How our emotions changes with Market movement

 Investors are prone to make the same mistakes over and over again. Securities are bought high out of greed and sold low out of fear, despite knowing it nullifies their profits.

Investors want to make profits quickly and bull markets provide a great opportunity to make profits in a short period of time. When price keeps rising, more and more people invest more and more money in stocks. Stock prices follow the law of demand and supply. With higher demand (more money), prices keep rising further and profits grow. Growing profits fuel more greed and more money get invested raising prices to excessive levels. When asset prices get overheated it eventually corrects. Bear markets (falling markets) can be triggered by a number of factors but the most common factor is fear. When prices fall sharply, investors fear that it will fall more and sell in panic. As mentioned earlier, stock prices follow the law of demand and supply. In a bear market, supply of stocks is high since most investors want to sell in panic. Panic selling causes stock prices to fall sharply. Ultimately, prices fall to such low levels that stock valuations become attractive (cheap) and the markets eventually bottoms out.

 

The Cycle of Investor emotions:-

Below Picture describes all the different emotional states typically experienced by the majority of market participants:-

 

 

 

 

 

Optimism

Everything starts with a positive outlook towards the future that leads you to buy a stock.

Excitement

Markets start moving up towards your expectations and a feeling of anticipation and hope arises inside, you start to see the success.

Thrill

Market continues to go up, you are already earning and start to feel very confident of your investing decisions.

Euphoria

“You can’t miss opportunities”. Market grows, investments turn into quick and easy profits. Everyone wants to jump in: Who doesn’t want to make a ton of money risking as little as possible? The market is rising, isn’t it?

At this point, the financial risk is at it maximum, like the possible financial gain.

Anxiety

Things start to turn around, markets show the first signs of weakness but overall the sentiment for the long term is still bullish and you convince yourself that it is just a short correction.

Denial

The market correction is taking longer than you originally thought. Doubts start to arise and confidence in the long-term bull market turns into a strong hope for a short-term improvement.

Fear

At some point you have to compare your perception with the reality, maybe you haven’t been that smart. You would like to get out taking a small profit or even a small loss but you don’t act because you don’t know what to do, uncertainty is at its maximum.

Desperation

All chances of making a profit are lost at this point, you are really concerned about your investment and you strongly hope for anything that will bring our positions back into gain territory.

Panic

This is the period with the most emotional impact, where you feel helpless and really don’t know what to do, feeling without any degree of control on the situation, on your investments and on markets.

Capitulation

You sell your position at any price because you reached your breaking point. In a certain way, you are happy to get out of the stock market in order to avoid bigger losses.

Despondency

Your expectations have been disappointed, you got a strong loss from your investments, you feel bad and you don’t want to buy a stock ever again. This is the point of maximum financial opportunity for investors that are aware of what is going on and are willing to be contrarians.

Depression

This is the beginning of the aftermaths of the crash. You start thinking about what happened and ask yourself how you could have been that stupid. The key that makes the difference among investors here is if you start to look back to what happened and analyze what went wrong and start learning from from past mistakes.

Hope

Things start to gradually improve, the overall situation gets better and you realize that financial markets have cycles. You got some experience and you start to look around for new investing opportunities.

Relief

Markets are turning positive once again, you start to be faithful again and you convince yourself of your ability to invest your money. The cycle starts all over again.

Conclusion:-

 

• Overall investor sentiment frequently drives market performance in directions that are at odds with the fundamentals.
• The successful investor controls fear and greed, the two human emotions that drive that sentiment.
• Understanding this can give you the discipline and objectivity needed to take advantage of others' emotions.