Behavioural Finance for Equity Investors
Curing the Gaussian Brain - Investment Innovation Institute

The anterior insula is the seat of human emotions.

Behavioural Finance for Equity Investors

In this luncheon, Simon Russell will discuss his new book on behavioural finance and give insights into his work with institutional equity teams

Behavioural finance has given us fascinating insights into the biases and preconceptions that people face when making financial decisions, but much of the research applies to relatively naive, individual investors, or even university students.

Professional investors are different. They have usually built their expertise on years of study and experience. And their decisions often result from following thorough and detailed investment processes.

Yet, despite the notion that these investors might be more aware of the pitfalls of inherent biases, they are not immune to them.

For example, anchoring and confirmation bias still affect most investment specialists.

Simon Russell, Founder and Director of Behavioural Finance Australia, for many years has studied how some of the learnings from this field of study might apply to institutional investors and their broader investment teams.

Russell has now condensed his knowledge in his fourth book: “Behavioural Finance – A guide for listed equities teams”.

The book explores how to ensure that financial forecasts are robust, while adequately accounting for easily overlooked statistical processes, such as mean reversion. It looks at strategies for knowing when to sell, while mitigating the risks of confirmation bias and loss aversion.

It also examines how investment professionals work together, and how they understand and communicate with others. It covers how best to integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches, how to use decision-making analytics and training, and how to leverage a team’s diverse skills.

In this luncheon co-hosted with UBS Asset Management, Russell will discuss his new book and provide some real-life examples of how professional investors are susceptible to behavioural effects.

About the Speaker

Simon Russell, Founder and Director of Behavioural Finance Australia
Simon Russell, Director, Behavioural Finance Australia

Simon Russell is the founder and Director of Behavioural Finance Australia (BFA). At BFA he provides specialist behavioural finance training & consulting. His services are designed to improve financial decision-making, communication and engagement. He mostly works with fund managers, major super funds, financial advisers and other financial services professionals.

Simon is the author of four books on this topic: “Behavioural Finance – A guide for financial advisers”, “Applying Behavioural Finance in Australia”, “Cyborg”, and “Behavioural Finance – A guide for listed equities teams”.