self-deception

I’ve posted Entry #44 to my weekly Investing: The New Rules column at the Death by 1,000 Papercuts site. It’s called The Discussion the Investing Discussion Boards Won’t Have.

Juicy Excerpt: In investing, the biases are time-based. There are long time-periods in which pretty much all investing sites greatly exaggerate the appeal of stocks, which are followed by long time-periods in which pretty much all investing sites greatly exaggerate the dangers of stocks. An investor gets to hear both sides by living through a 30-year bull/bear cycle. But the case against stocks cannot be spoken aloud during the bull years and the case for stocks cannot be spoken aloud during the bear years.

I’ve posted Entry #36 to my weekly Investing: The New Rules column at the Death by 1,000 Papercuts site. It’s called Fear of Data.

Juicy Excerpt: In any other field, this would be the end of the controversy. The safe withdrawal rate is the product of a numerical calculation. When peer-reviewed research shows that the numbers now in use are in error, the studies generating those numbers need to be corrected. No? That’s sure how I have seen things work in all fields other than stock investing analysis. It doesn’t work that way in this field. Terms like “data” and “research” and “science” are given very different meanings when the topic at hand relates to stock investing.