 | | |
| Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich | 
 enlarge | Author: Jason Zweig
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $6.95
You Save: $19.05 (73%)
Buy New/Used from $6.43
Avg. Customer Rating:  (25 reviews)
Sales Rank: 98142
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 074327668X
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.6019
EAN: 9780743276689
ASIN: 074327668X
Publication Date: August 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Fun Read but Very Limited Practical Applications December 18, 2007
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
The last 5 years I have read many research papers on behavioral finance, so I have a fair amount of knowledge about its findings.
I first read Pompian's book Behavioral Finance and Wealth Management, and then a few weeks later read Jason Zweig's Your Money and Your Brain.
Pompian's book wins hands down from a practical viewpoint......how you can use behavioral finance findings as an investor or investment advisor. Pompian lists all 20 common biases, and then gives examples of how to deal with them. I also enjoyed his section on using Briggs Myers test results coupled with behavioral finance principles.....to develop better financial plans which fit people better.
Zweig's book is a fascinating read.......but when I got done......my question was.....How do I apply these behavioral finance findings to my investments or my client's financial plans? I would have to re-read Zweig's book......and develop the practical uses myself from his book. Pompian has already put this together for you in his book.
If you have never been exposed to behavioral finance, then maybe reading both books is a good idea. You can get a general over-view by reading Zweig's book first......then get practical advice on how to apply the findings from Pompian's book.
It is interesting that Zweig's book at $17 has an Amazon sales rank of 2,075......and Pompian's book at $38 is only ranked 38,940. I have always enjoyed reading Zweig's columns in Money magazine. It is interesting to see where future research in behavioral finance is headed in Zweig's book.......but in my opinion; you get more practical advice (or value) for the dollar from Pompian's book than Zweig's book.
To compliment this book.....I would suggest a couple good books on index fund investing and asset allocation.
Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
Fantastic read! A must have for all investors!!! November 21, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a great book. Luckily I had just finished "Beyond Greed and Fear" by Hersh Shefrin when I found this book. "Your Money and Your Brain" is an absolute must read for any investor. I couldn't put it down.
A Must Read November 21, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book should be a manditory read for all those who are about to leave the "nest" and begin their adult life. Wonderful insight into the mysterious world of money.
 Your Mind's Effect on your Money November 14, 2007
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
Controlling one's emotions is a major key to successful money management. No one who has withered under the emotional pressure of making split second investment decision will argue that it is not.
Financial writer Jason Zweig combining concepts in neuroscience, economics and psychology to explain how our biology drives us toward good or bad investment decisions. He argues our brains lead us to self-deception. We are oath to admit our lack of financial knowledge. We overestimate our ability to perform. We believe we're smart enough to forecast the future even when we have been explicitly told that it is unpredictable. Our impetuousness leads to mistakes of action rather than inaction. In short, although we see ourselves as rational beings; we make irrational investment decisions.
His book blends tales from his visits to neuroscience labs with stories of investing mistakes. From them he pulls lessons and counsel on how investors can make more profitable investment decisions. They are:
1.Take a global view.
2.Hope for the best: expect the worst.
3.Investigate; then invest.
4.Never say always.
5.Know what you do not know.
6.Past is not prologue.
7.Weigh what they say.
8.If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
9.Costs are killer.
10.Eggs go splat.
Another that should be added to the list is The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. More general in its approach, it cites many of the same studies. Schwartz, a Swarthmore College professor, cited research from psychologists, economists, market researchers and decision scientists to make five counter-intuitive arguments: We would be better off if we:
1.Voluntarily constrained our freedom of choice.
2.Sought "good enough" instead of "the best."
3.Lowered our expectations about decision's results.
4.Made nonreversible decisions.
5.Paid less attention to what others around us do.
Thoroughly researched, Your Money and Your Brain needs to be studied by anyone seeking to make wiser and more profitable investment decisions.
 Are you kidding me? October 31, 2007
6 out of 24 found this review helpful
Mr Zweig has put together a nice collection of descriptions of some social psychological testing, and MRI descriptions of what parts of the brain are responsible for how we react when we handle or invest money.
If you're reading this book to be entertained by this information, fine, but don't buy it thinking it will do anything for your investment return.
The advise he offers to correct our reactions to the market and investing is nothing we haven't heard before, most of us from our parents. His recommendations reek of someone who has spent 20 years writing about the markets, not working in them.
What Mr. Zweig is missing is that the markets are not for the untrained or the uninitiated. The advent of cheap on line investing has been nothing short of a castatrophe for the average investor. He or she has no idea what they are getting into and have been convinced, by very sharp marketing, that anyone can do this. They can't, and reading this book will do nothing to help them avoid a furhter catastrophe.
It was fun reading, but don't confuse it with usable advise. It isn't. It is another effort to sell the investing public the idea that, "they can do it just like the big guys on Wall Street," they can't.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |