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In a book about poor recommendations, I find it hilarious that the authors give their own market opinion, which has proven to be incorrect.

Page 119, in reference to Abby Joseph Cohen's S&P 500 forecasts:

"Last we heard she was still calling for a twelve-month of 1,150. From 835, that's a pretty heady reacceleration."

Last I heard, the S&P was at 1.110. That's up 36% in 9 months, 3 months left in the twelve-month forecast. Hopefully, no one was listening to the author's opinion in early 2003.

This book chronicles the hype, promotion, conflicts of interest and outright lying by the financial media, pundits and corporate leaders. It also shows the serious recriminations for the few analysts and brokers who went against the market madness of the late '90s. On any financial bulletin board today, "strong buys" issued by the large brokerages are normally perceived as a sure sign that they want to dump stock on the naive small investor. I trade the stock market almost daily, and eshew all the major media new sources - the hype, no matter how absurd, never ends. This small book confirms my worst, cynical beliefs. Read it and laugh, read it and weep.

The authors have performed a valuable service in providing this record of the mania.

I predict it will occupy the same position in future study of stock market history of this period as has a similar account of the 1920s experience.

(Surprisingly there's already enough new material associated with the 2003 stock market rally for a sequel)