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

In recent years, it seems as if nearly everyone from journalists to marketing professionals have begun turning to the science of “behavioral finance” to explain, analyze, and predict the direction of the stock market. In fact, the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics was bestowed on economists working in the area of behavioral finance.

In our summary of Mean Markets and Lizard Brains: How to Profit From the Science of Irrationality, by Terry Burnham, we‘ll explain what behavioral finance is, how our understanding of manias and panics has improved since the tulip bulb craze of the 17th century, and how you can use this information to build wealth in “crazy” markets, whether the market is up or down.

Burnham is a Harvard Business School economics professor. Before joining the Harvard faculty, he worked at Goldman, Sachs Company and was the president and CFO of the successful biotech firm Progenics Pharmaceuticals