When we're looking for information about a big decision we need to make,

our natural tendency is to seek out information which confirms our own point of view.

This is called confirmation bias and it is an insidious threat to your future financial health.

Now if you've clicked on this video to confirm what you already thought about confirmation

bias then congratulations.

This might be the most meta thing you're going to do this week.

For everyone else, let's stick five minutes on the clock down here.

Say a quick thank you to my friends at

seven investment management for continuing to sponsor the show and let's crack on.

We all fall prey to thinking that our own point of view is the correct one. As we get older we've become more entrenched in our own

opinions, opinions and arguably more closed to any opposing opinions.

Now when it comes to investing,

this takes a few different forms.

We blindly follow whatever has worked for us in the past

ignoring possible alternatives. We follow the crowd as long as the wisdom of the crowd makes

sense to us and agrees with our own points of view.

We look for investment news or opinion that resonates with our own views and filter out anything

which might contradict it.

All this is potentially dangerous because quite simply

what if we're wrong and we never know? Of course we could be right in which case it would make sense

to shut out opposing views but how would we ever know

this could end up being something of a circular argument couldn't it?

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