Tag: expert advise

Relying on Expert opinions

In general on this blog, I have not been very kind to stock market experts ( pundits,opinion baazs), you can read through some of my previous outbursts here

In late 1980s, psychologist Philip Tetlock began an important research projects of the past three decades, studying how experts make predictions, who gets things right, and who gets things wrong. His inspiration came from watching experts predict the future of the Soviet Union — an event that very, very few got right. Notably, most of those who misjudged the event wouldn’t even admit that they got it wrong. The book draws one big conclusion: Most expert predictions are the equivalent of random guesses.

The stock market is a perfect to see this unfolding every day, In this post I am showing you just one example but the place is full of such pundits

Last year around April 2016, India’s first e-commerce company was planning to list on Indian bourses (previously makemytrip and others have also listed but overseas) , The overwhelming opinion  from expert reviewers of IPO was that issue from Infibeam was untouchable

Let’s look at some of them

Some claimed, Infibeam is unsuitable for retail investors

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more

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While few pointed … Read the rest

How to really use expert advise ?

If you read Sheena Iyengar’s fantastic book “The Art of Choosing”  you will understand that in areas where we don’t have expertise we should seek advise to make decisions. Given that financial literacy in not taught in schools and most of the people pick investments like clothes, investing definitely fits the above bill.

But a lot of times financial experts have ulterior motives read earning cut from brokerage houses and almost no accountability for their public predictions. Add to that asset prices change daily and plethora of information is dished on our table, we just can’t keep track of how experts have fared.

Warren Buffet said “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway”

Is all expert advise on financial investments garbage ? – No

They are experts and they can read financial information and make sense of it, however as I noted above they have keep to making predictions to make sure trader keeps buying or selling so that brokers continue to make money. It is a vicious cycle.  There is a concept that quality of your predictions go down when … Read the rest