Understanding your behavioural biases

As an investor, you will have your own financial personality and preferences, which your adviser will consider when helping you to make financial decisions. 

Parallels with F1 

You may not think so, but parallels can be drawn between Formula One (F1) and investing. In F1, drivers may make suboptimal decisions during races due to cognitive biases, such as overestimating their abilities, ignoring risk factors, being overconfident or relying too heavily on past experiences. 

Immediate gains 

A driver may also adopt a herd mentality, such as following a similar strategy to another competitor and may focus too much on immediate gains rather than the overall race or championship. Emotions can also affect F1 drivers, potentially leading to aggressive driving or mistakes under pressure. 

Systematic decision-making – in the driving seat  

Just as in F1, recognising and managing behavioural biases is essential for successful investing. We can help you to counteract these biases by setting clear investment goals, diversifying your portfolio, maintaining a long-term perspective, using expertise to seek out diverse viewpoints and employing systematic decision-making processes that minimise emotional influences. 

The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be repeated.