Checking prices before forming an opinion

Compare what is available across books first, then decide. Deciding on a side and then hunting for a price is how people talk themselves into a worse bet.

Once a position is chosen it becomes the thing being defended, and every subsequent piece of information is read against it. Looking at prices first keeps the decision reversible for longer.

Sometimes the right answer after shopping is that no available price justifies the opinion, and that outcome is only reachable if the shopping happened first.

What follows from that is less comfortable. The natural sequence is opinion then price, and it is exactly backwards for anybody whose edge depends on the price being wrong.

What to do with it. Open the prices before the analysis, and treat the best available number as part of the question rather than as the answer's packaging.