DESCRIPTION

(From The Jacket) - What if the mystery of market crashes stems from a simple but total misunderstanding of our own minds? Could everything we think we know about ourselves - intelligence and rationality versus emotion and irrationality - be wildly off the mark? Simply put: yes.

With these words, Denise Shull introduces her radical - and supremely rational - approach to risk. Her vision stems from the indisputable fact that human beings can't make any decision at all without emotion and that emotion gets the first - and last - word when it comes to our perceptions and judgments.

Shull should know. She started out managing major accounts for IBM and then chose to research unconscious emotional patterns instead of getting her MBA. Next she became a trader and trading desk manager while continuing to study biopsychology.

We are all taught that sidelining our emotions is the best way to make good decisions - Shull declares the converse: emotions inform us. Attempting to control them actually increases the risks we take. Shull advocates treating feelings as data, and she convincingly argues that doing so eradicates the baffling question that repeats itself in our heads after making a poor investing decision:"What was I thinking?"

Through a series of "lectures," Shull logically but engagingly connects emotions, beliefs, and context to our innate reaction to uncertainty and risk (yes, the two are different). In "Market Mind Games", she merges more than 20 years of studying risk decisions into a single, astoundingly effective strategy.

A reasonable approach to emotion is the best and only way to win the investing game. The methods Shull details in "Market Mind Games" shake the foundation of conventional market and decision psychology. And, most important, they work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1 - Perception Or Reality: What Makes Markets Tick

• Chapter 1 - From Wall Street To The Ivory Tower And Back
• Chapter 2 - Numbers Look You In The Eye And Lie
• Chapter 3 - Mis-Remembering The Caveats Of The Early Quants
• Chapter 4 - Seeing What We Want But Missing The Obvious

PART 2 - Getting The Right Glasses For Better Market Vision

• Chapter 5 - Rolling Out Of The Midwest Back To Wall Street
• Chapter 6 - Do You Need To Be Psychic To Deal With Uncertainty?
• Chapter 7 - Ambient, Circumstantial, And Contingent Reality
• Chapter 8 - Perception's Labyrinth
• Chapter 9 - The Ironic Holy Grail Of Risk

PART 3 - Don't Be A Vulcan

• Chapter 10 - Do We Ever Know What Tomorrow Brings?
• Chapter 11 - Mental Capital And Psychological Leverage
• Chapter 12 - Mark-To-Market Emotions = Risk Management
• Chapter 13 - Regret Theory - "Greed" Misleads
• Chapter 14 - Fractal Geometry In Your Market Mind

PART 4 - Running Money With Psychological Leverage

• Chapter 15 - The Rise Of Coup D'Etat Capital
• Chapter 16 - Quarterbacking A Portfolio
• Chapter 17 - Decoding "What Was I Thinking?"
• Chapter 18 - Is That An Impulse Or Is It Implicit Knowledge?
• Chapter 19 - Run Over
• Chapter 20 -The "What Was I Thinking" Rehash
• Chapter 21 - Getting Back In The Game
• Chapter 22 - Take It To The Next Level