STORIES FROM THE FARM

Loss Aversion and Overtrading: Why StockPets Moves One Month Every 8 Hours

October 31, 2026 · The StockPets team

Most people feel a loss more sharply than a gain of the same size. Look at your results often enough and that imbalance adds up to a steady feeling that things are going badly, even in a year that ends higher. Here is what the research says, and why StockPets is built around a slower calendar.

What is loss aversion?

Loss aversion is a central finding of prospect theory: the pain of losing something is larger than the pleasure of gaining the same thing. Many people turn down a coin flip that wins 120 or loses 100, even though, on average, it pays. A widely cited estimate puts the ratio at about 2 to 1.

That isn’t foolish in itself; some losses really do hurt more than gains help. The trouble begins when the same reflex is applied to every small fluctuation.

Myopic loss aversion: when you check too often

In 1995, Shlomo Benartzi and Richard Thaler combined loss aversion with how often people evaluate their investments and called the mix myopic loss aversion. In their simulations, the large historical gap between stock and bond returns fit investors who reviewed results about once a year. Later experiments found that people who received less frequent feedback were more willing to take on long-term risk.

Here is a hypothetical year of 12 monthly returns, in percent: +3, −2, +4, −3, +2, −1, +3, −4, +5, −2, +2, +3.

Same 12 months, same ending. Only the viewing frequency changed. Counted month by month with losses weighted double, the year feels slightly negative; seen once, it is a clear gain. This is a simplified illustration, not a model of any real portfolio.

Overtrading: when discomfort turns into taps

Feeling bad often can lead to doing something often. Brad Barber and Terrance Odean studied 66,465 US households at a discount broker from 1991 to 1996. The households that traded most earned 11.4% a year, while the market returned 17.9%. Their picks before costs weren’t very different; the costs of frequent trading created most of the gap.

Real trading comes with commissions, spreads and taxes that a game doesn’t have. Even so, the habit of reacting to every move is worth noticing — and a game is a low-stakes place to notice it.

Why StockPets moves at the pace it does

StockPets is a pet and farm game built on real US stock market history from January 1996. One turn is one month, and time only moves when you choose. The pacing rules are simple:

• The first 12 months move as fast as you like, so you can learn the game.
• After that, one calendar page (one month) refills every 8 hours, and you can hold up to 3.
• You can turn one month or three months at once.
• Free basic care — Feed, Play and Clean — can be included automatically when you turn several months.
• Nothing loses value while the app is closed.

Because prices change only once a month, there is no live ticker to stare at. Between pages there is still plenty to do: feed and play with your pet, decorate the house, read the month’s little life event. The 8-hour rhythm also means a crisis like 2008 unfolds over days of real time instead of a few frantic taps.

What a slower game can and can’t teach

A game can’t remove loss aversion, and slowing down doesn’t guarantee better results, in the game or in real life. What it can do is let you watch your own reactions: whether you harvest after every red month, whether you rush to plant after a strong one, and how a stormy stretch looks once you see the whole year. Your pet never dies from market losses, so a rough stretch becomes a memory rather than a game over — see how your pet grows.

If you are comparing practice tools, our simulator checklist for beginners and StockPets vs paper trading apps explain where a monthly history game fits.

StockPets is a game that uses virtual coins only. Nothing on this page is investment advice, and past price changes do not predict future results.