The word “greed” is often used when describing the core motivations and behaviours underpinning modern economies and financial markets. According to the Google Ngram Viewer, the prevalence of the word “greed” has more than doubled in the past four decades. Similarly, Google Trends shows that the search term “greed” reached its worldwide peak in popularity around March 2020.

It is important for investment professionals to understand their own disposition and tendencies related to greed and those of their clients.

Interestingly, researchers who study ...