Your Money and Your Brain - (A Personal Finance Guide) by Jason Zweig (Paperback)

About the Book

Drawing on the latest scientific research in the field of neuroeconomics, this entertaining book shows how the brain influences financial decisions and can make one rich. Includes 20 illustrations.

Book Synopsis

Drawing on the latest scientific research, Jason Zweig shows what happens in your brain when you think about money and tells investors how to take practical, simple steps to avoid common mistakes and become more successful.

What happens inside our brains when we think about money? Quite a lot, actually, and some of it isn't good for our financial health.

In Your Money and Your Brain, Jason Zweig explains why smart people make stupid financial decisions--and what they can do to avoid these mistakes. Zweig, a veteran financial journalist, draws on the latest research in neuroeconomics, a fascinating new discipline that combines psychology, neuroscience, and economics to better understand financial decision making. He shows why we often misunderstand risk and why we tend to be overconfident about our investment decisions. Your Money and Your Brain offers some radical new insights into investing and shows investors how to take control of the battlefield between reason and emotion.

In the course of his research, Zweig visited leading neuroscience laboratories and subjected himself to numerous experiments. He blends anecdotes from these experiences with stories about investing mistakes, including confessions of stupidity from some highly successful people. Then he draws lessons and offers original practical steps that investors can take to make wiser decisions.

Anyone who has ever looked back on a financial decision and said, "How could I have been so stupid?" will benefit from reading this book.

Review Quotes

"As advertised, this book is about your brain, but yours is not the only brain in this book. Lucky for you, that other brain is Jason Zweig's, and what a brilliant, fascinating, illuminating, powerful, and unique device that is. Listen to Zweig carefully. I have read a zillion books on investing, and none of them comes close to what he has so generously bestowed upon us here."

-- Peter L. Bernstein, author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

"Jason Zweig has written a pioneering work. His findings challenge many of our conventional beliefs about investor behavior. Zweig goes an important step further by laying down a series of rules that, if followed, will prevent the reader from making many of the emotional decisions that have cost investors dearly over time. Your Money and Your Brain is a book that stands head and shoulders above the conventional pablum served up in most stock market books."

-- David Dreman, author of Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation

"Jason Zweig is one of the world's experts on the investing process. He has written the best book yet on the emerging science of neuroeconomics. Buy it, read it, and become a more thoughtful, and a better, investor."

-- Bill Miller, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Legg Mason Capital Management

"Jason Zweig knows your financial demons, where they live, why they're making you poor, and how you can beat them. You owe it to yourself, your future, and your heirs to read Your Money and Your Brain."

-- William Bernstein, associate clinical professor of neurology, Oregon Health and Science University; cofounder, Efficient Frontier Advisors; and author of The Four Pillars of Investing

"This short and entertaining book packs a vast amount of serious information about your brain, about your mind, and about your money. You will learn a lot when you read it for the first time and you will probably want to read it again to learn some more."

-- Daniel Kahneman, professor of psychology, Princeton University, and winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics

About the Author

Jason Zweig is an award-winning financial journalist whose writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, Time, CNN, and much more. He is the author of several finance books, including Your Money and Your Brain and The Devil's Financial Dictionary. He has a BA from Columbia College, where he was awarded a John Jay National Scholarship. He also spent a year studying Middle Eastern history and culture at the Hebrew University in Israel. He lives in New York City. Find out more at JasonZweig.com.