The Devil's Financial Dictionary by Jason Zweig

Book review: The Devil’s Financial Dictionary The Devil's Financial Dictionary is the ideal Christmas stocking-stuffer for anyone with a remote interest in investing, says Matthew Partridge.

Dr Matthew Partridge
By
published
in Features

The Devil's Financial Dictionary

by Jason ZweigPublishedbyPublic Affairs (£12.99)

In 1906, journalist Ambrose Bierce published The Cynic's Word Book. Later renamed The Devil's Dictionary, it presented satirical, sarcastic, but largely accurate, definitions of words for example, a lawyer is defined as "one skilled in circumvention of the law".

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The Devil's Financial Dictionary, by Jason Zweig, applies this template to the world of finance. But Zweig doesn't just want to entertain his readers with snark he wants to help them "master the many ways in which Wall Street uses language to conceal rather than reveal information". So while some definitions are very short and pithy, others are longer, purely educational explanations, with no attempt at satire. And it works.

Zweig, an experiencedfinancial columnist in the US, excels at explaining conceptsin simple terms, while being neither patronising nor dull. Heis also genuinely funny. For example, he defines forecastingas the "attempt to predict the unknowable by measuring theirrelevant; a task that, in one way or another, employs mostpeople on Wall Street".

My only quibble is with his use ofmade-up quotes from fictitious bankers. Given the number ofgaffes that litter the financial landscape, it shouldn't have beenhard to stick to actual quotes throughout. But this is a minorflaw and the book has had generally positive reviews.

Thosewho already work in finance will find it entertaining thosewho don't will find it educational. In all, it's the ideal Christmasstocking-stuffer for anyone with a remote interest in investing.

The Devil's Financial Dictionary by Jason Zweig is published byPublic Affairs (£12.99).

Dr Matthew Partridge
Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri

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