Mean Markets and Lizard Brains: How to Profit from the New Science of Irrationality

Rating:
Summary: The Everyman's guide to understanding markets
Review: Even after twenty years spent analyzing financial
markets, I found Professor Burnham's, "Mean Markets
and Lizard Brains", both informative and exhilarating.
As a professor, trader, and entrepreneur Dr. Burnham's
assertions are derived from a stronghold of empirical data.
The book encompasses both the economic fundamentals
of markets and the human foibles that engender
repeated trading errors. Hopefully I'll now be more able
to step outside my "lizard brain" and see the full
finanical picture more clearly.


Rating:
Summary: If You can Afford Just One Book, Buy This One
Review: From "Essays on Genetic Evolution and Economics" to the widely acclaimed "Mean Genes", Terry Burnham has been a leader in applying learnings from sociobiology broadly. His gift is making complicated academic research accessible to all. His novel message is that our underlying human behavior, honed through thousands of years of genetic evolution, actually gets in the way of our logical thought processes when it comes to playing the stock market, buying a house, or trying to save up for our kids' college education. Nowhere are his great insights more valuable than in analyzing the problems we face when making these personal investment decisions, as he does in "Mean Markets and Lizard Brains : How to Profit from the Science of Irrationality".

Professor Burnham weaves insightful personal anecdotes from his vast array of experiences (i.e., as an academic, entrepreneur, investment banker, day-trader, biologist, and United States Marine), and combines them with sound analytical economic thinking (i.e., as a PhD economist from Harvard with up-to-date knowledge of the latest thinking on irrationality). The result is a detailed description of the basis for our poor instincts in financial decision-making, as well as a prescription for improving our performance in this context. Everyone wants to make money by investing wisely, and yet few of us are able to rise above our "Lizard Brain" tendencies. This book goes beyond describing our shortcomings; it teaches us how to think for ourselves in over-riding those "Lizard Brain" inclinations.

I once described "Mean Genes" as the best book I ever read. "Mean Markets and Lizard Brains" challenges that bold assertion. By simplifying a complex topic (i.e., managing your money) with new insights drawn from disparate learnings, Terry Burnham has written a most unusual kind of "how-to" book -- one that does not promise vast riches with little or no effort, but rather vast insight coupled with always practical and realistic advice. If your are looking to learn as you rebalance your portfolio, read this book.