Reblog – Behavioural finance: Money illusion


Money illusion describes the tendency of people to think about money in nominal rather than in real or inflation-adjusted terms. In other words, it’s when people focus on the absolute amount of money rather than what that money can buy.

The concept of money illusion was first discussed by Irving Fisher and later popularised by John Maynard Keynes. Fisher defined it as “the failure to perceive that the dollar, or any other unit of money, expands or shrinks in value”.

In behavioural psychology terms, the issue of money illusion is an example of a broader cognitive failing known as frame dependence where perceived losses tend to have undue prominence in our decision-making.

One classic behavioural finance text showing the existence of money illusion was written by Shafir, Diamond and Tversky in 1997. It was based on experiments and real situations. Participants, for example, were presented with the following scenario:

Imagine that Adam, Ben and Carl each receive an inheritance and buy houses for $200,000.  Each sells their house one year later, but under different economic conditions. Adam sells his house for $154,000, 23% less than what he paid for it. When Adam owned the house there was 25% deflation. Ben sells his house for $198,000, 1% less than what he paid for it. When Ben owned the house, there was no change to prices. Carl sells his for $246,000, 23% more than he paid for it. When Carl owned the house there was 25% inflation.

When subjects were asked to rank these transactions in terms of success, the results showed that they were influenced by nominal values. The majority of subjects (60%) ranked Carl as having done best, Ben second and Adam third.

In real terms, the reverse is true. Adam did best because he made a real gain of 2%. Ben did second-best, making a nominal and real loss of 1%. Finally, Carl did worst, making a real loss of 2%.

The behavioural explanation for money illusion suggests that people’s thinking is driven by automatic, emotional reactions to the perceived changes in nominal values. While the calculation to account for inflation is not difficult, it involves an extra step and at least part of the brain seems strangely anchored to nominal values.

There are financial implications with this. One of the key problems is the situation where nominal increases in income are mistaken for genuine gains in purchasing power, when inflation may be diminishing the real worth of money. In fact, money illusion has been cited as why small levels of inflation are desirable for economies at least in terms of earnings growth. Having low inflation allows employers to modestly raise wages in nominal terms without necessarily paying more in real terms. As a result, many people who get pay increases make the mistake of thinking their wealth is rising, since they fail to adequately account for inflation.

In periods of rising inflation, income and prices tend to be correlated and there have been wage-price spirals where the two factors feed off each other. In periods of deflation, in theory, the process should work in reverse with downward wage price spirals, but in reality this tends not to happen. The reason is that labour is resistant to nominal wage decreases, partly due to money illusion. Unemployment tends to be the outcome because firms react to falling prices and declining profits by cutting staff.

In investment, the challenge is to make a real return on an outlay. If inflation is 3% and your investment gives you 5%, the real return is 2%. With the ability of inflation to act as a tax that erodes purchasing power over time, the best way to counteract inflation is to invest money in assets that can provide a return above inflation.

With record low interest rates, keeping money in a bank account or a money-market fund may not generate enough return to keep pace with even moderate inflation.

Despite this, the evidence suggests investors are more averse to nominal risks than real ones. Consider the “flight to safety” that occurs during most economic and stock-market downturns. Investors flood into safe assets such as bonds, which do not keep pace with inflation, while ignoring equities, despite the fact they may have cheapened considerably.

While the idea of holding cash may be emotionally appealing as it feels like a safe trade in nominal terms, such conservatism runs the risk of reduced purchasing power.

Assuming we do not strike deflation, in the prevailing environment of historically low interest rates, some analysts believe that cash and government bonds run the risk of providing negative real returns. This is encouraging many investors to look for real returns in high-yield bonds, real estate and equities.

Investors with a time horizon of five or more years should consider shifting surplus cash into assets where there is a prospect of a real return. Equities can offer attractive inflation-proofing characteristics as many companies can pass price increase onto consumers to protect their profits.

The original article appears on bull.com.au and appears here.


How to Earn Fixed Interest Income in Trading Accounts?


The original post is by Mastermind, Sana Securities, authored by Rajat Sharma and appears here.

I wasn’t really sure of the title to this post but the idea stemmed out of a question that I received from a subscriber.

Instead of repeating the exact question, I will break it up into 2:

  1. Can you earn fixed interest income on the spare cash lying in your trading account?
  2. Should you transfer spare cash into your bank account where you can earn up to 4% – 6% interest (savings account rate for Yes Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank) or can you earn higher?

Cash Position: The best cash position is naturally the one that earns the highest possible ‘fixed income rate’ in the market. Fixed interest income can be earned on – money lying in savings/ current account, money market and liquid funds, ultra-short and short term funds and medium and long term funds.

As a trader or as a short term investor, you will require the money that you keep in your trading account at a short notice. For this reason, many short term investors believe that the best thing to do is to transfer funds from trading account to your savings bank account, perhaps at the end of the trading day (i.e. at 3.30 pm) and allocate them back to your trading account terminal when needed. It’s all in real time with internet banking these days. This is not the best thing to do.

How much are you going to earn by doing this?

Savings bank interest: In the most aggressive (bank) scenario you will earn ~ 0.06% on a weekly basis (i.e. ~ half of 6% divided by 52 weeks; considering that you transfer it exactly at 3.30 pm each day for until when the market opens on the next day).

Now consider a Liquid fund on the Mutual Fund Segment within your trading terminal.

Liquid and money market fund interest: Typically, these funds earn between 7.8% – 7.9% annual interest but that’s not all. You can actually stay invested in these funds unless you need to settle a trade (see example below). Here you will earn ~ 0.15% on a weekly basis (i.e. 5.8% divided by 52 weeks; see example below).

Example: You have Rs. 2,00,000 lying unutilised in your trading account and do not want to buy anything or make any position. You can either transfer this money to your bank account or buy a money market or liquid fund which typically earns 7.8 % return with very little volatility.

short-term-trading

If you have stocks lying in your demat account, you will typically get 4 times their market price as margin to trade / invest (i.e. if you have stocks with current market value of Rs. 2,50,000 in your demat account, you will be allowed to buy/sell for up to Rs. 10,00,000/-). No interest will be charged on such buying and selling for up to 3 days**. Even on the 3 rd day, all you have to do is sell your liquid fund and your account is settled immediately. So practically, you may never have to sell your cash position. All you have to do is to define how much of your capital would you want to keep in cash at any point, based on market factors.

** These margins and limits may vary. The above is based on the limits we provide to all our clients.

Now consider this:

If you choose an ultra-short to short term fund where interest rates are 8.9% – 9.6%, and can stay invested for up to 15 days, then you earn ~0.18 % on a weekly basis (provided that instead of 2-3 days, as above, you can plan your buying and selling for up to 15 days).

Depending on market factors you do get opportunities to invest in even higher interest bearing instruments. For now, if you are still worried about losing out on basic interest income in trading account and are constantly transferring money back and forth between your accounts, STOP. There are easier solutions in life and better things to do after 3.30 pm.