Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Confusión de Confusiones (A Marketplace Book)
By:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/socioweb/public_html/sociology-books/product.php on line 190
Buy it now at Amazon.com!
Lowest New Price: $8.75
List Price: $24.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Description:
"The market never ceases to befuddle and beguile. These two venerable works are fixtures on the short lists for most valuable books on the securities markets, and investors continue to cherish them." -From the Introduction by Martin S. Fridson Managing Director, Merrill Lynch & Co. Author of Investment Illusions
Exploring the sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating impact of crowd behavior and trading trickery on the financial markets, this book brilliantly combines two all-time investment classics. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Confusión de Confusiones take us from Tulipmania in 1634-when tulips actually traded at a higher price than gold-to the South Sea "bubble" of 1720, and beyond. Securities analyst and author Martin Fridson guides you on a quirky, entertaining, and intriguing journey back through time.
Chosen by the Financial Times as Two of the Ten Best Books Ever Written on Investment
Critical Praise . . .
"This is the most important book ever written about crowd psychology and, by extension, about financial markets. A serious student of the markets and even anyone interested in the extremes of human behavior should read this book!" -Ron Insana, CNBC
"In combining 'Extraordinary' with 'Confusion,' the result is not extraordinary confusion. Instead, with clarity, the book sears into modern investor minds the dangers of following the crowd." -Greg Heberlein, The Seattle Times
"You will see between its staid lines (written in ye olde English and as ponderable as Buddha's navel) that, despite what the media says, nothing really important has changed in the financial markets in centuries." -Kenneth L. Fisher, Forbes
Description:
Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? Why do financially sensible people jump lemming-like into harebrained speculative frenzies -- only to jump broker-like out of windows when their fantasies dissolve? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and overvalued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but the excerpts of these two classics--first published in 1841 and 1688, respectively--show that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds. These are extraordinarily illuminating and, unfortunately, entertaining tales of chicanery, greed, and naivete. Essential reading for any student of human nature or the transmission of ideas. In fact, cases such as Tulipomania in 1624--when tulip bulbs traded at a higher price than gold--suggest the existence of what I would dub "Mackay's Law of Mass Action": when it comes to the effect of social behavior on the intelligence of individuals, 1+1 is often considerably less than 1, and sometimes less than 0.
Publisher: Wiley
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
This book is in the public domain--you can find it for free elsewhere - It's always good to check a place like Project Gutenberg when you're considering older texts, especially things published before 1923. In this case, the book is in the public domain and you can download it for free.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Understanding Herd Mentality - When reading this book you find that what's old is new and that
somethings really don't change much over time. What does change
is that the perception of market behavior can be quantified and
measured easily, when in fact, it cannot. Some of the accounts
of history date back over two hundred years, but yet are as relevant
today as when they originally happened. The facinating information
is that before the 17th Century, most of the wealth was concentrated
in the hands of landowners and royalty. There was no need for
grand financial markets since the ownership of the wealth was
passed down by death of their owners. One of the authors even
mentions "bubbles" which in today's financial lexicon is even
more relevant. If someone wants to fully understand what is
not understandable, they should purchase this book just to
enjoy the fact that they too, are not complete morons, but just
part of the crowd that thinks they are immune to the whims of
the market.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
17th and 18th Century Speculative Bubbles Look Oddly Familiar. - "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" and "Confusion de Confusiones" are both works that address speculation frenzy in early financial markets but which have continued to enjoy a surprising popularity among investors centuries after they were written. Perhaps that is because a certain romanticism and distance comes with age, while at the same time these stories of speculative bubbles tell us that nothing really changes in the markets no matter how sophisticated we get. A foreword by Peter Bernstein sets the stage for the 17th century proliferation of financial instruments and pursuit of wealth. Martin S. Fridson's Introduction comments on the enduring popularity of these works, their differing perspectives on market forces, and their debunkers.
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" was authored by Scotsman Charles MacKay in 1841. It was a favorite book of Bernard Baruch, who wrote the foreword to the 1932 edition, a much longer work than what we see here. Only chapters relating to financial markets have been included in this Wiley Investment Classics edition. MacKay recounts three speculation frenzies and their aftermaths: The 1717 Mississippi Company of John Law and France's misadventures with paper money under the regent Duc d'Orleans, the 1711 South Sea Company bubble, and, more briefly, the "tulipmania" that overtook Holland in the 1630s. MacKay concentrates on the human behavior that drove these bubbles rather than on financial minutiae. If you're interested in learning more about John Law, father of modern finance, Millionaire by Janet Gleeson is a very readable biography.
"Confusion de Confusiones" author Joseph de la Vega wrote about what he knew personally: the stock market in late-17th century Amsterdam. The 1957 introduction by Hermann Kellenbenz includes a bio of de la Vega and helpful explanations of the types of transactions to which the work refers. The main text is a series of Dialogues between a Shareholder, a Philosopher, and a Merchant, in which the Shareholder explains the stock market, which he describes as "this enigmatic business which is at once the finest and most deceitful in Europe", the "quintessence of academic learning and a paragon of fraudulence." De la Vega uses stock of the Dutch East India Company as an example and lays the blame for price instability on syndicates of bears and bulls who conspire to move prices. I can't say that either of these works is useful -we have plenty of bubbles in our own time, after all- but they are engaging curiosities.
Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Google at $400.00? Maybe more chapters yet to be written? - Keep this book within handy reach for any time that you're getting a bit too smart for your britches. How otherwise intelligent and rational folk get themselves into these troubles is truly fascinating and instructive. The writing here is, of course, rather archaic to modern sensibilities (originally published in 1841) but the stories are interesting and very readable. It's tempting to read the tales as history but when I see Goggle trading at over $400.00 I scratch my head and wonder. And when I hear the president cutting taxes, increasing spending, and still assuring me that my Social Security payments are secure, well, I think there might be a few chapters still waiting to be writing in the book. A good read.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Timeless! - This was the warning shot ahead of the internet bubble. Hearing about the Dutch tulip bubble in 1995 (when I first read the book) we should have been well prepared to duck when Amazon, Ebay and their fallen comrades shot to the moon. If only we had listened...
The book clearly articulates why "The more things change, the more they stay the same" and helps us understand when to buck the herd. Perhaps a bit long, it is well written and worth the space on your nightstand.
--> Find out more about "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Confusión de Confusiones (A Marketplace Book)" at Amazon.com or Order Now
|
|
