…is themselves. That’s right, the single largest risk to investors is themselves. By that, I, of course, mean the influence of human emotion and psychology in decision making. It seems quite clear to me that humans are uniquely wired incorrectly for long-term investment success. When asset prices double, we want those assets twice as bad, but when asset prices drop in half, we want nothing to do with them. This intuitive behaviour, inherited from our ancestors, is a disadvantage in the modern world. We call far too many cognitive biases our own.  In this case, however, more doesn’t equal better.  They’re merely a basic part of how humans in general think, not the sort of defect we could blame on a terrible upbringing or a rotten personality.  Everything about us is built on the echoes of our ancestors’ struggles and victories. Having evolved in East Africa, not only are ......