Recency bias is the habit of giving too much weight to what happened most recently and assuming it will continue. After months of gains it whispers that prices will keep rising; after a sharp drop it insists the pain will never end. It is a close cousin of the availability heuristic that Tversky and Kahneman described in 1973.
Recency bias is the engine behind buying high and selling low. When an asset has just soared it feels safe and obvious, so crowds pile in near the top (often mixed with fear of missing out). When it has just crashed it feels doomed, so they sell near the bottom. Extrapolating a hot streak also leads to over-concentration in last year's winner.
Zoom out. Look at multi-year history, not the last few weeks, before judging whether a trend is real. A mechanical plan like dollar-cost averaging — investing a fixed amount on a schedule regardless of the recent headline — deliberately removes recency-driven timing. Watching for overtrading urges, which recency spikes often trigger, is part of the same discipline.
It is the tendency to give too much weight to recent events and assume the latest trend will continue — a relative of the availability heuristic described by Tversky and Kahneman.
It fuels buying high (after a rally feels safe) and selling low (after a crash feels doomed), and encourages over-concentrating in last year's winner.
Zoom out to multi-year history before judging a trend, and use a mechanical plan like dollar-cost averaging that removes recency-driven timing from the decision.
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Educational research only — not investment advice.