The writer is senior adviser at Engine AI and Investa, and former chief global equity strategist at Citigroup I have enjoyed a long career in the financial advice business. So it’s no surprise that I’m often asked what is the best advice given to me. This came from a grizzled colleague many years ago: “Rob, when your employee stock vests, sell it immediately. Wait a week. If the only investment that you can think of putting all that cash back into is the same stock, then buy it back again.
Or perhaps they were subject to what the behaviourists call the endowment effect, holding on to what they have because they were given it. Of course, this is a very first-world issue. But these are people in the finance business, presumably well versed in the benefits of risk diversification.