Although it has become much easier for individual investors to adjust their retirement accounts as often as they wish, human nature is such that most people are still inclined toward just leaving their allocations be, even if they know it's probably not in their best interest to do so.
In fact, many people don't even adjust their portfolios on an annual basis, says Victor Ricciardi, a professor of finance at Goucher College in Baltimore, Md., despite the fact that an increasing number of companies allow investors to automatically set up an annual rebalancing online.
Ricciardi—who has done extensive research in the fields of behavioral finance and the psychology of risk—attributes this lack of proactive investment behavior to what he calls "the anchoring effect." The anchoring effect causes individuals to cling to a belief that may or may not be true, and to base their decisions for the future on that belief. The inertia and inattention that this leads to can have detrimental effects on their retirement accounts.
Continue Reading for Free
Register and gain access to:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.