A behavioural assessment for investment professionals
How this works
A study of 783 institutional portfolios found that investors added approximately 100 basis points of value through their buy decisions — and gave back 80 basis points on their sell decisions relative to a random sell strategy. The performance gap is not in sourcing ideas. It is in knowing when to exit.
Answer 20 questions honestly — based on how you actually invest, not how you think you should. A few questions have a correct answer. Most do not.
Answer based on your real portfolio decisions over the last 12 months
The assessment takes about 7 minutes
There are no right or wrong answers on the behavioural questions
Your results map to three primary behavioral dimensions — Composure, Impulsivity, and Conviction — each with a specific intervention protocol.
Questions 1–4 of 20
Question 1
Management guided for 8–10% organic growth next year. Your analysis — pricing dynamics, volume trends, channel checks — points to 12–13%. You cannot find a specific error in your work. The gap with guidance feels uncomfortable. Without identifying a concrete reason to revise, you shade your estimate back toward the guided range.
Is that something you would do?
Question 2
At least one position in your current portfolio would not pass the entry criteria you apply to new ideas — and if you received the cash equivalent today, you would allocate it differently.
Question 3
You need to reduce risk. Three positions, all equal size at entry: one up 38%, one flat, one down 19%. You sit down to decide which to cut.
Which do you look at first?
Question 4
Markets have run in your favour for two quarters and your portfolio is outperforming. A new idea arrives — sound thesis, standard numbers, no more compelling than a typical initiation. The good run is still with you. You size it larger than your process normally calls for.
Is that something you would do?
Question 5
Someone publishes a bear case on a company you have been building conviction on. Before you have considered where they might be right, you are already looking for the flaw in their argument.
Is that your first move?
Question 6
Your forward analysis is constructive — it clearly points toward adding risk. But a drawdown from a few months ago is still vivid. You have ended up running more defensively than your numbers justify.
Has that been true of you?
Question 7
You are evaluating the same speculative idea under two scenarios. In the first, you would fund it from flat seed capital set aside for exploratory positions. In the second, you would fund it from accumulated gains sitting in a recently closed position. Same idea, same fundamentals, same total portfolio size.
Would your position size or risk tolerance differ between the two scenarios?
Question 8
A position you held fell 30% over six months. The warning signals — order volumes declining, margins compressing in successive reports, management guiding cautiously — were all present in real time.
Would an independent analyst working from the same information, with no position in the stock, have reduced the holding before the full drawdown?
Question 9
Your model has a bear case. When you built it, you took it seriously — it was a realistic downside scenario, not a stress test you wrote to satisfy a template.
By the time you are presenting the position in an IC meeting, you have mentally set the bear case aside. You reference it, but you no longer believe it will play out.
Is that an accurate description of how your bear cases tend to age?
Question 10
You are interviewing a candidate for a key role. After two rounds you are genuinely enthusiastic. The reference check raises a meaningful concern — a pattern of difficulty under pressure. You note it, proceed with the hire, and plan to keep an eye on it.
Is that what you would do?
Question 11
You have collected nine of ten stamps on a loyalty card at a café you find unremarkable. A better option has opened nearby.
Do you go back for the tenth stamp?
Question 12
You have at least one position that has been at roughly the same weight for more than two years, with no meaningful trim, add, or deliberate decision to hold at that size. No new investment note has been written on it in that period.
Is that an accurate description of something in your current book?
Question 13
A colleague reviews your model and tells you the output is almost entirely determined by two long-run assumptions — the rest is noise. You find the observation uncomfortable, even though you know they are right.
Is that your reaction?
Question 14
You invested in a sector that went significantly against you two or three years ago. Your current analysis of the same sector’s opportunities is constructive — but you have not reinvested, or have done so at a fraction of the size your analysis would justify.
Is there a corner of your book where that is true today?
Question 15
A surgeon explains your upcoming procedure has a 92% success rate. Later, a colleague frames the same procedure as having an 8% complication rate. The second version stays with you longer — even though both describe the same reality.
Does that match your experience?
Question 16
Your IC memo is 200 words over the page limit. Before submission you must cut one of two sections:
Option A: Your three-paragraph rebuttal to the most prominent short-seller thesis on the stock.
Option B: A stress-test section showing your model’s implied return if your two central assumptions both come in 15% worse than base case.
Which do you cut?
Question 17
A fund manager with a strong three-year track record pitches their strategy. Within the first ten minutes — before they have explained how they generate returns — you already find yourself inclined to allocate.
Is that where you land?
Question 18
A position you held rose 65% over 18 months. When you describe it in a team meeting, you lead with the thesis: you identified the margin recovery before consensus, sized it properly, and held through the noise. The fact that the sector re-rated 40% over the same period comes up only in passing, if at all.
When a different position fell 30%, the account you gave was different in character: timing was bad, the macro environment moved against the trade, management changed its guidance unexpectedly.
Is that a fair description of the asymmetry in how you narrate outcomes?
Question 19
A position you have held for two years has rerated significantly. It now trades at a valuation you would never accept as an entry point on a new idea. You have not reduced it — the original thesis still feels intact.
Is that an accurate description of any position you currently hold?
Question 20
Calibration item
What was the annualized total return of the S&P 500 (including dividends reinvested) over the 10-year period from January 2014 to December 2023?
Select the range you are 90% confident contains the true figure.
Your Investor Bias Profile
Scores reflect patterns across your responses. Treat elevated dimensions as hypotheses worth testing — not diagnoses.
This is a self-report instrument. Scores are relative to your own answer pattern, not normalised against a population sample. Most investors score positively on several dimensions. The question is which ones, and at what intensity.