When to sell your stocks
Poker provides investors with helpful guidance
Watch professionals play poker, and one of the first things to strike you is how often they fold when the game has barely begun. Rounds of Texas Hold’em, a popular variant, start with each player being dealt two cards and then deciding whether to bet on them. Amateurs are more likely to proceed than not, while pros fold immediately up to 85% of the time. Naturally this does not mean that high-stakes casinos are frequented by the timid. It is simply that most hands are too likely to lose to be worth betting on, and the pros are better at judging when this is the case.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Exit wounds”
Finance & economics June 1st 2024
- Baby-boomers are loaded. Why are they so stingy?
- Foreign investors are rejecting Indian stocks
- Xi Jinping’s surprising new source of economic advice
- Young collectors are fuelling a boom in Basquiat-backed loans
- OPEC heavyweights are cheating on their targets
- When to sell your stocks
- Why any estimate of the cost of climate change will be flawed
Discover more
The great-man theory of Wall Street
Why finance is still dominated by bold individuals
Hong Kong’s property slump may be terminal
Demographics and geopolitics will make a recovery harder
Why everyone wants to lend to weak companies
An unanticipated side-effect of Donald Trump’s election victory
American veterans now receive absurdly generous benefits
An enormous rise in disability payments may complicate debt-reduction efforts
Why Black Friday sales grow more annoying every year
Nobody is to blame. Everyone suffers
Trump wastes no time in reigniting trade wars
Canada and Mexico look likely to suffer