Costs
Costs are invisible by design, and invisible costs are never resisted
Investment charges are deducted rather than billed. Nothing leaves your account, so nothing triggers the part of you that notices…
Roman Kysil
Behaviour writer, The Investment Habit
Roman writes about investor behaviour and why the biggest losses are usually self-inflicted.
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18 articles
Costs
The cost review nobody schedules
Nothing in an investment account will ever prompt you to check what you are paying. The prompt has to come from you.
Behaviour
Why a loss feels bigger than the same-sized gain
The asymmetry between losing and gaining is the single most useful thing to understand about your own investing, and it explains…
Behaviour
Recency is why last month feels like the future
Recent experience dominates expectation, which is why investors are most optimistic after rises and most cautious after falls.
Behaviour
The illusion of control, and where it costs money
Activity creates a feeling of influence over outcomes that are largely determined by things you do not control.
Behaviour
Confirmation bias works hardest on things you already own
Once you hold something, your reading changes. Supporting evidence becomes obvious and contrary evidence becomes questionable.
Behaviour
Behavioural finance has a replication problem
Some of the most quoted findings in the field have held up poorly under retesting. Knowing which parts are solid matters more than…
Costs
Flat fees and percentage fees cross over somewhere
Two platforms can charge very different amounts for the same portfolio. The point where one becomes cheaper is arithmetic you can…
Costs
The exchange rate is where the quiet charge lives
Buying a foreign-listed holding usually means converting money twice. The rate you actually get is not the rate you saw quoted…
Costs
What the ongoing charges figure leaves out
The headline percentage on a fact sheet is a defined, regulated number. Several genuine costs sit outside that definition by design.
Costs
The same index at three different prices
Several funds tracking one index deliver near-identical exposure at meaningfully different costs. That gap is the clearest saving…
Costs
Leaving a platform costs more than arriving did
Transfer charges, per-holding fees and time out of the market are the price of moving. All of it is disclosed and almost nobody…
Costs
Somebody earns interest on the cash you left uninvested
Cash sitting in an investment account earns interest for somebody. How much of it reaches you is a commercial decision made by the…
Costs
Charge comparison tables assume a customer who is not you
Published comparisons rank providers using an imagined portfolio and an imagined trading pattern. Your own four numbers produce a…
Behaviour
Financial news is published daily whether or not anything happened
The volume of market coverage is set by a publishing schedule, not by the amount of genuinely new information. The two are…
Behaviour
The price you paid should not be part of the decision
What a holding cost you is a fact about your own history, not about its future. It still dominates how most people decide when to…
Behaviour
Motivation runs out, which is what the habit is for
Enthusiasm at the start is not a resource you can budget for. Arrangements that work without it are the ones still running in year…
Behaviour
Apps that are pleasant to open are expensive to own
Interfaces are designed to be used, and using an investment account more is not remotely the same as using it better.