What the runaway success of “Chicken’s” Facebook Page can teach you about investing

Chicken’s Facebook Page just hit 4,817 Friends!! …But Facebook limits Personal Profiles to 5,000 Friends! What’s the ever-popular Chicken going to do?

Well, this could be stressful for Chicken – except obviously there’s not REALLY a chicken running this site. But Chicken’s Page is a sweet, beautiful nod to the playful side of human nature. I myself am Chicken’s FB Friend! Go on – post something on her Wall! Feel it for yourself first-hand – that wonderful sense of camaraderie; the pure fun of being in a crowd.

Warm, fuzzy feelings aside, that happy buzz you’re experiencing is what Behavioral Economists more sternly identify as the root cause of “herding”: the natural human impulse to do what others are doing. In short – the sweet pleasure of community; the happy reassurance of being in a crowd.

Herding after Chicken is pure fun: zero harm. But herding in investing is very often dangerous, sometimes devastating. It’s what sweeps people to giddily buy what’s going up, and to panickedly sell what’s going down – even though everybody knows that for their own and their family’s wellbeing – they SHOULD BE DOING THE OPPOSITE!

Here’s a quick, 3 minute video to take you though what’s going on “in da head” as Chicken would say… if in fact she actually spoke English. Or could speak at all… Cluck cluck!!

1 Comment

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  John Dunne at

  Funny! Thanks!

  Reply