Avoid emotional investing

Active monitoring of a portfolio is important for navigating the changing tides of financial markets. Still, it is also essential for individual investors to manage the behavioral impulses of emotional buying and selling that can come from following the market's ups and downs. Indeed, investors seem to have a knack for piling into investments at market tops and selling at the bottoms because it is not uncommon to get entangled in media hype or fear, buying investments at peaks and selling during the valleys of the cycle.

How can investors navigate volatile markets while also keeping an even keel and keeping a portfolio diversified for the best overall returns through all types of market environments? The key is to understand the motivations behind emotional investing and to avoid both euphoric and depressive investment traps that can lead to poor decision-making.

Investing based on emotion (greed or fear) is the main reason why so many people are buying at market tops and selling at market bottoms. Underestimating risks associated with investments is one reason why investors sometimes make suboptimal decisions based on emotion. During periods of market volatility and rising interest rates, investors often move funds from riskier stocks and to lower-risk interest rate securities. Dollar-cost averaging and diversification are two approaches that investors can implement to make consistent decisions that are not driven by emotion. Staying the course through short-term volatility is often the key to longer-term success as an investor.

Investor behavior has been the focus of many studies and numerous theories attempt to explain the regret or overreaction that buyers and sellers often experience when it comes to money. The reality is that the investor's psyche can overpower rational thinking during times of stress, whether that stress is a result of euphoria or panic. Taking a rational and realistic approach to investing—during what seems like a short time frame for capitalizing on euphoria or fearful market developments—is essential.

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