Notwithstanding the weakness in the global markets over the past eight months, investors globally have had a good run over the last six years with the US’s Dow Jones up 160% since 2009 and the ASX200 up 67%. However it is very rare to ever be enjoying market conditions where you can have a great degree of confidence as to the future direction of the share market, as it is the uncertainty of returns that gives rise to the return premium that equities have enjoyed over bonds and cash over the long term. Indeed over the past week we have seen headlines in the financial press with the title “Two Significant Flags signal the Bull Run is getting close to the Peak” and “Kerr Neilson sees value in Epic Sell-Off”. As the equity markets have only seen a modest increase this week, surely these statements can’t both be true.
In the spirit of investing in uncertain times, in this piece we are going to look at seven reasons that have caused both individual and institutional investors (including the author of this piece) to lose money in the market when making investment decisions
Read more here.