Welcome to my new blog, Your Brain on Stocks.
I have deliberated the idea of starting my own site, separate from the Mullooly Asset Management company page, for quite some time now and recently decided to take the plunge.
Last month, I was down in Hollywood, Florida for the 2019 Inside ETFs conference. It was my first time attending, and I even got to participate in a panel discussion.
During the conference, two sessions in particular pushed me to start this blog.
The first session was hosted by my friends Phil Huber and Peter Lazaroff. They discussed their own blogs, and graciously answered questions on all things web-related from attendees. The second session was hosted by the Ritholtz Wealth Management crew. While their session was not specifically focused on blogging, the topic inevitably came up, since they are prolific bloggers.
While blogging on our company website has been great, these sessions made me realize that I want a little more flexibility for my writing. I still want to blog about investing, financial planning, and behavioral finance, but I also want to get more personal. I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not a post fits on a corporate website, I just want to share.
So I began skimming through one of my favorite financial books, Jason Zweig’s Your Money and Your Brain, for inspiration on what to call this blog. I came across a fact that I’ve always found crazy: “The neural activity of someone whose investments are making money is indistinguishable from that of someone who is high on cocaine or morphine.”
It made me think of the 1980s PSA with the scrambled egg. You know the one, “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”. As Mr. Zweig shared in his book, as far as our brains are concerned, drugs and stocks produce the same neural activity. And so, the idea for Your Brain on Stocks was born.
Upon searching Google, I discovered two things:
– The name was available
– Barry Ritholtz had given a presentation a few years back under the same title
Barry’s partner, Josh Brown, was kind enough to put us in touch with one another when I explained this dilemma to him. Barry gave me his blessing, and assured me he did not mind me using the phrase as a blog name. The rest is history.
Your Brain on Stocks will not strictly be about stocks or our brains. However, I do believe that our mind is the greatest hurdle we have to clear as investors. Much of my work will focus on identifying sound financial principles and exploring the emotion involved with money. It will be as much for my own self-development as it is for anybody who decides to read it.
This is your brain. This is your brain on stocks. Any questions?