The 2021 Future of Finance (FoF) Conference will be taking place online on March 6th. Bringing together the brightest minds from all across Europe and top executives from leading industry disruptors, FoF is THE premier event for financial innovation and entrepreneurship.
Hosted by 6 of the LARGEST careers societies from leading global universities, this event is proudly brought to you by UCL FinTech Society, LSE SU FinTech Society, LSE PRIS, Imperial Finance Society, Warwick Entrepreneurs Society & King's Business Club.
We are delighted to introduce one of our speakers for the Business & Entrepreneurship
Panel, Jules Becci-Morin de la Rivière. To learn more about Insula Investment Management and cryptocurrency investments, check out UCL Finance & Technology Review's exclusive interview with Jules below:
Biography
Jules Becci-Morin de la Rivière founded and leads the company Insula Investment Management, which is a cryptocurrency investment management software suite. He is a King’s College London alumnus.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin recently reached all-time highs in price, what would you say to people who are skeptical about buying cryptocurrencies?
Investing decisions and Human Bias Investing decisions are influenced by our emotions more than initially thought. In Insula Investment Management’s view, automation is the answer to the ubiquitous Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that makes cryptocurrency investment decisions especially challenging.
Human cognitive biases take roots in the Insula. This region of the brain is involved in self-awareness, fear, pain, anxiety, empathy. Overall, the Insula modulates the intensity of felt emotions before sending them to the cognition treatment of information. The Insula links the rational system with the emotional system. Previous studies have proven that the Insula was less active in traders of stocks compared to people that stand away from financial risks. The latter was taking more conservative decisions and fearing the unknown. So, the Insula perceives and represents expected risks, interferes with rational judgment, and guides decision-making under uncertainty.
There is a real behavior gap between what investors should do and what they actually do. Indeed, a share of annual returns is lost by investors because of their emotions influencing their trading strategy. Many of the world’s best investors have a high level of emotional regulation and treat their feelings as reverse indicators, e.g. Excitement is an indicator that it’s time to sell, fear indicates that it’s time to buy.
Emotions, such as fear, competition and rewards, corrupt our rational decision-making. Apart from emotions, genes and hormones are also thought to influence decision making. Known as ‘cognitive bias’, our biology and psychology affect significantly but unconsciously our financial choices. For example, the “confirmation bias” makes investors seek information confirming their theory but overlook contradictory facts. While the” loss aversion” makes investors be psychologically impacted twice as much for a loss than for an equivalent value gain. Once these cognitive biases have been identified and understood, an individual can reduce only 30 percent of them. Machine automation helps bypass human bias by creating a fair, honest and more performant system. With an algorithm, hormones, genetics and brain activity have no impact on decision making. Such automation ensures unbiased trading and optimisation on the cryptocurrency market, for a better return for our investors.
To find out more about entrepreneurship and the changing faces of the business world, join the Business & Entrepreneurship Panel (12:30-13:15 GMT) during the Future of Finance Conference on 6th March. The virtual conference will be streamed via UCL FinTech Society's Facebook and Youtube page.
Follow the Facebook event for updates.
Interviewed by Mohammed Safayat (UCL) and Paul Courtioux (KCL)
The UCL Finance and Technology Review (UCL FTR) is the official publication of the UCL FinTech Society. We aim to publish opinions from the student body and industry experts with accuracy and journalistic integrity. While every care is taken to ensure that the information posted on this publication is correct, UCL FTR can accept no liability for any consequential loss or damage arising as a result of using the information printed.