Drake Bennet published an article titled "Easy = True" in the Boston Globe on cognitive fluency, back at the end of January. I’m a sucker for this psychology stuff and reading about how and what makes people tick, and then running my own meager social experiments at the expense of my friends and family. This article is well worth the read. Like me you will probably find the subject of cognitive fluency fascinating, and perhaps find yourself admiring how “averagely beautiful” you are in the mirror. However, no one should adopt an investment strategy on one of the underlying studies presented in the article, investing in easy to pronounce companies because the research shows they significantly outperform. You might as well adopt the Chinese lucky 8’s investment strategy and pick companies whose CUSIP numbers are represented with a heap of those lucky eights. Here’s the article:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/01/31/easy__true/
And just for fun, here is a blog by Steve Tobak on BNET venting his rage at dumb, hard to say company names (the name Fifth Third Bankcorp drives me crazy as well):
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