The Psychology of Smart Investing: Meeting the 6 Mental Challenges - Hardcover

Written by a board-certified psychiatrist and the founder of Chicago's best-known brokerage firm, it contains the psychological tools essential to breaking through mental barriers in order to achieve a successful mindset. Examines such common psychological traps as loneliness, poor self-esteem, depression, wishful thinking, self-destructiveness, addiction to playing the markets, revenge and internal conflicts. Packed with anecdotes and case histories, it includes insights drawn from two unusual investor surveys--typical investors versus famous investors and market "gurus."

Every serious investor is assailed by internal conflicts. When ignored or left unchecked, these hidden desires, fears, hesitations, and ambitions can eclipse your judgment and compromise even the most solid investing or trading strategy. In this mind-opening book, one of today's best financial minds joins forces with a practicing psychiatrist to explore the key psychological traps that underlie investing failure, and supply market-proven strategies for overcoming each one. The Psychology of Smart Investing is the product of both extensive field research and compelling insights gleaned from two in-depth nationwide surveys; the first involving hundreds of typical individual investors, men and women, veterans and novices, and the other, a group of professional traders, money managers, and investment experts. These studies demonstrate conclusively how an investor's psychological make up - his or her personality, life philosophy, and investment psyche - impacts investing success and failure. Now you can easily determine which of the six most common investor/trader psychological profiles is most reflective of your actions and attitudes towards money. And you can employ the same powerful mind/money tools the pros use to break through mental roadblocks to achieve your investing and trading goals. The Psychology of Smart Investing is filled with self-assessment exercises, investment action plans, and enlightening case histories drawn from the authors' experiences in psychological and investment counseling. Together, they help you chart and interpret your most personal thoughts, fantasies, dreams, and plans, and use this feedback to make vital connections into what really drives your investingand trading decisions. You'll gain a clearer understanding of how your personal style, past history, and current preoccupations influence your investment success. And you'll understand your personal relationship with money and investing, stop making investing mistakes caused by false perceptions, make your self-image work for you, not against you, focus on your exact emotions at any given moment to learn what motivates your investing decisions, determine your personal risk/reward strategies and trading formats, and identify and use recurrent investing patterns to surmount the psychological hurdles of successful investing. Just as you actively track the external markets for ranges and cycles, you can now track your own "internal" markets to significantly increase the odds of coming out on top. Whatever your preferred investment vehicle - stocks, bonds, commodities, options, real estate, or art - let The Psychology of Smart Investing show you how to regain control of your investment decisions and boost your income and net worth.