Cooking The Books

Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's keeping emotion in check to become a better investor. Hosted by Frances Cook. Emotions and money are like petrol and fire. Try not to mix them if you can, because it's likely you won't enjoy the result. So while I've loved seeing more people paying attention to their money in the last year, and particularly the fantastic surge in people who are interested in investing, I have found it worrying the emotions that are clearly also in the mix. Strategies abound for getting rich quickly, hyped stocks are spread through online forums, and for every overnight winner there are ten losers left in their wake, carrying the can. The reaction to this in some quarters has been for people to warn that the sharemarket is like a casino, and that if you dabble, you should prepare to get burned. Well that's just not true either. Shares are a proven wealth-building strategy, it's just that you do need a strategy as you get started.