market-economics

Before proceeding any further let me tell you won't waste your time from reading such a book like this. There's sufficient scientifical evidence from the practical findings done by Jose Silva and there's enough literature on the field of brain activity and visualization which NOW strongly support his remarkable techniques. Any Psychologist is witness to that. I first learned about Jose Silva Mind Control Method by reading this practical and amazing book. After trying some of the techniques outlined on it and seeing and enjoying the amazing results I decided to attend a seminar in MEXICO CITY in 1987. I graduated from the Basic Course and to my surprise EVERYTHING improved in my life since then EVERY DAY, IN EVERY WAY!!. My grades as a student, my personal finances, my relationships with others, my job, my health. I don't mean that there was anything wrong or I was in any special need for something. I think what I received was the knowledge to use all the special faculties I was endowed with as a Human being. I do sincerely recommend this book and I wish you to practice the dynamic meditation Jose Silva presents. Personaly I practice every day the simple meditation which I believe is in no conflict with any religion or philosophical point of view, quite the contrary I belive is a natural state of being. One last word, you need not to be an oustanding visualizer to make Silva Method work, it only takes to be a HUMAN BEING with the desire to be better and the courage and discipline to do it. Believe in yourself!

Great book that helps you take control of your life. Silva developed the Silva Method many years ago. It is what he calls 'active meditation'. People use this to solve problems, get results they desire, create opportunities ( it really works! be more open minded!), cure illness etc.

Personally, i used this method once to cure a bad throat and loss of voice 2 years ago. I have had this weak voice and throat for weeks that wouldnt heal. Then one night i decided to 'go to my level', i did some visualisation and suggestion to myself, the next morning awoke with a great soothing feeling and clear sharp voice back!

If you have read Emile COue's books on Autosuggestion, or Dr Joseph Murphy's "How To Use Your Subconscious Mind" etc, then u will understand how it works. Silva takes it a step further by a scientific approach- inderstanding brainwaves or brain levels. Alpha- Beta - Theta etc,,, these are the brainwaves or cycles our brain function in. Silva method teaches you to get to Alpha - the most 'intelligent/spiritual' level of all, because it is directly connected to the subconscious at this level.

Lots of smart techniques that work. To many, his method is much like NLP, although NLP was not yet invented by Bandler(not until mid 70s) yet when Silva developed it. But still there are some similarities between them.

I read this book as a teenager. It got me started on a journey of self-discovery. I managed to heal myself of a bad health condition and I found myself rapidly attaining my goals. I attended the Silva Mind Control Seminar in the early 90s and it was great. I also attended the newer version, Silva UltraMind in 2001 and it was fantastic. The ESP demonstrations were mind blowing. I like this book, but this book explains the concepts behind the older Silva Mind Control seminar rather than providing you techniques on how to actually apply Silva Techniques. For this I would recommend the book "How to Get Help from Your other Side" by Jose Silva (unfortunetly now out-of-print so you'll have to search through older book stores). I would also recommend the new course, Silva Ultramind which you can find at www.SilvaUltraMindSystem.com. This is the latest Silva System.

I'm in the midst of my third acquisition in two years. I have bought virtually every advisory book on M&A to help me get it right -- The Art of ...; Five Frogs...; Joining Forces, etc. While all of those were entertaining, in the final analysis, they were not really helpful in delivering results to my organization. Winning at Mergers and Acquisitions consistently addresses the real issues I've encountered through all the phases of M&A with viable solutions and profound instruction. Again and again, when I've been faced with a due diligence quandary or an integration roadblock, this book has accurately and coherently helped me and my company advance toward M&A success. These gentlemen invented a concept called marketing due diligence which transcends every other discovery mechanism we have used. They also focus on driving revenues which I found we urgently needed to do after our first acquisition failed to live up to its promise. This book has saved my company millions and probably secured my job in the process. If there is one book that will make a difference in the vast sea of M&A literature, it is Winning at Mergers & Acquisitions. Thank you gentlemen.

I love this book. The concept of marketing due diligence is not only brilliant but works in practice. As the authors stress, "doesn't it just make sense to focus on the people, products and processes of a company before during and after the deal." This is a big book - in size and content. It gets in-depth about all the areas it discusses. Many other books on M&A offer up a paragraph or two in addressing an issue. You're left with a crumb. Probably because they've never really done it. Clemente and Greenspan have obviously taken their real-life experiences and written about them -- in detail...case study after case study. Real life corporate officers are quoted, discussing what works and what doidn't. The level of honesty is groundbreaking in itself.There's very little that's theoretical or lacking real-world application. Due diligence, strategic thinking, analyzing the business environment, culture from every angle, driving revenues...it's all here, in depth and with step by step guidance. It's a wonderful source that I keep on my shelf and use a couple of times a week. This book is truly the M&A bible.

Several years ago I was in a class at Cornell Law School that Drs. Clemente & Greenspan taught. Winning at M&A was a required text and their insights from working on several high profile deals were inspiring. Just a few years later, I am a successful in-house counsel to many recent acquisitions of a relatively high profile multi-national corporation. I have had the opportunity to share the finer lessons from Winning at M&A with our COO, director of Corporate Development, and our head of HR. Drs. Clemente & Greenspan have written an important book whose lessons seem to transcend time or circumstance. Just like Peter Drucker's management wisdom seems to apply to every company, economic environment, and business circumstance over the last 50 years, the work and guidance of Clemente & Greenspan in Winning at Mergers seems to be timeless and evolutionary. It allowed me as someone with little experience in the realm of consolidation and backwards integration to understand the ins and out of the process before I had ever sat in on a deal. This book should be read and kept by those who want to learn about business, marketing, or M&A.

The book by Bodie et al is unquestionably, the best introduction to Investment Theory available today. Please note that there is an emphasis on the word introduction, because there is much that can be covered after the book ends. This book provides a springboard from which the student can take off in different directions viz. Derivatives, Risk Management, Portfolio Management etc.

The language is simple, and there are no mathematical demons in the book. The Concept Check questions are extremely valuable and should be attempted before the reader delves into the equally challenging exercises at the end of the chapters. The book starts with an introduction to the different types of markets and financial instruments present today, and then moves into investments, risk etc. The book touches upon a number of topics including bonds, financial statement analysis, security valuation, derivatives and hedging. Like other multipurpose book, it does not go in-depth into any of these, but provides the reader a brief introduction to each of them for help in further studies. It does dwell a lot on portfolio theories which are described in detail, with numerous examples. The chapter-ending exercises are graded with easier questions in the beginning, and extremely challenging ones in the end.

All in all, a great book!

I am a lecturer in Finance for a university in the UK. I evaluated this book for use in an Executive MBA course in portfolio management after previously using "Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management" by Reilly and Brown. The Reilly book takes a more quantitative approach to the valuation of various assets and is more comprehensive than "Investments" in terms of its coverage of securities and markets but I ultimately opted for "Investments" due to its clarity, organization, and quality writing style. The authors do an excellent job of communicating fairly complex concepts to a student with little or no background in finance.

If you are studying for the CFA or need a more advanced text, I can recommmend the Reilly book. If you are a practitioner or looking for a very mathematically rigorous text in portfolio management, I can recommend "Active Portfolio Management" by Grinold. But for an undergraduate or graduate student looking for an excellent primer on stocks, bonds, options, futures and the workings of the markets they are traded on, look no further than "Investments".

One note: we were able to obtain a paperback copy of the text at much reduced cost.

Anyone embarking upon a study of investments should begin with this book. From an explanation of market structure to intuitive analyses of all core concepts in investments (like Markowitz Theory, CAPM, Black-Scholes, Fixed Income concepts), this book has everything. Newer editions of the book also have very good instructions on how to implement the tools in MS-Excel. Obviously, this book is not meant for those pursuing a PhD. Rather it is meant for MBAs and aspiring CFAs who want to learn and implement investment tools and analysis.

I order the 2004 artist market an good this 1994 artist market. they will not refund my money!

I am a cartoonist and I found this book very usefull to me. It gave lists and descriptions of various magazines, and greeting card places where artwork, cartoons etc. could be submitted. This is one of the most important tools for any type of freelancing artist.

As a professional illustrator I've come to depend on certain things to help me in my freelance business. A clean pen tip, a full bottle of ink and the AGDM. Each year, this book features new and interesting prospects. The 2004 edition is no exception. I'm continually browsing through lead after lead. As an established illustrator, I receive numerous e-mails from artists who are looking to "break in" to the freelance market. I tell them that the AGDM is something they NEED to have. The detailed information is critical in helping an artist recognize who and who NOT to send samples to. There are many factors that have contributed to my success as a freelance artist, the Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market is one of them.

In Business studies, we were taught that to succeed with our business we should be able to provide best product/service, best prices and superb customer service. The results are mainly unsatisfactory because while we try to master all three aspects, we fail in all of them.

This book will teach you for the first time how to succeed with "imperfection" along with customers blessings.

You dont have to provide your customer with the best product AND best price AND best service, just choose one of those values (depending on your target market and long term objectives) and focus all your resources on developing this value. The book is backed with real life stories from some of the leading firms and the values they have chosen to focus on.

This book is a must for every business owner.

The message of this important book is that "no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses." The authors focus with rigor and precision on three different "disciplines": operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy. It remains for any company (for any organization, for that matter) to determine which of the three should be its primary discipline but all are obviously important...indeed interdependent. Nonetheless, one discipline should be pre-eminent. The authors examine dozens of companies which have concentrated primarily on one of the three "disciplines" so that they can select their customers and then narrow their focus inorder to gain and sustain dominance within their respective marketplaces. I think this book will be of substantial value to executives in any organization but of greatest value to those in organizations which are small-to-midsize. Unless they have dysfunctional management and/or defective products, their mastery of that discipline will enable them to compete more effectively against larger organizations which (obviously) have greater resources available. My own view is that as B2B and B2B2C continue to increase at exponentially greater velocity, leadership of ANY market will require mastery of customer intimacy and at least one (but preferably both) of the other two disciplines. In that event, the insights which Treacy and Wiersema share will be even more valuable.

This business book should be in EVERY marketing and sales professional's library. In one reading of less than four hours you can understand the distinct value disciplines that define your company. And, just as important, you can recognize the value disciplines of your customers and competition. But, you don't have to be strictly a sales person. I'm my company's Chief Technology Officer and I felt the book was very valuable - after my CEO made me read it!
The message of The Discipline Of Market Leaders is that no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses,
Three concepts are introduced that every business finds essential:
1. the value proposition - implicit promise to deliver a particular combination of values - price, quality, performance, etc.
2. value-driven operating model - combination of operating processes, manage-ment systems, business structure, and culture that allows a company to deliver on its value proposition.
3. value disciplines - three desirable ways in which a company combines operating models and value propositions to be the best in their markets. THIS is the key take away from this book.
Three distinct value disciplines:
1. operational excellence - provide middle-of-the-market products at the best price with the least inconvenience - value proposition is low price and hassle-free service.
2. product leadership - offering products that push performance boundaries - value proposition is offering the best product, period.
3. customer intimacy - delivering NOT what the market wants but what specific customers want - value proposition the best solution for the customer with all the support needed to get the maximum value from our products.
The selection of a value discipline is a central act that shapes every subsequent plan and decision a company makes, coloring the entire organization, from its competencies to its culture.
If a company is going to achieve and sustain dominance, it must decide where it will stake its claim in the marketplace and what kind of value it will offer to its customers.
markets, the only established way to improve value to customers is to cut process. If you haven't started thinking about cutting your way to leanness, it's going to cost you later.
High quality is the cost of admission to the market. Without it, you're not even in the ballpark.
Four new premises underlie successful business practice today:
1. companies can no longer raise process in lockstep with higher costs
2. companies can no longer aim for less than hassle-free service
3. companies can no longer assume that good basic service is enough
4. companies can no longer compromise on quality and product capabilities
These four points are critical to the book and to how you must think about value. It is true - we can no longer charge for high quality - it IS expected. By delivering superior value, companies change their customers' expectations. In effect, these companies became market leaders NOT by fulfilling old-fashioned ideas of value, but by getting their business to master one band in the value spectrum. They believed in three important truths that characterize the new world of competition:
1. Different customers buy different kinds of value. You can't hope to be the best in all dimensions, so you choose your customers and narrow your value focus.
2. As value standards rise, so do customer expectations; so you can stay ahead only by moving ahead.
3. Producing an unmatched level of a particular value requires a superior operating model - "a machine" - dedicated to just that kind of value.
Four rules that govern market leaders' actions:
1. Provide the best offering in the marketplace by excelling in a specific value disci-pline.
2. Maintain threshold standards on other dimensions of value.
3. Dominate your market by improving value year after year,
4. Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value.
The operating model is the market leader's ultimate weapon in its quest for market domination. Value comes from choosing customers and narrowing the operations focus to best serve those customers. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are simply the by-product of delivering on a compelling value proposition - not the drivers behind it. When a company selects and pursues one of the value disciplines, it ceases to resemble its competitors.
Customer-intimate companies demonstrate superior aptitude in advisory services and relationship management. This is an incredibly difficult concept for sales and marketing professionals to grasp. They want the largest market possible. If you are customer-intimate, your market is one company at a time. This calls for hard work. Customer-intimate companies don't deliver what the market wants, but what a spe-cific customer wants. The customer-intimate company makes a business of knowing the people it sells to and the products and services they need. It continually tailors its products and services, and does so at reasonable prices. The customer-intimate company's greatest asset is, not surprisingly, its customers' loyalty.
Customer-intimate companies don't pursue transactions; they cultivate relationships.
They tailor their mix of services or customize the products, even if it means acting as a broker to obtain these services and products from third parties or co-providers.
Where to begin? Start with the last chapter and take a close look at Figure 11. From that point I realized my company's value discipline. The rest fell neatly into place.

First, let me start by saying this book will not teach you how to trade (though you could probably see that from the title). I think the book is way longer than it needs to be. The author talks about many counceling events with clients in his life (most are non-trading related) and then tries to draw a parallel with them to trading. When he finally gets to his point about actual trading psychology, he has good things to say. But I think he could have said everything in one chapter. Nonetheless, I found that I was able to relate to many of the behaviors he discusses. I didn't feel like he really gave great help in trying to break the bad behavior, but at least being able to relate to it makes you think about it and pay attention when you are falling into it while trading. There are many other trading books I would probably read before this one. But if you're sick of all of the technical books that try to teach you how to trade, this book might be worth a read. It's actually one trading book that you could take on vacation with you.

The author's M.D. counsellor-trader identity did help him making this an uncommon trading psychology book full of "highly trading relevant" counselling records from both trader and non trader patients. The catch is: if you are not interested in or equipped with an intermediate level of knowledge about psychology or counselling, I doubt very much whether you can finish reading this 300 page book till its end.

To let you have a better grasp of my "worry" mentioned above, I would like to quote something from the last or conclusion chapter, which the author regarded them as 11 of the major themes explored in his book.

1. Behavior is patterned.
2. Your trading patterns reflect your emotion patterns.
3. Change begins with self observation
4. Problem patterns tend to be anchored to particular states. (When you enter a particular state thru emotional, physical, or cognitive activity, you tend to activate the behavioral patterns associated with that state.)
5. Our normal states of mind, which define most of our daily experience, lie within a restricted range of our possibilities. (Your immersion in daily routine keeps you locked in routine mind states)
6. Most trading occurs in a limited range of states, trapping traders in problem patterns. (Traders tend to place greater emphasis on the data they process than on the ways in which they process those data.)
7. People in general, and traders specifically, enact solutions as well as problem patterns.
8. Eliminating emotions is not necessarily the secret to improving trading. (Traders can utilize positive emotional experiences to identify constructive solution patterns and to create an anchoring of new, positive patterns.)
9. Success in the markets often comes from doing what doesnt come naturally.
10. The intensity and the repetition of change efforts are directly responsible for their utlimate success.
11. Trading success is a function of possessing a statistical edge in the markets and being able to exploit this edge with regularity.

In short, if you can appreciate or at least have a slight idea of what the above 11 points try to preach, this book suits you well. Otherwise, please give it a pass.

I have two bookcases full of statistics and trading
books, and The Psychology of Trading is an wonderful addition to the collection.

Steenbarger's book takes you on a very nice tour of human psychology and how peoples' worldviews, motivations, and
experiences form the basis of their interactions and actions. All of the discussions, while interesting by themselves, do lead back to trading sooner or later. No poorly written, academic psycho-babble here; the book is exceptionally well written with clear, flowing prose explicitly recounting numerous case studies, relationships of psychological matters to trading, and many suggestions for traders on self-improvement. Rarely have I read a book that both contained so much useful information and presentated it so well. Brett's thoughts on learning curves, pattern breaking/establishment, and probing people to see who is 'talking his position' are worth the price alone, and the case studies ought to provoke much thought.

For comparison, I have read Trading for a Living by Elder, and that book, while interesting, is not as well written and contains far fewer useful examples and thought provoking comments. A useful complement would be Judgement Under Uncertainty, ed. by Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky which discusses (in a more academic and formal fashion, i.e., it is a collection of really good papers) how people incorrectly process and interpret data in uncertain situations.

Didier Sornette has written an elegant and penetrating study of the complex elements which contribute to financial booms and their associated busts. Its most important conclusion is that potential crashes are proceeded by statistical “fingerprints”, largely independent of the particular markets involved, which permit their timing to be estimated within narrow limits by mathematical modeling, as demonstrated by numerous examples.

The book attempts two difficult challenges: first to model the potential timings of instabilities conducive to crashes in financial markets, and second to describe both the resulting models and their underlying phenomena intelligibly to the lay reader unfamiliar with much, or even all, of the mathematics involved. I found the author remarkably successful on both counts. The book reads uncommonly well provided one does not get distracted by the inevitable unfamiliarity of some of the mathematical terms, and in support of its main argument presents a wealth of interesting and uncommon information. Importantly, it also reflects a familiarity with the realities of financial markets, typically lacking in academic studies of market phenomena.

This appraisal will not be shared by all readers. If you are a fan of Kramer and Kudlow or prefer information about financial markets in sound bites from CNBC, or if you are looking for specific guidance on how to make money in markets, this book is not written for you. Furthermore, the book contains references to a considerable amount of serious mathematics which is likely to annoy some fraction of its readership. This can be circumvented, as suggested, by simply skimming whatever is unfamiliar. What is missed will have been addressed to a different audience, and not much of relevance will be lost. However, if you are frustrated by (or hostile to) unfamiliar mathematical terms and references, however inessential to the gist of the argument, best give it a pass.

For the rest, this is a deep study of engaging interest which repays more than one reading.

I highly recommend this book, and it may cost you a whole lot of money if you don't read it. EconoPhysics is (quietly) entering the research departments of Wall Street investment firms, so you may do well to take a look for yourself, and this book is a great place to start. It's a fascinating read on market forces and dynamics, and how it all plays out on its way to the extremes (bubbles & crashes). The author reveals findings of a new approach to market analysis and predictions based on studies of real-life, complex systems, which are modelled by a small number of simple rules, wherein a "critical state" can arise, from which chaos (or order!) spontaneously breaks out. It sounds counter-intuitive, but researchers around the world are successfully applying the emerging science of complex systems over a broad range of interests, and unmasking order (predictable patterns) in what was once thought to be random or intractable data. This book takes you down that path and meets up with a little thing called The Market! The reader is given insight into the apparent vagaries of market dynamics from a fresh perspective, walking you through market models and dynamics that account for "herding" behavior around market extremes, wherein pockets of predictability arise. It's all explained without a whole lot of math -- what's not to like? It's the first time I've had fracals explained in simple terms of dimensions, without bifurcation charts, and discussions of "attractors".

To give you a flavor of the book's perspective, consider what happens during a typical day in the market when all of the momentum players, trend spotters, value hounds and growth seekers meet up with each other via buy and sell orders. Typically, the market doesn't move very much, though billions of trades execute. As the author explains, this is possible only through what may be described as complete chaos. That is (simplifying here), for every person who thinks the price is going to fall, and acts on it, there is someone who must be doing the exact opposite. So, the market is stabilized only through complete disagreement (disorder). It's those rare times when agreement (order) rules the day that you get HUGE market swings. The good news is that order is something we can wrap our minds around, identify driving forces, build models, and make predictions -- and this book does all that.

There are not many equations in this book, and you can skip them without losing lock on the book's theme. The concepts and tools covered in this book are at the cutting edge of science and probably new to you, but new analytical insights are valuable, and the author explains them all in layman's terms. I look at this book as a scientific study into Warren Buffet's statement that money managers are "lemmings".

This is poorly edited, poorly focussed, and inadequately titled. It discusses the behavior of complex systems containing intelligent operators between cusps. Things like the human biosphere -- as well as financial markets. I would hope for a second edition suitable as a required text for upper-division students of demographics, international relations, ecology, anthropology and the like as well as the economics and finance majors its title seems pointed to.
Read Chapter 10 first. It is the most important. Then you can read the rest.

As 1-to-1 marketing becomes common parlance within the marketing world, this book is the must read for taking a theory beyond a Chief Marketing Officer's vision and actually putting it to work. The concepts and methods of 1-to-1 are laid out in a very methodical and easy-to-follow manner. If someone mentions 1-to-1 marketing within the context of a speech, interview, or paper, this is the primer to understand both the concept and the methods. However, this is not the book to purchase if you would like an exact science of steps to CRM and 1-to-1 success. This book has been in print for a period of years and many of the methods may need to be updated for new technological tools and increased issues with privacy.

I was very pleased with the quality of writing that went into this book. It provides a wealth of information in the one-to-one personalization space; not just the Internet paradigm, but as a business building methodology. I was very pleased.

If you are going to do customer relationship management this book is for you. Whether you are in business or IT it will be valuable in any case. The book gives examples of best in breed CRM practices. It is very easy to read. Some of you will find ideas which will probably help you move your business forward to the 1-to-1 future. You will learn what the differences are between a traditional view of the customer and that of a 1-to-1 practitioner. You will also learn about new principles of customer segmentation and how to migrate from mass marketing to more selective 1-to-1 marketing. Although it is not a complete guide, you will enjoy reading it.

Great book. Tells the real story of pennys stocks and the OTCBB market. I made 80% profit on my first trade after reading this book.! Very simple and easy to read without alot of technical baloney. All should check this out in my opinion.

I have read this book several times and with each reading I have gotten hints on how to buy and trade very low-priced stocks, even including stocks selling for less than a cent a share. The rapid ups and downs of prices of these tiny stocks can be scary to the new beginner just starting out in investing in these small upstart companies. I just ran across a recently published book on penny stocks that comes with a $5,000 guarantee if the author's system does not make the new or old-time investor a profit. Try getting GUARANTEED PROFITS WITH SMALL STOCKS--THE ONLY STOCK MARKET INVESTMENT SYSTEM THAT COMES WITH A $5,000 GUARANTEE by R. Max Bowser. Believe me, it is so easy to read and understand. He shares his 30 years of investment wisdom. And he backs it with a $5,000 guarantee if the reader does not make a profit. Never before have I heard of any author make such a guarantee on an investment book. Bowser's book will greatly add to what you may learn in Dan's wonderful book.

Outstanding book for starting into pennys. Good description of the various ways to trade, and the forces behind the market. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's considering penny stocks.

Andy Kessler is a worthy follow-up act to Michael Lewis, and his Wall Street Meat is as fun and enjoyable as Lewis's Liar's Poker. I read this book cover to cover and was chuckling with delight all the way through.

It really brings us upclose and personal with the biggest rogues on Wall Street. The portraits of Jack Grubman and Mary Meeker are especially compelling. I highly recommend this book - easy to read, lucid and with a sense of bemusement only a true new yorker can have...shame we have to wait for his next book

This book is to the nineties what Michael Lewis's Liars' Poker was to the eighties-a whirling, candid look at Wall Street. I agree with Lewis's blurb: I gulped this book, too. He and Kessler both have a great comic sense. Both came to the financial world in a roundabout way. (Lewis was an art history major who became a bond salesman; Kessler was a Bell labs researcher who became a research analyst.) But there are differences, too, and they go beyond the simple fact that Lewis wrote about the character of Salomon Brothers and the mortgage-backed security business, whereas Kessler's story more broadly concerns the technology bubble of the late nineties, and Wall Street's part in it. Kessler is more sharp-edged and critical, yet idealistic, too, ending with a few pages of ideas on what caused the tech bubble and what might be done differently to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Kessler writes from the vantage point of more than fifteen years in the securities business, and you sense he really cares about many of the people he works with. (Even if he frequently shows it by verbally skewering them.) Lewis's time on Wall Street was much shorter, and his tone is more one of bemused detachment. Kessler is very anecdotal, even more than Lewis, one- and two-pagers, but the chronology is solid and the whole thing works perfectly. The two books are close cousins, lots of hilarious stories and witty detail, and a sprinkling of memorable supporting characters, including a vivid yet balanced portrayal of fallen superstar Jack Grubman, through the years, by Kessler.

This is a funny and insightful book. It may seem like a bunch of breezy anecdotes told cleverly about some big name Wall Street names, and it has plenty of those, but it is much more than that. This is a book that should be read by everyone interested in Wall Street, who has money invested there, or is thinking about putting money there, and any MBA interested in finance. Mr. Kessler worked on Wall Street for many years as an analyst for Paine Webber and then Morgan Stanley. Later, he left to work as a portfolio manager at Velocity Capital Management, which means he was and is still working with the same folks, but now as an investor.

His stories, escapades, and perspectives will lift the veil for those still innocent enough to believe that salesmen and account managers for the big trading houses have their clients' best interest at heart. I know we learned in b-school about the Random Walk, and arbitrage theory. All of that and the other stuff we learned is important to know. However, more valuable are the real world insights he provides about the structural changes and unintended consequences of the Small Order Execution System and its effect on liquidity and price volatility, Sarbanes-Oxley and the closing off of information to investors, ECNs and the erosion of trading income and the change to emphasis on fees and deals to provide income, momentum investing (momos), and more.

I am also very glad that he does not let individual investors off the hook for their own foolishness with their retirement and investment income. Remember, the greater fool theory cannot work without new people volunteering for the job. In the afterword the author also briefly demonstrates why all of the popular theories for the bubble and its popping are all true and none true. All contributed, but none we alone sufficient. Like most disasters, the likely cause is a confluence of little events combined into something no one much caused or could stop.

There is an obvious comparison to Michael Lewis's wonderful "Liar's Poker" and I would recommend this book just as highly. Mr. Kessler's career spanned a long enough time to chronicle the change from his being afraid to recommend a stock that could drop in price to Henry Blodget being afraid to downgrade a stock that could still go up in price. An amazing journey indeed and we are the better for his having chronicled it for us in such an entertaining way.