ubiquitousHello! Jesse Cramer here.

Thank you for reading The Best Interest​

And listening to my podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors​

From the blog...

Target. Starbucks. Chipotle.

Some brands are ubiqitous in society.

You see them every day. You love their products. You spend money there.

So it must be a great stock, right?

Wrong.

These instincts fall under a few overlapping biases and fallacies:

1. Familiarity bias. We prefer what we recognize. If you see Chipotle every day, you feel like you understand it — and mistake familiarity for insight.
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2. Availability heuristic. The easier something is to recall (“I see Starbucks everywhere!”), the more likely we think it represents reality (“Starbucks must be dominating the market!”).
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3. Representativeness bias. We assume that a great product equals a great stock. But markets price in greatness. The quality of the burrito doesn’t predict the return of the shares.

So when someone says, “It’s everywhere, it must be great,” they’re not analyzing. They’re comforting themselves with what’s familiar.

If everyone already loves the company, that love is baked into the price. You’re late to the party, with all the high hopes and optimism already accounted for.

That's one of many reasons why picking stocks is hard.

Read more here:

​Good Company, Bad Stock ☕️​

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On the podcast...

​Episode 120 shares helpful info about how persuasion, psychology, and modern advertising quietly shape our financial lives.

Professor John Dinsmore and I explore how marketers exploit human biases like loss aversion, anchoring, and over-optimism to sell products, loans, and debt, and why AI-driven "adaptive ads" are making it harder than ever to recognize when we're being influenced.

​Marketing Algorithms Are Coming For Your Retirement Dollars 🤖​

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Marketing Algorithms Are Com... Nov 5 · Personal Finance for Lon... 34:17   ​

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• 📺 From Behavioral Investment: the similarities between reality TV game shows and timing the market​
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• 😌 From Ben Carlson: sold in April? Staying the course worked again.

P.S. - if you find something great that you think deserves to be shared with our community, let us know!

What Are *Your* Questions?

I've been creating "ask me anything" episodes on the podcast, where I answer your questions about investing, financial planning, and retirement. They are quickly becoming my most popular episodes.
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Want to check them out? They're all here:

🔗 All of My AMA Episodes​

I'm collecting questions for AMAs 11 and 12.
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Reply to this email or send questions to Jesse@BestInterest.blog

Work with Jesse?

By night, I run The Best Interest and Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors.

By day, I work for a fiduciary wealth management firm in Rochester, NY, helping busy professionals and retirees avoid costly mistakes and grow lasting wealth to and through retirement.

Learn more here.

In Closing

Thank you, as always, for reading, listening, and getting in touch. The project continues because the audience (that's you!) is amazing.

People like you send me questions every single day.

I’d love to hear from you.

Go ahead! Send an email or ask me question: ​jesse@bestinterest.blog​

Until next week,

Jesse