The Mind of Wall Street

As stock prices and investor confidence have collapsed in the wake of Enron, WorldCom and the dot-com crash, people want to know why this happened and how to make sense of the uncertain times to come.

Into the breach comes one of Wall Street's legendary investors, Leon Levy, to explain why the market so often confounds us, and why those who ought to understand it tend to get chewed up and spat out.

Levy, who pioneered many of the innovations and investment instruments that we now take for granted, has prospered in every market for the past 50 years, particularly in today's bear market.

In this book he recounts stories of his successes and failures to illustrate how investor psychology and wilful self-deception so often play critical roles in the process.

Like his peers George Soros and Warren Buffett, Levy takes a long and broad view of the rhythms of the markets and the economy.

He also offers a provocative analysis of the spectacular Internet bubble, showing that the market has not yet competely recovered from its bout of "irrational exuberance".