Book Review: Mind, Money & Markets

Most books in the financial genre tend to be, quite frankly, boring.  Books on the subject of stock market speculation are prime culprits of this tendency toward the tedious.  Every now and then, though, a book appears which breaks out of this mold and is truly as entertaining as it is educational.  Such is the case with Dave Harder and Dr. Janice Dorn’s recent book, Mind, Money & Markets.

The fruit of their collaboration is a useful guide for investors, traders, and business people and is rich in examples of how psychology influences markets.  Dr. Dorn is imminently qualified to address this subject as she is a Board certified psychiatrist as well as a long-time investor and investment writer.  Mr. Harder also brings long experience as an investment adviser and is currently vice president and portfolio manager with Canada’s largest financial firm.  The decades of experience between them provides the reader with a far deeper insight into investor psychology than is available in most works on the subject.

I personally found Mind, Money & Markets to be an engaging and insightful read.  At over 400 pages, there’s a lot of info to digest but the writing is smooth and the chapters seemed to fly by.  The book is richly illuminated with many colorful charts and illustrations and is lively with many accounts of how psychology influenced the financial market debacles from the distant pass to the present. 

Chapter 6 affords the reader with an in-depth discussion of market trends and momentum and is alone worth the price of the book.  There are also chapters dealing with the cycle of investor emotions, emotional management, identifying market tops and bottoms, and portfolio management.  Chapter 28 entitled, “It Is Time for a Revolutionary Change in Portfolio Management”, is also worth the price of admission.  

I heartily commend Mind, Money & Markets as a worthy addition to every trader/investor’s library.  The book is available from Amazon.com or click here.