Episode #14 Dan Kemp – Using Behavioral Finance to Make Better Investment Decisions

Dan Kemp is the Chief Investment Officer for the EMEA region at Morningstar Investment Management. Dan has a very interesting background. For instance, he holds a BA in Theology at Kings College in London – we spend quite a bit of time talking about how his non-business background has helped him in his investment career. Prior to joining Morningstar Investment Management, he was a Founder and Partner at Albemarle Street Partners, an investment advisory firm that assists advisors in client risk profiling, fund research, portfolio construction and asset allocation. Prior to that, he was a Multi-Asset Fund of Funds manager at Saltus Partners.

We have all been there – whether you are a professional investor or like to play Warren Buffett or George Soros in the stock market in your spare time – we have all bought too late, or sold to soon. We’ve all bought high and sold low! There is one thing we cannot deny, and that is that most of us are inheritably terrible at making investment decisions. As Ben Graham once said: “The investor’s chief problem, and perhaps his worst enemy, is himself”.

As much as we would love to be as perfect as our traditional economic models assume us to be, the fact is that we all suffer to some extent from many behavioral biases that prevent us from making better decisions in general, not only financial ones.

So if you’ve been paying attention, your next logical question would be: “How can we get better at making investment decisions?” I don’t want to give any spoilers, but what I can say is that this week’s episode is shamelessly self-proclaimed a behavioral finance masterclass, which was so eloquently delivered by our guest, Dan Kemp.

We touch on a wide range of topics such as how to prevent buying at a high and selling at a low, the importance of having an investment process in place that allows for other team members to poke holes at your ideas, while at the same time avoiding Groupthink. Dan was also kind enough to share some of his productivity tricks, what he looks for when hiring a candidate for a job, his favorite behavioral finance books, and much more.

So, whether you are commuting to work, cooking some good food, mowing your lawn, or just stopped everything to put 100% of your attention to our interview, I hope this episode takes you one step closer to overcoming your behavioral biases in your investment decision making.

As always, make sure you share the podcast with anyone you think might benefit from the information. And don’t forget to leave us a 5-Star review on iTunes!
Luke & Leo