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What you see may not be what others see
By Derek  •  February 28, 2015
The picture on the left is the dress that has gone viral in social media. What colour do you see? I see the color of the dress as blue and black but when I showed it to my colleague, he insist that it is white and gold. We then showed it to our friends and colleagues - some see blue/black while others see it as white/gold and there is yet another group who sees a different colour every time they look at it. This is the same familiar feeling I get when I read analyst reports. Have you ever wonder why for the same stock, you have different analysts telling you to buy, sell or hold? I believe the analyst are all looking at the same reports and none of them should have any insider information. Coming back to the dress, the poll below shows 71% seeing white and gold. [caption id="attachment_104194" align="aligncenter" width="640"]http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesish/help-am-i-going-insane-its-definitely-blue#.kp1nbmZOKg http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesish/help-am-i-going-insane-its-definitely-blue#.kp1nbmZOKg[/caption] I may not have 1.7m friends but from what I gather, the majority sees blue and black. The only difference is that my friends are Asians while I suspect that the majority of the people in the poll are not. This got me thinking again. Does local and foreign analysts see things differently due to a difference in culture? E.g. Asians are more conservative and does not see debt as favorable whereas the foreign analyst sees debt as an opportunity for expansion. There is no right or wrong here. If you have notice, no one really cares what is the colour of the dress. Instead, everyone is trying to explain why they see this dress as this colour. Similarly when I read analyst reports, every analyst is trying their best to explain why they come out with their recommendation, and this is why I hardly read analyst reports now. What about you? And in case you are wondering, the actual dress is blue and black.
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By Derek
Derek is an investor who follows Peter Lynch style of investing. He prefers to use simple and straight forward information for stock analysis. He started TheFinance.sg with the intention to bring together all bloggers and professionals who are interested or already in the area of Finance and Investing, and to create a community where everyone is free to write and to share their articles, experience and opinions.
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4 Comments

4 responses to “What you see may not be what others see”

  1. Kevin says:

    I see it as white/gold no matter how many times I look at it. Some articles suggest how you see it means you’re inclined towards either logical or creative thinking.

    • Derek Lim says:

      Hi Kevin,

      Others say it is how sensitive our eyes are and yet some say it has to do with the wavelength of the colour. Which is true I don’t know but we know for sure that the actual dress is blue/black in colour.

  2. LP says:

    Hi Derek,

    I see it as blue/black too but my wife saw it as gold/white. When I asked whether the white is a little bluish, she said nope, it’s as white as the background of this text box. Wow…

    I only saw it as white/gold once, for about 1 sec, before it changes to Blue /back.

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