很多人都是糟糕的投资者。
很少有事情会像钱一样始终萦绕在我们的大脑中。
我们讨厌失去它。并且当我们盈利的时候，我们也会感觉不高兴。
如果我们的利润没有兑现，我们担心失去它。如果我们卖出获取利润，我们会对失去任何可能的利润一直感觉后悔：如果我们的持仓多坚持一会，我们就可以挣取更多的资金。
简而言之，我们注定是可怕的投资者。但你或许意识不到究竟有多么的可怕：
大多数投资者表现很糟糕
美国研究者Dalbar在他最新的《金融时报》专栏中发表的投资者行为分析的定量分析报告给出一个令人着迷同时又有些令人沮丧的调查结果。简单地说，它论证我们最大的敌人是投资者，也就是我们自己。该报告将市场盈利与实际投资者取得的盈利进行比较，结果是，坦率地说，非常令人震惊。
标普500 (这是美国一项研究)过去30年的年回报率为11.6%。这是一个非常好的回报——遥遥领先同一时间的通货膨胀。那么，你认为投资者盈利率是多少？
如果你让我猜的话，我会说6%。比起市场盈利，这个结果是非常糟糕的。毕竟，很多人投资活跃基金，这通常表现不佳。同时，很多投资者的投资借助昂贵的投资顾问的建议或者投资工具，这也会降低他们的盈利。并且，他们也更容易在不恰当的时间买入或卖出。但是，6%比起实际数据已经是非常好了。一般的交易者的年盈利仅为3.79%，稍大于通货膨胀。很明显，比起11.6%，它是有很大差距的。
成本以及那些表现不佳的资金管理者导致了这个局面。但是，Auther说，“市场走势总体上是由这些在错误时间进场的投资者驱动的。”人们在错误的时间卖出或者买进，市场下跌，他们后悔自己的决定，然后反向交易而不是等待时机。
当然，大部分投资者这么做事为了自我价值的实现。毕竟，有些人会在底部由于恐慌而卖出。如果他们不那么做，也就不存在崩盘了。
但是，这确实非常令人担忧。当我们预测未来收益的时候，我们过于乐观。如果你看到行业预计养老金增长的平均数据，你将会发现它比3~4%稍大。同时，这也是非常振奋的。因为你不需要比普通的投资者做得更好，你只需要在别的投资者亏损的时候保持镇定。
最大的问题是，你如何做到这一点
如何减少你对资金的情绪反应
关键是尽量是你的交易过程“自动化”，尽量绕过自己的本能。
这一点我在过去已经讨论过，但是你的核心策略应该包括合适的资产分配。换句话说，你将资产按比例投资债券，股票，黄金，外汇等等。接下来你决定最好的投资方式。交易所基金应该是你的首选。每季度或者每半年对资金分配进行调整：如果你的资产配置不正常，你应该通过卖出自己过多拥有的资产、买进自己缺少的资产来调整资金配置比例。遵循“高卖低买”的原则。
如果出现崩盘，不必惊慌。因为你将会在低价位买入。并且，你也不必为价格走得过高而担心，因为你会在价格更加高的时候卖出。这很重要。你将自己的情绪从市场脱离——这是摧毁大部分投资者回报的罪魁祸首。
逆向交易
当然，如果你是一个积极的投资者，那你就可以利用别人的投资心理获利。正如Auther指出的那样：“大量的错误决定意味着总会有很多人站在交易的另一端，当别人害怕的时候，投资基金会买入；当别人贪婪的时候，它会卖出。”换句话说，逆向交易应该会有较好的结果。
We’re hardwired to be terrible investors – here’s how to get around that
Few things mess with our heads like money.
We hate losing it. And when we make it, we don’t feel happy.
If our profits are paper ones, we fret about losing them. And if we sell out and take our profits, we spend all our time regretting the ‘loss’ of anything extra that could have been made if we’d hung on for a bit longer.
In short, we are hardwired to be appalling investors.
But you might be surprised to realise just how appalling.
Most investors are simply terrible at investing
John Authers picks over the Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behaviour report by US researcher Dalbar in his latest FT column. It makes for fascinating and somewhat depressing reading. To cut a long story short, it proves yet again that investors are our own worst enemies.
Basically, the report compares the return that the market makes, with the return made by actual investors. The results are, frankly, shocking.
The S&P 500 (this is a US study) returned 11.6% a year over the past 30 years. That’s an excellent return – way ahead of inflation over the same time. So how much do you think investors made?
If you’d asked me to take a punt at the answer, I’d have said 6%. That’s pretty awful compared to the market. But after all, lots of investors use active funds, which often underperform the market. And lots of investors use overly-expensive advisers or vehicles to invest, which hurts their returns too. And they’re also prone to buying and selling at exactly the wrong time.
But 6% is positively genius compared with the actual figure. Your typical investor only made 3.79% a year. That’s barely ahead of inflation. And obviously it’s an awful lot less than 11.6%.
Costs and poor active management contribute to this. But, says Authers, “the overwhelming driver is bad timing by investors.” People sell at the wrong time. Or they buy in, the market goes down, they regret their decision and they reverse it, rather than hanging in there.
Of course, a lot of this is self-fulfilling. Someone has to panic and sell at the bottom, after all. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be crashes.
But it’s quite worrying really. We tend to be over-optimistic when we forecast our future returns. If you look at the average numbers the industry uses to predict your pension fund’s growth for example, then you’ll find they’re a lot higher than 3-4% a year.
At the same time, it’s quite heartening. Because it means you don’t need to do much to be better at investing than the average investor. You just need to find a way to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.
Big question is – how do you do that?
How to short-circuit your emotional reaction to money
The key is to try to ‘automate’ as much of your investment process as possible, and bypass your own instincts where you can.
I’ve talked about this a lot in the past, but your core strategy should involve coming up with a suitable asset allocation. In other words, you divide your money into pots, putting a certain percentage into bonds, equities, gold, cash etc.
You then decide on the best way to invest in each theme. Cheap tracker and exchange-traded funds should be your first port of call. Save into these funds regularly, and set up a quarterly or half-yearly date to review your asset allocation.
If it gets too far out of whack with your asset allocation percentages, you adjust by selling the assets you own too much of, and buying those you don’t own enough of. That way you ‘sell high’ and ‘buy low’ automatically.
If there’s a crash, you don’t panic. Because you’ll be buying as stuff gets cheaper. And you don’t fret about whether the market is getting too high or not, because you’re selling when it gets more expensive.
This really matters. You’re removing your emotions from the market timing process – and that’s the thing that really destroys most people’s returns.
Being contrarian pays
Of course, if you’re a more active investor, you can also profit handsomely from other people’s investment psychology. As Authers notes: “mass poor decision-making virtually guarantees that there will always be someone on the other side of the trade when a fund tries to buy when others are fearful and sell when others are greedy.” In other words, being contrarian should pay off.
本文翻译由兄弟财经提供，文章来源：http://moneyweek.com/money-morning-hardwired-to-be-terrible-investors/