Thoughts? Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/worl...le-own-shares-study-finds-20120119-1q7lz.html
Wow, great representative sample of the population. By a finance magazine, so don't expect much experimental rigour.
Probably true - it's something people with intelligence can use said intelligence to think about, analyse, predict and otherwise occupy their minds when bored. Not sure if all the pondering enhances investment results but it keeps people amused. I'll offer up an anecdote on gambling that I often see correlate to shares: My parents occasionally like to go down to the pub of a weekend and have a punt on the horses, my father analyses statistics, history, weather conditions etc. before placing a bet my mum picks horses with names she likes - guess who wins more out of the 2 of them. edit: Also intelligent people probably think they can beat the system (the old adage about knowing just enough to get yourself in trouble) - thus casting their intelligence into doubt but there you have it.
For those interested in reading the original research paper quoted, here is the link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1441512. The paper was written by Mark Grinblatt (UCLA), Matti Keloharju (Aalto University) and Juhani T. Linnainmaa (University of Chicago).
http://www.afajof.org/ Journal of Science is a journal not a magazine - see above. 160 000 is a pretty good sample for any research. I agree perhaps some characterisitcs may have predisposed certain types of men to join te army, but since it was over time it is not soley army recruits since they would have moved on to other pursuits in life. Nevertheless intelligence is still the measure they were using with a particular test so in the end the sample is still fairly valid. Issues such as whether future employment may have affected the purchase of shares among other things could be relevant too.
why dont they just say smarter ppl invest money dumb ppl think about present only, you dont need to do a study for this, it doesnt matter whether its shares, bank deposits, pm or re.
People with intelligence, also known as "information" ..... can use said intelligence, and the "smarter" you are the more stock you own ... also known as "insider trading" ... as for the other 99% .... roll up roll up and take a spin of the wheel of fortune ...
They should also have studied the physical characteristics of the men, their sexual habits and hobbies, and then link this up with their stock market returns. This is after all, the "scientific method" is it not? Reminds me of all the scientific research that came out of tobacco companies. The scientists could keep their jobs only on the condition that they kept publishing reports which testified to the safety of smoking tobacco. Those scientists must have been good, because they worked at those tobacco factories for decades, and they had many scientific qualifications and letters after their names. Don't you love science? It doesn't have biased opinions and only focuses on the facts.
Okay, so while the link between intelligence and share ownership is interesting, it doesn't really tell us if people who are intelligent are more likely to own shares or if people who are intelligent are more likely to invest generally. I would hazard a guess that if data on other investments was available, it would show that intelligent people are also more likely to own bonds, real estate, precious metals, artwork and have a reasonable amount of cash in the bank as well.
Too many variables in any one study is not going to be helpful. Possibly these things have been studied and reported in other papers or perhaps they have not been shown to be relevant. I don't think there was any suggestion that these researchers were bought by ''the stock market''.
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x1927.xml Mark Grinblatt UCLA page with background, CV, papers etc... http://finance.aalto.fi/en/people/keloharju/ Matti Keloharju ...as above info http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/juhani.linnainmaa/ Juhani Linnainmaa...as above...inof Links to each authors Univiersity profile and other research so you can check it out if you are interested.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/juhani.linnainmaa/IQandParticipation_JF2011.pdf Link to pdf of the doc - may be easier to access and read for some. Reading the full journal article may help understand where some of the controls were made, how certain things were accounted for in the study etc....
160 000 soldiers are not representative of the wider community. The best you can say about this study is more intelligent Finnish soldiers are more likely to invest in stocks. It doesn't say any more than that and in no way represents the wider community. Making wider claims than that based on such a sample set is bad science. EDIT: there is also the fact that they are going by IQ which is notoriously inefficient at predicting success overall. Far more factors are involved, motivation, hard work, etc... Overall, kind of pointless study imo with no conclusions of any worth.
Higher IQ = most likely higher income = greater ability to afford investments. It's not rocket surgery. Also in breaking news, those in housing commission are less likely to own investment properties.
Are there any scientific studies backing up this claim? Did you hear about the guy who was given a scientific grant to study the mating habits of camels? His findings? Quite comprehensive really, summed up as, "The camels are banging away steadily and there's no shortage of them." Wow! We gave a guy money to tell us this :/ Or the other one about the guy who was given a grant to study some type of beetle... basically, he just stayed up that tree counting the beetles until the grant money ran out. Great way to earn a living, some people would say.
Perhaps not, but apart from being an incredibly huge sample, it includes one particular gender (so gender income disparity is eliminated) all of roughly the same age (19-20), all of roughly the same starting income (army pay), all from roughly the same geographic area (Finland), all investing in roughly the same market (the Finish stockmarket), all tested for their level of intelligence by the same organisation (the Finish Army) and all financial data tabulated by the same organisation (the Finish tax office). That's actually a pretty decent sample group for for what they were testing.