April 2, 2013

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index has climbed steadily and surpassed its 2007 peak last week, and even sluggish European markets are showing signs of life as investors rush back in.

This interregnum between the collapse of global financial markets in 2008-09 and the next bubble – whenever and wherever that may occur – is a good time to reconsider investor behavior.

In this video, Ben Jacobsen, a finance professor at Massey University in New Zealand, discusses behavioral economics, market panics, and “strange” and inexplicable behavior.

“Most people,” Jacobsen concludes, “have a great difficulty assessing risk and what risk is.”

Check out another blog post about research confirming that people tend to rush in when the market is rising and pay dearly for stocks and then sell in a panic after experiencing large losses. Morningstar data also indicate that long-term investors have better returns if they buy and stay put.Learn More

Behavior

March 19, 2013

Repeated loud warnings by financial advisers fail to reverse the human tendency to panic when the market plunges and to rush in after it’s gone up.

Withdrawals from 401(k)s and IRAs surged between 2001 and 2003 after high-tech stocks declined, but the money went back in in 2005 through 2007 after the S&P500 index had soared nearly 27 percent in 2003 and 9 percent in 2004, according to new research by Thomas Bridges, a graduate student in economics, and Professor Frank Stafford, for the University of Michigan Retirement Research Center.

“They think I have $500,000, and if I don’t take it out now it’s going to be $50,000. It’s a panic mentality,” said Stafford, who was surprised by what they found.

Withdrawals increased again after the 2008-2009 market collapse pummeled investors stock portfolios. The Michigan researchers found they withdrew their retirement savings for a variety of reasons, but primarily to pay mortgages and medical bills and also to make major home repairs.

His take on these grim findings: “These are the guys from Main Street trying to figure out Wall Street, and they can’t do it.”Learn More

Money Culture

February 14, 2013

Women with large student loan balances are less likely to marry than their girlfriends who’ve graduated debt-free, new research shows.

Men, in contrast, are immune to this impact.  Their marriage prospects are the same regardless of how much they owe for their education, according to Fenaba Addo, who studied the effect of college and credit card debt in the “marriage market.”

As U.S. college debt outstanding has surpassed the $1 trillion mark, the fallout is widening.  Recent graduates complain that paying off their student loans affects their ability to take critical steps to improve their future finances, such as buying a house or saving for retirement.  But there are psychological effects too: young adults who carry a lot of debt, for example, are more stressed, even depressed.

It was only a matter of time before student loans started messing with their love lives.

Addo, now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Population Health Sciences, became interested in the topic as she watched her girlfriends taking on “crazy amounts of debt” to finish college or complete graduate degrees… Learn More

Research

January 10, 2013

This blues lyric by Buddy Guy probably sums up your reaction to news that debt can make you depressed.

But what’s also true is that one’s reaction to debt hinges on what type of debt the person has – and not all debt is depressing. Further, people approaching their retirement years and those with less education who are in debt are more likely to get the blues, according to new research.

Lawrence Berger, an associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, determined that a 10-percent increase in the dollar amount of an individual’s debt increases his or her depressive symptoms by 14 percent.

To be clear, having debt does not lead to full-blown clinical depression. But it does trigger the garden variety blues that most people experience. Symptoms vary from losing one’s appetite or being unable to shake the blues to feeling lonely…Learn More

December 20, 2012

The vast majority of us wouldn’t dream of trading time with our children for a 50 percent pay hike.

Then why, when asked to give up evenings off from work – presumably family time – for the big pay raise, would more than half of us go for it?

In short, how can the same people – more than 2,000 adults surveyed in August by New York Life – so flatly contradict themselves?

“We’re not even conscious of how our behavior conflicts with our values,” said Christine Carter, director of the parenting program at University of California’s Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, which studies happiness, compassion and social bonding.

This lack of awareness is especially true when money is involved. The human brain lights up like a Christmas tree when money is offered as the reward in neurological experiments, as the prospect of the reward releases dopamine that sets off a burst of pleasure.

But Carter, an expert in happiness, said the research also shows that, over the long-term, “our social connections” – not money – will bring us true happiness.

To stay on top of news about financial behavior, readers may want to sign up for e-alerts – just one a week – by clicking here. Or like us on Facebook!Learn More

December 18, 2012

To get a grip on retirement worries, overwhelming student loans, or squeaking by, it always helps to get more money or make a plan.

But finding a way to think about how to manage your money is also useful. It’s like making music, says Timothy Maurer, a Baltimore financial planner. At first, you have to master the “boring stuff, but eventually real songs start being produced.”

p.s. Maurer said that his brother Jon Maurer, who is “a far more accomplished musician than I,” is the pianist in this video.

To support our blog, readers may want to sign up for e-alerts – just one a week – by clicking here. Or like us on Facebook!
Learn More

November 15, 2012

Rick Kahler believes that financial planners who do not factor in the psychological aspects of their clients’ money problems are “missing the elephant in the room.”

Kahler, a founding board member for the Financial Therapy Association, usually meets with each new client in the presence of a therapist. And for the minority of his clients who are “stuck” and can’t get past their money issues, which are often rooted in childhood, he asks that they submit to psychological coaching.

In his 2008 book, “Facilitating Financial Health,” Kahler identified several common money disorders. The South Dakota planner recently shared his ever-evolving list, which Squared Away used as the basis for the above slide show.

Click here to watch an interview in which Kahler talks about our “number one stressor.”Learn More