During one of my visits to Edinburgh as a stockbroker with UBS Warburg, a canny Scottish fund manager greeted me by saying, “stockbrokers live to sell dreams”. Though I was livid with rage at his condescending attitude then, may I now add that the sequel should be “they deliver nightmares”. Barring a few truly exceptional investors, most of us fall prey to the siren songs of our broker. Why does this grisly sequence recur so often?
(This story appears in the 02 July, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)