Do you "trust your gut" when it comes to investing? If so, chances are you will struggle to consistently make money as an investor. That's according to the work of Peter Atwater, who's been studying investor psychology for well over a decade.

Peter is President and Founder of Financial Insyghts, a financial research firm dedicated to understanding the role investor confidence plays in the stock market and economy.

Human brains, Peter says, are simply "not equipped to handle" investing decisions. And so "Trusting your gut" in the markets typically leads to bad, money-losing decisions. Human instincts are the problem. We're hard-wired to flee dangerous situations. Most of us, upon startling an angry grizzly bear in the woods, would immediately sprint in the other direction.

This can be a good thing in nature. But when it comes to investing, it's a liability.

In the markets, times that "feel" most dangerous are often NOT the moment when you should "run away." In other words, they're the times that investors should be buying, not selling. You'll recall in March 2009, the S&P 500 had crashed 60% in the previous months. Investors were panicking like we were entering The Great Depression 2.0.

But as we now know, it was the buying opportunity of a lifetime. Buying stocks in March 2009 was a genius move that would have set you up to capture 200%+ gains in the next few years. Yet few very investors managed to buy stocks near the lows. Because at the time, buying stocks after they’d fallen 60% felt like the financial equivalent of trying to pet the wild grizzly bear.

In the following video, Atwater explains how to overcome the bad instincts that cost investors money. He talks about how to remove human emotions from the decision. You’ll also learn why Peter believes the bull market in U.S. stocks is approaching its end.