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

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More About This Book

Overview

Praise for Mean Markets and Lizard Brains

"A thought-provoking read that gives insight to human behavior and your investment strategies."
—Isiah Thomas, President, Basketball Operations, New York Knicks

"Mean Markets and Lizard Brains translates neuroeconomics and cutting-edge theories of human behavior into practical advice. While the causes of costly decisions often lie outside our conscious awareness, they need not remain a mystery. The writing is provocative and insightful."
—Professor Vernon L. Smith, Nobel Prize winner in Economics

"A lively and entertaining account of the emerging field of neuroeconomics, where Fear and Greed meet Nature red in tooth and claw, with some surprisingly practical implications for individual investors, portfolio managers, and other market prognosticators."
—Andrew W. Lo, Harris & Harris Group Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and director of MIT's Laboratory for Financial Engineering

"Mean Markets and Lizard Brains is a whole new way of approaching the world of finance. It explains why we should question the financial advice of our friends, colleagues, and advisors. For years, my wife and I have relied upon Terry's financial advice. We are glad that this excellent book makes his discoveries available to everyone."
—Mark-Paul Gosselaar, actor, NYPD Blue

"Should be required reading for anyone trying to understand financial markets. It is the first book positioned at the intersection of finance, biology, and psychology —but it does not require knowledge of any of these fields. The author, one of the pioneers in the field of economics grounded in biology, combines accessibility with rigor. Reading it (along with everything Burnham writes) is a delight."
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780471602453
  • Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 2/28/2005
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 827,098
  • Product dimensions: 161.00 (w) x 235.50 (h) x 28.10 (d)

Meet the Author

TERRY BURNHAM is a leader in the application of biology to economics and finance. He was an economics professor at Harvard for many years, beginning at the Kennedy School and, most recently, at the Harvard Business School. His biological research has taken him to Africa to observe wild chimpanzees and to the laboratory to study the role of testosterone in negotiation. He is coauthor of the international bestseller Mean Genes. Before joining the Harvard faculty, he worked at Goldman Sachs & Co. and was the president and CFO of the successful start-up biotechnology firm, Progenics Pharmaceuticals, whose work in AIDS and cancer treatment has been widely praised. Dr. Burnham has a PhD in business economics from Harvard University, a master's in finance from MIT, an MS in computer science from San Diego State University, and a BS in biophysics from the University of Michigan. He served with distinction as a tank driver in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Table of Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 1 Introduction: Mean Markets and Lizard Brains 1
Part 1 The New Science of Irrationality 9
Chapter 2 Crazy People: Lizard Brains and the New Science of Irrationality 11
Cognitive confusion
Split-brains
Superstitious pigeons
Neuroeconomics
Winning
Chapter 3 Crazy World: Mean Markets and the New Science of Irrationality 35
Stampedes
Invisible hands
Efficient markets
Financial blind spots
Opportunity
Part 2 The Old Art of Macroeconomics 63
Chapter 4 U.S. Economic Snapshot: America the Talented Debtor 65
Profligacy & productivity
Keynes' grandchildren
Darwin's elephants
Prosperity
Chapter 5 Inflation: Rising Prices and Shrinking Dollars 85
Kidney barter
Rice dollars
Seashell arbitrage
Jubilee
Yogi Berra's diet
Protection
Chapter 6 Deficits and Dollars: Uncle Sam the International Beggar 115
Loan sharks
A golden brain squandered
Limp loonies and plummeting pesos
Escape
Part 3 Applying Science and Art to Bonds, Stocks, and Real Estate 137
Chapter 7 Bonds: Are They Only for Wimps? 139
Reagan bonds
The mother of all deficits
Social security lockbox
Squirrel savings
Profit
Chapter 8 Stocks: For the Long Run or for Losers? 159
Time travel
Michael Jordan
Stock speed limits
Tears and a journey
Stock picks
Chapter 9 Real Estate: Live in Your Home; Make Your Money at Work 193
Tiger Woods
Godzilla
Groucho Marx
Risky ARMs
Housing bubble
Advice
Part 4 Profiting from the New Science of Irrationality 227
Chapter 10 Timeless Advice: How to Shackle the Lizard Brain 229
Isiah Thomas
Humans in zoos
Lizard logic
Mast-strapping
Beware the red zone
8 timeless tips
Chapter 11 Timely Advice: Investing in the Meanest of Markets 265
A golden generation
Lizard brain kryptonite
B.F. Skinner
Returns without risk
Notes 289
Index 299

Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 5 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 9, 2006

    Fun and interesting read!

    Conventional wisdom about investing suggests that people are basically rational, markets are basically efficient, and nobody can earn a reward without some risk. One corollary of this conventional wisdom is that individual investors ought to own stocks. Individual investors have been acting conventionally wise - but that may be exactly the wrong thing to do. Author Terry Burnham draws on the relatively new science of behavioral economics - informed by insights into human reasoning that have been discovered by cognitive researchers - and offers investment advice dramatically at odds with conventional wisdom. Burnham, a former Harvard professor with ample experience in finance, puts his thoughts in pop language, drawing not on market studies but on movies and other references to current culture, to make many of his most salient points. What he loses in `gravitas¿, he gains in entertainment value. We find that this investment book manages to be fun to read, while providing the grain of salt readers should take to temper more conventional economic advice.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 25, 2005

    Dubious Reasoning

    The book is disappointing. I was hoping that it would cover the ¿science of irrationality¿ in some detail. The coverage did not seem very thorough or very useful. While there is some advice for making investments, I question the usefulness of that advice because I think the author has made some errors in reasoning. On page 271 the authors lists three ¿facts,¿ two of which I do not think are true. The first, that stock prices cannot grow faster than the economy forever. The third, that the United States cannot run a trade deficit forever. On page 178 the author apparently gives his rationale for the first conclusion: ¿This is a mathematical truism. A part of a system cannot sustain a higher growth rate than the system for an indefinite time.¿ Unfortunately for the author, the value of stocks (implicitly the value of businesses at a point in time) is not included in the value of the economy (the value of goods and services produced during a time period). As a counter example, assume that stock prices vary with profits and that profits are based on a return on assets less the cost of debt. If the return on assets increases, profits can increase faster than the growth in assets (e.g., the growth in the economy). Return on assets can increase indefinitely because it can be based on intellectual or intangible factors. Profits could also increase indefinitely if businesses increasingly took on more debt and the cost of debt were less than the return on assets. Regarding the third ¿fact,¿ I believe that if the demographic profile of the United States remained older than its trading partners, there could be an indefinite current account deficit. I think the author¿s fallacy here is to apply what is true for the global economy to a subset. The United States could be consistently consuming more than it produces if the remainder of the globe were in the opposite position. It would naturally be in a consuming posture if it had more retired people. To pay for this consumption, of course, there would be a transfer of assets from the U.S. to the net producers. The author makes a silly statement on page 185: ¿When it comes to investments, the logic of averages is unavoidable. No investment class can be above average indefinitely.¿ Of course it is difficult to know what the author means, but the implication from the surrounding material is that the returns on cash, bonds, stocks, real estate, and other asset classes will all be the same over the long term. Clearly there is more risk with some classes than others. Why would any investor settle for the same return on a more risky investment as on a riskless investment?

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 6, 2005

    I hate financial books, but . . .

    I hate financial books, but in this case I was most pleasantly surprised. The book is not only informative but entertaining as well. The author takes you by the hand and literally skips you through the mine field of investment clichés, emerging at the other side, the reader has a passel of useful and actionable investment knowledge based on hard facts and real data. Mean Markets and Lizard Brains is just great!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 21, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 1, 2010

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