Gloomsday blogging
This week I wrote a short but cautionary blog post about a spike in construction insolvencies, which garnered more than 8,000 blog hits, has so far been viewed more than 4,500 times on LinkedIn, gathered me about 100 new Twitter followers, and was gleefully reposted across Reddit, PropertyChat, and goodness knows where else.
This always happens, without fail.
It's the holy ratio of bear porn: bearish or negative articles always get about 5 times as many readers.
The comments around the interweb also tend to view such contrarian analysis as far more insightful and intelligent (whether it actually is or not).
I don't pay to boost or amp up promotional posts on Facebook or elsewhere.
After all, I've got more than enough work to keep me busy, and frankly I'd far rather have a niche readership of aspirational investors than thousands of crypto-fanatics or doomsday-prepping conspiracy theorists.
I mainly write blogs and analysis because I enjoy it (try blogging for a week - you'll soon give it up if you don't enjoy the process of writing and sharing content).
But it's clear as day to see how pessimism can sell if you want it to.
Smart cookies like Martin North and others worked this out long ago - running stories on record mortgage stress since at least 2007 and 2008, all the way through to 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Doomsday predictions don't necessarily need to be accurate as long as you're preaching to a receptive choir.
Doomsday predictions don't necessarily need to be accurate as long as you're preaching to a receptive choir.
Try pointing out to people how low 90-plus day mortgage arrears actually are, on the other hand - well under 1 per cent - and you'll be met with a frightful volley of abuse..lol!
Psychologists know that we tend towards a negativity bias, and that evolution means we're hard-wired to respond to words like 'war' or 'murder' or 'cancer' or 'bombing' as a defence mechanism.
Unfortunately studies also show that even watching a few minutes of miserable news in the morning can cast a shadow over your entire day, which is tough when you're genuinely interested in world events such as the unrest and violence in Hong Kong.
News media is now online and driven by a desperation for your clicks, so the bad news about the bad news is that we'll inevitably be fed ever more of it.
According to my in-depth research on, erm, Google, psychologists seem to argue that people aren't so much driven by schadenfreude, although perhaps some have a ghoulish fascination with morbid events.
But when it comes it finance and the economy, I have to say my experience is that schadenfreude is a tremendous driver of traffic and interest.
When I post charts and information on Twitter absolutely nothing gets a more excited reaction than a rise in mortgage arrears; people just can't get enough of the idea that others are getting behind on their home loans!
It must be 20-odd years since I read it, but if my memory serves me correctly George Orwell observed in The Road to Wigan Pier that the indignity of 1930s unemployment became far more bearable if everyone else on your street was unemployed too.
Most of us believe we're better than average, and so for many there's a curious comfort to be found in others struggling or falling on hard times.
5:1 positive interactions
Perhaps not coincidentally psychologist John Gottman Ph.D. of the University of Washington found that a happy marriage consistently needs 5 times as many positive interactions as negative in order to thrive (big one-off events like birthdays or anniversaries don't cut it).
Since our brains react more strongly to negative stimuli, I'd suggest you take a similar approach to your news and information intake.
How exactly you do that, you'll have to work out for yourself.
Ditching Facebook and Instagram seems to be a popular choice.
Choosing your news and media sources (and when and how often you look at them) wisely is another important consideration.
Ditching Facebook and Instagram seems to be a popular choice.
Choosing your news and media sources (and when and how often you look at them) wisely is another important consideration.
From a business and investment perspective, I simply try to find people who've achieved what I want to achieve and watch and listen to them closely.
As a resident of London and then Sydney I decided 20 years ago that in growing countries with a floating currency then it makes more sense for me to constantly look for opportunities and to go long rather than short.
That doesn't mean it's always smart to be bullish - far from it - but by the same token being persistently negative means you'll likely miss opportunities.
