Investment Illusions

An raucous and illuminating guide to the way Wall Street really works from one of today's top-rated analysts In this highly irreverent, humorous, and revealing guide to playing the markets, Martin Fridson, debunks many of Wall Street's most cherished myths, superstitions, and misconceptions. Offering investors a unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the experts, he tells fifty hilarious, real-life stories of fools and their money that vividly demonstrate how brokers, analysts, hucksters, and the media often consciously or unconsciously conspire to help perpetuate flawed approaches to the markets. And along the way, in a commentary bristling with illuminating analogies to sports, gambling, and psychology, Fridson offers investors a wealth of sage advice on how to avoid "foolproof" systems, overnight sensations, and all the other follies commonly propagated by the "experts." * Recounts dozens of bizarre real-life incidents and hilarious media howlers that dramatize common misconceptions about how the markets work * Supplies a gold mine of smart advice on how to separate illusion from reality and control risk * Written by a top-rated investment analysts and notorious debunker of corporate hocus pocus and gobbledygook MARTIN FRIDSON (New York, New York) is a managing director at Merrill Lynch's Merchant Banking Group and the editor of Extra Credit: The Journal of High Yield Bond Research. His other books include Tulipmania, The South Sea Bubble, and the Madness of Crowds and Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioners Guide.