Don't Let Your Biases Blind You

We all have our own way of looking at the world based on our own experiences. Sometimes these prevent us from seeing opportunities or blind us to threats.

At Bay Financial Partners we believe it is important for us to consider a wide range of information sources and always, always, always consider the biases of the author. Sometimes reading the views of those that have different opinions to our own reinforces our conviction that we are right. Particularly when we can see the flaws in their argument. Or we know that they are basing their opinion on flawed data, or we have personal experience that they don't. Sometimes it makes us realise we might be wrong and we had better do some more thinking!

On our website on the Menu we have a Links page. Under Thought Provoking Commentary we have listed a number of places you can go for interesting and informative discussion generally relating to the investment markets. Do not think that we agree with everything, or indeed anything, that is on these pages but we do think that reading them helps us make more informed investment decisions. It is not an exhaustive list and we add to it when we find another good source. Unfortunately many of our information sources require a paid subscription so we can't share them with you.

I've just added www.cuffelinks.com.au. "Cuffelinks is an investments newsletter providing content written by financial market professionals with experience in wealth management, superannuation, banking, academia and financial advice. We share both the knowledge and the battle scars of market experts in an independent community of investors. Ideas and insights are presented from an informed and impartial point of view, without pushing products or promoting services."

There is a link on their page which allows you to subscribe directly to their newsletters. Sometimes quite technical but usually well written, interesting and thought provoking. They don't spam you with emails trying to sell you stuff. Well worth a browse to see if it interests you.

Here is a link to a recent article by one of their contributors, called "Zip your wallet against economic forecasts" it's quite humorous in parts. Here's an excerpt to give you a feel for the article:

The New York Times articulated it slightly differently when in February 2015, Orlando Patterson wrote,

“It’s not the statistical models used by economists that are the problem, but the rejection of qualitative methods, other fields and viewpoints. The gulf between the economic view of the world and that of the lived experiences of the general population is often vast. For example, in June 2009, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the United States was no longer in a recession, in stark contrast with the felt, economic experience of 88 percent of Americans the following year.”

Even if the Angel Gabriel sat on the end of my bed one evening and told me what the GDP number would be in a year’s time, there would be little chance I could apply any certainty to the prospect of profiting from that information.

If you have any good sources you'd like to share please let us know.