The worst financial advisor

There is a financial advisor who consistently makes you buy and sell at the wrong times. If you listen to him, you can be sure to buy a stock just before it crashes or sell it before it soars. He uses your greed and fears to deceive you. While the stock is breaking records and posting amazing performances, it screams at you "buy, buy, buy, come and join the party with everyone else". On the contrary, when the market is collapsing, it screams at you "sell, sell, sell everything before it's too late, otherwise you'll lose everything".

You have all heard this advisor before and have probably even followed him several times, with great regret. He takes the form of a little voice that resonates in your head or an obsessive idea. He feeds on your phobias, exploits your weaknesses, delights in your love of money and the desire to always have more of it.

Everything around you encourages it to manifest itself. Look at the stock market indices: percentages and colors are the main focus! Green is good, go for it. Red, watch out, withdraw. The charts with Japanese candlesticks that are also red and green feed that little voice in your head even more. There, it goes down, I sell, and there it goes up, I buy. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Human beings are made like that. Gregarious, they follow the psychology of crowds. He reassures himself by boarding the same boat as his peers. The problem is that by acting in this way he will hardly be able to stand out and beat the market. It is possible of course, but it is not within everyone's reach.

Imagine instead a world where percentages do not exist and where indices are green when they are low and red when they are high. Forget about trends, moving averages and Japanese candlesticks. Focus on the price, think about your hard-earned money and how you are going to maximize it. Think statically rather than dynamically. At time "T", the price is "X", period. It doesn't matter what it was yesterday or tomorrow.

Your worst advisor will always try to come knocking on your door. He will show you the headlines, make headlines on CNBC, or put himself in the shoes of a neighbor who just bought gold. Stay calm and keep focusing on the price. Think of this neighbor: When she goes shopping, does she buy something because its price is going up?