, Columnist
A Case Study in Investing Objectivity
Keeping the emotional voices under control when assessing an investment takes discipline.
The fear lingers.
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Ever since the credit crisis, the housing market has been the subject of enormous skepticism. Given the psychological damage caused by a series of financial disasters -- the dot-com collapse, the residential real estate boom and bust, the Great Recession, the stock-market collapse -- this isn’t a surprise.
Investors, however, need to maintain some emotional distance from these events, lest their biases lead them to missing opportunities. Since I spend so much time discussing how investor behavior has such a negative impact on performance, I would be remiss if I failed to point out when some investors manage to bypass cognitive issues to make a good trade.