The Mind of Wall Street: A Legendary Financier on the Perils of Greed and the Mysteries of the Market

As stock prices and investor confidence have collapsed in the wake of Enron, WorldCom, and the dot-com crash, people want to know how 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 fifty years, particularly in today's bear market. In The Mind of Wall Street he recounts stories of his successes and failures to illustrate how investor psychology and willful 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 completely recovered from its bout of "irrational exuberance."

The Mind of Wall Street is essential reading for all of us, whether we are active traders or simply modest contributors to our 401(k) plans, as volatile and unnerving markets come to define so much of our net worth.

Leon Levy began his career on Wall Street in 1948 and over the next five decades became a major figure in investment circles, helping to create Oppenheimer Mutual Funds and Odyssey Partners. He served as the president and founder of the Jerome Levy Institute for Economic Research at Bard College and the president of the Institute for Advanced Study. He died in April 2003.

Eugene Linden is a contributor for Time magazine and the author of seven previous books. He lives in Nyack, New York.