural economics, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli looks at heuristics: are they lazy and dumb?

Before becoming a professional investor, I was a psychology student at the University of Melbourne. The course took me on an interesting personal journey. In first year, we studied the classic research. Studies such as Pavlov’s conditioning experiments with dogs, Asch’s conformity studies, Milgram’s coerced compliance experiments and Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford prison experiment. By the […]