The Psychology of Trading, page-77

@yelrom I am glad that you get something out of my musings. My motive is firstly to generate posts and reflections like yours in this particular thread, and secondly to contribute to the collective wisdom of this particular HC community. After all “wealth isn’t primarily determined by investment performance, but by investor behaviour” (Nick Murray, Simple Wealth Inevitable Wealth).

As I mentioned a few times, I am grateful to a number of posters on HC, as we simply cannot be knowledgeable across such a vast field of different topics like, medicine, medical trials, data collection and dissemination, regulatory pathways and approvals, manufacturing processes, management and HR etc. The person who thinks otherwise, suffers from a serious bout of knowledge illusion.

The Feeling is real but the Why isa lie

HCcan at times be a hotbed of feelings especially before or after announcements. It generally starts out with posters being certain, that the shareprice will go up and label any opposite post as down ramping, whilst the “downrampers” will argue vehemently the opposite. In my opinion that is HC at itsworst. It will then take some well articulate posters to bring the discourse back to a constructive dialogue, were posts are based on facts and not opinions.

So whilst the feelings (biochemical reactions) of elation, joy, happiness etc. of the impending massive share rise, which in turn brings an early retirement, a new car, a family holiday or even an island, are absolutely real, the underlying reason (the Why) is Not – at least not yet. What follows is disappointment, frustration, anger etc. Whilst those biochemical reactions are equally real and the symptoms of those feelings can be experienced in a number of ways like sleeplessness, stress, sweaty palms etc. the underlying reason for those feelings are a lie too. The share price is what it is, my job is simply to decide if I want to stay for the ride or bail. The best way to do that is to take the emotions out of the decision and read the posts of a number of very knowledgeable posters here on HC, and most importantly take your own unique situation into account. However it is wise, not to make decisions which will be permanent based on temporary feelings.

So I for my part try to learn more about the company in this quiet phase, instead of aggravating my dorsal vagal system and possibly end up in my amygdala. Here are some facts I learned today: there is a Swiss study which states, that the death rate of COVID-19 is three times higher than that of influenza (the age of the COVID-19 patience was 67 whilst that of the influenza patience was 74) and that COVID-19 patience spend significantly more time in the ICU then the influenza patience. I learned today that Novartis make 37% of its sales in the US and spends 6 Million US Dollars lobbing legislators in the US. 71% of that money goes to the Democrats. It looks like a good partnership if it eventuates.