Investors, get a grip. Many of you are showing classic symptoms of grief over your decimated portfolios―denial, anger, depression― and you're struggling to attain that final stage, acceptance. Fear drives you to cash out at lows in a volatile market. You're angry and blame others―the conniving chief executive, the money-hungry broker. Some of you still hold out hope that those $10 tech stocks you own will rebound to $80 in this lifetime. Fear. Blame. Hope. They are all too-human impulses. But they can be highly destructive. From irrational exuberance to irrational pessimism, millions of investors have unwittingly sabotaged their nest eggs with their mood swings. It started with greed―fueled by bull-market hype and dot-com mania. People overestimated their stock-picking abilities and tolerance for risk and gorged on equities. "When investors have some successes, they tend to take on more risk," says John Nof-singer, a behavioral finance professor at Washington State University and author of Investment Madness: How Psychology Affects Your Investing and What to Do About It (Financial Times Prentice Hall, $24). "We felt proud for making all the right decisions, but really we tricked ourselves."
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