Conviction Building and Mr. Spock

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen

“In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”

by Mr. Spock

Negative bias

From the Emails I receive, I sense a particular negative bias among some of my readers. This is interesting, and I sometimes ask myself how the thoughts of these readers are shaped. Let us have a look at some basic theory on conviction building.

Conviction building

How do we humans arrive at our convictions? According to research, Ladies and Gentlemen, there are at least two very prominent ways. On the one hand, we arrive at our convictions based on evidence that is either made available to us or that we collect ourselves, while on the other hand, we may arrive at our convictions by adopting the beliefs of others with more or less evidence verification.

We just love patterns

At Incrementum AG, we constantly produce charts; some readers can not get enough of them. This is great for us, and we see it as a big compliment for our work. It is also fascinating because our brain constantly searches for patterns that have meaning for us or from which we can derive (potential) predictions. In doing so, we often overshoot the mark by recognising patterns where there are none. This cognitive distortion is called the clustering illusion (The clustering illusion describes the human characteristic of attributing meanings to random patterns that inevitably occur in sufficiently large amounts of data). Now, when we (humans) discover patterns, we also want to discover their cause because most of us strongly need causal explanations, which I believe is not all that bad. However, we tend to weigh “evidence” asymmetrically. In other words, we give more weight to facts that correspond to our convictions than to facts that speak against them.

The issue

It becomes problematic when convictions mutate into dogmas and can no longer be corrected, no matter how much evidence is available. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, questioning our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs is not really our strength.

Solution for your investment approach

If you apply the above to your investment strategy, you may conclude that you need to make one or two adjustments. In any case, I recommend that you not overestimate the patterns but question them and that you not just follow the opinions of gurus but form your own opinion and be aware of the asymmetric weighting of your conclusions. For me, the best way to fight that behavioural pattern is to try to prove the opposite of my current opinion, and my current opinion probably has some value if I am still convinced by it at the end of such a process. To me, this is almost the only way to get a more complete picture of almost any situation. Think about the quote by Mr. Spock.

The glass is half-full

Besides all the horrible things humans can do and the tremendous suffering and ghastly political decisions made by some incapable political leaders, I see changes and opportunities. To me, the glass is half-full.

Ladies and Gentlemen

As always, please share your opinion with me, but please do not forget (instead of hitting the reply button) to send your messages to: smk@incrementum.li

Many thanks, indeed!

I wish you an excellent start to the day and the weekend!

Yours truly,

Stefan M. Kremeth
CEO & Head of Wealth Management
Incrementum AG – we love managing assets

Tel.: +423 237 26 60
Cell: +41 79 303 48 39
Im alten Riet 102
9494 Schaan/Liechtenstein
Mail: smk@incrementum.li