"I'm Always Too Late": An Analysis of a Feeling That Comes at a High Cost
Nearly two out of three French people are convinced that they consistently miss out on good financial opportunities. This feeling has a name in behavioral economics and has been well documented for forty years. Above all, it costs far less than what it prevents people from doing.
A survey conducted in July 2026 by Carré Partners among 3,512 people reveals a telling statistic: 64% of French people say they are convinced they always miss out on the best opportunities. More than half say that their vacation sparked a desire to reassess their finances, but only 16% have actually taken action, and 21% remain stuck because they don’t know where to start. Nearly one in two was surprised to learn that a loved one had invested in a product they were unfamiliar with.
Behavioral economics has a name for this: regret theory, formalized in 1982 by David Bell on one side and Graham Loomes and Robert Sugden on the other. We evaluate not only the outcome we achieved, but also what we would have achieved had we chosen differently. Two types of regret then come into conflict. Action regret (I invested, and the price went down) hurts right away and leads to inaction. Inaction regret (I didn’t invest, and the price went up) builds up slowly, until it triggers a sudden entry into the market, often after the price has already risen. This is the cycle described by the survey.
The sentiment is well-founded, but its conclusions are not
Official figures show that the French are partly right. In the first half of 2026, the Livret A and LDDS savings accounts recorded their worst inflows since 2008, with nearly 7 billion euros in net outflows, at the very moment when the yield gap with life insurance became glaringly obvious. The Livret A interest rate rose to 1.70% on August 1, after six months at 1.50%. Savers took action, but only after the fact.
The fact remains that 608 billion euros sit idle in these two savings accounts, and that the household savings rate stands at 17.9 percent—a historically very high level. According to the AMF’s 2025 Barometer, 34 percent of French people hold an investment product, and 11.1 percent hold directly listed stocks. Regret, therefore, is felt most acutely by those who never get started.
What “bad timing” really measures
Morningstar publishes an annual study, *Mind the Gap*, that compares a fund’s return to the actual return earned by the average euro invested, after accounting for inflows and outflows. Over a ten-year period ending in late 2025, the gap amounts to 1.2 percentage points per year. It widens as the fund becomes more volatile or specialized, while simple, diversified funds held for the long term generate almost no gap at all.
This figure is, in fact, disputed. A study published in 2026 in the *Financial Analysts Journal* estimates the actual cost of poor timing at about 0.10 percent per year, with the remainder attributable to mechanical effects related to the growth of assets under management. Even at its highest and most contested estimate, the cost of poor timing is therefore a fraction of the cost of inaction.
It is worth recalling a counterexample. During the market crash of March 2020, French retail investors bought as prices fell rather than selling: more than 150,000 new investors purchased SBF 120 stocks in five weeks. The stereotype of the panicked investor does not hold up well in the face of the data.
Defenses and Predators
Scheduled contributions work against regret. But let’s not get the wrong idea: Vanguard’s landmark study shows that investing the entire lump sum immediately outperforms spreading out the investment in two out of three cases. In terms of returns, scheduled contributions actually yield slightly lower returns on average. Their value lies elsewhere. It eliminates the question “Is this the right time?” and thus neutralizes regret. In short, it’s a behavioral tool rather than a surefire strategy.
For its part, the AMF sticks to simple recommendations: first, build up an emergency fund equal to two to six months’ worth of income; second, tailor the duration of your investment to your time horizon; and third, diversify. And this advice applies in both directions: “Don’t panic when the markets fall, or you risk selling at the lowest point.”
One last point, which is less encouraging. The feeling of being behind is the scammers’ primary sales pitch. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office estimates the losses from financial scams at at least 500 million euros per year in France. The proportion of French people reporting that they have been victims has tripled in three years, to 3.2 percent, and the average reported loss amounts to 69,000 euros from fake savings accounts. The rhetoric used never changes: you’re behind schedule; here’s your last chance to catch up; decide now. The countermeasure, however, is purely a matter of timing: check for accreditation on the AMF and ACPR lists, and refuse to make any decisions under time pressure.
