Much is said about the psychology of investing in bull markets, and during bubbles. Much less is written about the behavioural traps that stop us from acting in a downturn, like the one fine wine has been experiencing for the third year running.
So, how should we behave when everything’s on sale?
To explore this, I spoke with Greg Davies, an applied behavioural scientist who set up the first behavioural finance team in banking at Barclays. He now leads behavioural finance at Oxford Risk, where he helps investors make better decisions. Greg has also been a Visiting Professor of Behavioural Finance at both the University of Oxford and Imperial College — which is where we met, when I chose his course as one of my electives. He’s since distilled that material into an online course, The Art of Behavioural Investing, for 42courses. Alongside Master of Wine John Downes, Greg also co-hosts Pour Better Decisions — live events that blend wine tasting with behavioural science to explore how we make choices under uncertainty.
We talk about what really happens when markets fall, why wine is such an emotionally charged asset, and how investors can start to separate emotional satisfaction from financial return. We also look at the idea of optionality in wine, the mismatch between emotional and financial time horizons, and how that can lead to poor decision-making. This is just a conversation about bubbles and booms and it’s a clear-eyed look at what it means to treat wine as an asset, and what sets it apart from other passion investments.
The transcript is available in this Google Doc.
If you enjoyed it, tap the heart and let me know who I should speak to next — either in the comments or by replying to this email.
Thank you,
– Sara
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