Behavioural Finance Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Portfolio Managers, Treasury Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-TI-010

Before you join: Participants should understand core investment and finance concepts, including risk and return, diversification, asset classes, financial markets, portfolio performance and basic valuation.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Investment committees, treasury teams, portfolio managers and advisers make decisions under uncertainty, time pressure and accountability for results. Price movements, forecasts, benchmarks and peer views can trigger overconfidence, anchoring, loss aversion, herding and performance chasing. These behaviours can distort asset allocation, security selection, liquidity decisions, client communication and governance. The cost is not simply a poor trade; it can be an investment process that repeatedly departs from stated objectives, risk limits and evidence.

This course examines the psychological and organisational forces behind financial decisions. Participants use Prospect Theory, mental accounting, calibration testing, base-rate analysis, pre-mortem analysis, decision journals and choice architecture to identify recurring judgement errors. They assess behavioural explanations for market anomalies, bubbles and momentum, then translate findings into portfolio construction, position sizing, rebalancing, investment governance and client suitability processes. The course addresses both individual investor behaviour and the group dynamics affecting investment committees and treasury decisions.

Teaching combines focused briefings with financial cases, facilitated group analysis, trading and portfolio simulations, and structured review of investment decisions. Participants apply methods to realistic situations such as concentrated employer-stock exposure, panic selling during market declines, a committee considering a high-conviction trade, and a treasury team reacting to recent interest-rate movements. Each participant leaves with a behavioural investment decision toolkit, including a bias register, pre-trade checklist, decision journal template and workplace action plan.

The course suits finance professionals who already work with investment, treasury, risk, advisory or corporate finance decisions and need stronger controls over how judgement affects outcomes.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose cognitive, emotional and social biases in investment and treasury decisions
  • Apply Prospect Theory and mental accounting to investor preference analysis
  • Test forecasts and investment views using calibration, base rates and disconfirming evidence
  • Assess behavioural causes of market anomalies, momentum, bubbles and forced selling
  • Design behavioural controls for asset allocation, rebalancing and position-sizing decisions
  • Build pre-trade checklists and decision journals for disciplined investment processes
  • Conduct pre-mortem and red-team reviews for investment committee recommendations
  • Produce a behavioural bias register and action plan for workplace implementation

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Recognise personal bias patterns before they affect investment recommendations
  • Challenge market narratives using evidence, base rates and alternative explanations
  • Improve credibility in investment committees through structured dissent and documented reasoning
  • Make clearer risk conversations with clients, executives and non-specialist stakeholders
  • Build a repeatable record of decision quality beyond short-term investment outcomes

For your organisation

  • Reduce performance chasing, concentration risk and undisciplined trading behaviour
  • Improve consistency between investment policy statements and actual portfolio decisions
  • Strengthen investment committee challenge before capital is committed
  • Create auditable records of assumptions, probabilities, controls and review dates
  • Improve client retention through better communication during volatile market periods

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain how behavioural finance challenges purely rational models of financial decision-making.

  • Efficient market hypothesis assumptions and documented limits in liquid securities markets
  • Prospect Theory explains reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity
  • Expected utility theory compared with observed investor choice patterns
  • Bounded rationality, heuristics and biases distinguished from deliberate preferences
  • Market anomalies assessed against risk, costs, data mining and survivorship bias
  • Separate behavioural evidence from anecdote using falsifiable investment hypotheses

Participants can identify common cognitive shortcuts and apply techniques to improve financial judgement.

  • Recognise System 1 and System 2 influences on financial judgement
  • Availability heuristic effects traced through recent returns, headlines and salient losses
  • Representativeness bias identified in trend extrapolation and style classification
  • Anchoring tested through price targets, purchase prices and prior forecasts
  • Base-rate neglect corrected with reference classes and historical frequencies
  • Confirmation bias countered through disconfirming evidence and devil's advocate reviews

Participants can assess how investor preferences and emotions alter risk-taking and portfolio choices.

  • Loss aversion quantified using asymmetric utility functions and downside scenarios
  • Reference points mapped to benchmarks, high-water marks and purchase prices
  • Mental accounting effects identified across portfolios, budgets and capital gains
  • Disposition effect measured through realised gains, realised losses and holding periods
  • Regret avoidance linked to inertia, diversification errors and delayed sales
  • House-money effect assessed after gains, bonuses and windfall income

Participants can diagnose biases that affect trading, forecasting, asset allocation and security selection.

  • Overconfidence diagnosed using calibration tests, trading frequency and forecast error
  • Self-attribution bias separated from skill attribution after favourable investment outcomes
  • Herding indicators calculated from fund flows, consensus changes and correlation
  • Familiarity bias examined in domestic concentration and employer-stock exposure
  • Recency bias challenged with rolling-return windows and full-cycle evidence
  • Action bias reduced through decision rules, waiting periods and trade thresholds

Participants can evaluate how collective behaviour contributes to market trends, bubbles and reversals.

  • Sentiment indicators interpreted alongside valuation, liquidity and macroeconomic conditions
  • Feedback loops explained through momentum, attention and forced selling
  • Limits to arbitrage assessed using funding risk, short-sale constraints and career risk
  • Bubble diagnostics applied to narratives, turnover, issuance and valuation dispersion
  • Market crashes reviewed through liquidity spirals, margin calls and correlated exits
  • Behavioural explanations carefully distinguished from rational risk-premium explanations in market anomalies

Participants can incorporate behavioural considerations into portfolio objectives, allocation and rebalancing rules.

  • Investment policy statements convert objectives, constraints and governance into decision rules
  • Strategic asset allocation reviewed against loss tolerance and behavioural capacity
  • Risk questionnaires tested for framing effects, sequencing and inconsistent answers
  • Goal-based investing separates essential liabilities from aspirational portfolio objectives
  • Rebalancing bands designed to prevent performance chasing and drift
  • Default options and choice architecture improve investment-plan participation and persistence

Participants can apply structured controls to security analysis, trade approval and post-investment review.

  • Pre-trade checklists challenge thesis strength, valuation range and catalyst assumptions
  • Base rates incorporated into earnings forecasts, credit views and default estimates
  • Position sizing linked to conviction, downside risk and portfolio concentration
  • Kelly criterion limitations examined under estimation error and drawdown constraints
  • Trade journals record decision context, expected outcomes and subsequent evidence
  • Post-investment reviews separate process quality from short-term performance

Participants can strengthen investment governance by designing challenge and escalation mechanisms.

  • Committee dynamics expose groupthink, authority gradients and suppressed dissent
  • Investment governance assigns decision rights, escalation routes and independent challenge
  • Pre-mortem analysis identifies failure modes before capital commitment
  • Red-team reviews test assumptions, scenario omissions and contrary evidence
  • Performance attribution separates allocation, selection, timing and behavioural effects
  • Incentive structures assessed for short-termism, benchmark gaming and excessive turnover

Participants can use behavioural communication methods to support informed and disciplined client decisions.

  • Behavioural client segmentation distinguishes goals, preferences, beliefs and decision styles
  • Risk conversations use probability formats, loss framing and plain-language scenarios
  • Choice architecture structures defaults, option sets and disclosure sequencing
  • Commitment devices support savings rates, rebalancing and withdrawal discipline
  • Communication plans address panic selling during drawdowns and volatile headlines
  • Suitability records document objectives, constraints, risk capacity and consent

Participants can create a practical plan for embedding behavioural controls in their decision process.

  • Behavioural investment review diagnoses biases within a live portfolio decision process
  • Bias register prioritises recurring risks, triggers, controls and accountable owners
  • Decision journal template captures thesis, probabilities, disconfirming evidence and review dates
  • Investment committee pack integrates valuation, sentiment, scenarios and challenge questions
  • Personal action plan schedules behavioural controls for immediate workplace adoption
  • Review cadence measures adherence, exceptions, learning and process improvement

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Behavioural bias diagnostic checklist
  2. Pre-trade investment decision checklist
  3. Investment decision journal template
  4. Behavioural risk register template
  5. Investment committee pre-mortem guide
  6. Behavioural controls action plan

Who should attend

  • Portfolio Managers — to reduce judgement errors in allocation, selection and trading decisions
  • Treasury Managers — to improve decisions on liquidity, investments, funding and interest-rate exposures
  • Investment Analysts — to test forecasts, valuations and recommendations against bias
  • Wealth Managers and Advisers — to manage client behaviour during gains, losses and market stress
  • Investment Committee Members — to strengthen challenge, governance and documented decision processes
  • Risk and Finance Managers — to identify behavioural drivers behind limit breaches and poor decisions

Skills and tools covered

Behavioural bias diagnosisInvestment decision controlsPortfolio disciplineForecast calibrationCommittee challengeClient risk communication

Tools and standards

Prospect Theory, Kelly criterion, Pre-mortem analysis, Choice architecture

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce behavioural finance concepts, followed by financial cases, facilitated group analysis and decision simulations. Participants examine portfolio choices, market narratives, forecast errors, committee discussions and client communications using structured templates. Case work includes asset allocation, trading, treasury investment and advisory situations. Trainers guide peer challenge, evidence review and reflection on real workplace decisions. The final sessions convert course methods into individual action plans and practical controls for existing investment or treasury processes.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand core investment and finance concepts, including risk and return, diversification, asset classes, financial markets, portfolio performance and basic valuation. Experience preparing investment recommendations, treasury decisions, forecasts or risk reports is useful. Participants should be comfortable discussing financial data and interpreting charts, but advanced quantitative modelling is not required. No prior study of psychology, neuroscience, econometrics, programming or behavioural economics is assumed. The course explains the relevant concepts before applying them to financial decisions.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need a working understanding of investment, treasury or financial risk concepts such as return, diversification, asset classes and portfolio risk. Prior knowledge of psychology or behavioural economics is not required.

Bring a laptop if possible, along with examples of non-confidential investment decisions, committee papers or recurring decision challenges. Course materials and templates are provided.

The course is designed for professionals involved in investment, treasury, portfolio management, advisory, financial risk or investment governance. It is particularly relevant where decisions are reviewed by committees or made under market pressure.

Portfolio management courses usually focus on asset allocation, valuation and performance measurement methods. This course focuses on how judgement, emotion, incentives and group behaviour can undermine those methods, then builds practical controls.

Participants can introduce pre-trade checklists, decision journals, pre-mortems, bias registers and structured challenge questions into existing processes. These methods can be used for portfolio trades, treasury investments, forecasts and committee recommendations.

The programme contains approximately 32.5 contact hours, normally delivered from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Time is divided between concepts, cases, simulations, group discussion and application planning, with modules taught in sequence rather than as isolated daily topics.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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