Many investors afflicted with economic narcissism disorders succumb to self-attribution bias. They tend to claim credit for successful decisions, while minimizing their own involvement in unsuccessful ones. They may blame others, such as an adviser, a family member or the media for their own poor decisions. (A somewhat related disorder, investment amnesia, is simply the inability to recall bad decisions.)

As a result, investors suffering from allaboutmesis have inflated opinions of their own investment acumen. Symptoms include the following:

Allaboutmesis symptoms:

• Frequent trading. • Rapid hiring and firing of investment advisers. • A preference for individual stock investing over mutual fund investing for reasons unrelated to flexibility with realizing capital gains. • A propensity to file suitability lawsuits against brokers and advisers who may have even warned them about the riskiness of their decisions at the time the poor investment decisions were being made.

"A lot of clients brag about how well they've done," says Matt McGrath, financial planner with the Miami area wealth management firm Evensky & Katz."We always invite them to bring in their statements so we can help them track their outside investments. Somehow few people actually come up with the goods."