Where would we be without alphabetic order in our life? Imagine if airports listed all departures randomly on their flight boards? We might never make it to the gate.

But should you find your investments alphabetically? When you’re presented with a list of available funds, should you prefer the ones that appear toward the top of the list?

This is not a trick question. Of course, the answer is no. It shouldn’t matter one bit where a fund name falls on an alphabetic list. And yet, amazingly, a recent study found that many investors may be unintentionally allowing “alphabeticity bias” to creep into their decisions anyway.

The study, “Alphabeticity Bias in 401(k) Investing,” is slated to be published in a forthcoming issue of The Financial Review. Investment selections in 401(k) retirement plans are often presented in alphabetic order, so the study’s authors took a look at whether plan participants were allowing that order to influence their choices. They found that, indeed, “alphabeticity – the order that fund names appear when listed in alphabetical order – significantly biases participants’ investment allocation decisions.” The longer the list of selections, the more alphabeticity bias appeared.

Why would we do this? The authors proposed the reason is related to another bias they called “satisficing.” When you’re reviewing an alphabetic list of choices, once you’ve found one that suits your purpose, you tend to give less consideration to the rest of the list. “My work here is done,” your brain tells you, and it shuts down … even if there may be an even better selection further on.

You shouldn’t, and we won’t, settle for next-best investments – in your retirement plan or anywhere else. Helping you avoid doing so is one way we encourage you to Take the Long View® when you invest.

Not everyone talks about inflation, but they should. Why? Inflation is the quiet monster taking away our purchasing power. Over time, inflation slowly happens, effectively reducing the power of the pennies in your piggy bank.

We can’t prevent inflation, but we can – and should – dull its appetite. How do you do that? Evidence-based investing is our recommendation.

While volatility in the markets can flame our fears, taming inflation is the bigger challenge. This is why we invest to begin with. To keep the inflation monster from feasting on your assets, invest in market factors, and stay invested in them over the long-haul. We know you understand this fundamental concept, but now you have a cartoon as a reminder.

Here at Hill Investment Group, we’ve intentionally set up our infrastructure to offer seamless client care from Houston, St. Louis, or anywhere else we may roam. As such, if we didn’t tell you, you’d probably never know that our Chief Operating Officer Nell Swanson Schiffer has relocated from Houston to St. Louis, at least for a while.

By happy coincidence, her husband was recently accepted into the Internal Medicine Residency program at Washington University in St. Louis. (Congrats, Walter!) With Nell already an integral member of our HIG team, it was even easier for the couple to pick up roots and head to St. Louis.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Nell mentioned the move when she was speaking with the St. Louis Business Journal about our related, 2019 Best Places to Work announcement. In the same issue, she shared her journey with Business Journal readers. It’s an adventure that has taken her from wearing a flame-retardant jumpsuit as a Houston-based petroleum engineer, to her role as HIG’s COO.

Click here to read all about it. 

The common denominator between Nell’s past and current careers? A passion for pursuing ingenious and disruptive best practices across all of life’s pursuits.

We welcome Nell to our St. Louis office, where we’re confident she’ll continue to be valued firm-wide.