Behavioral Finance: What Good Is It, Anyway?

Behavioral Finance: What Good Is It, Anyway? by Jason Zweig

Here’s another speech from my archives, in which I suggested that many people who try to apply psychological findings to the financial markets do it backwards: instead of studying their own biases and failings, they focus on those of other people.

The earlier conference I referred to was in the spring of 1996, when I first heard and met Daniel Kahneman. Behavioral finance in general, and Danny and his work in particular, have inspired many of my articles since.  In 2007 and 2008, I had the honor of assisting Danny with his great book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

In the intervening years since this speech, I’ve misplaced the slides; I’ll try to recreate...