The Mind of Wall Street: A Legendary Financier on the Perils of Greed and the Mysteries of the Market
Author: Leon Levy, Eugene Linden
List Price: $26.00
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ISBN: 1586481037
Publisher: PublicAffairs (05 November, 2002)
Sales Rank: 32,056
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
An unsolved puzzle
Having been acquainted with Leon Levy and a personal friend to
many of his partners since the early 1960's, I had eagerly
waited for the book's publication and read it with great
interest.After reading the book, I have found one unsolved puzzle.
How Mr. Leon Levy, reputed to have a net worth of over US$700
million and has made donations to various interest groups of
over US$100 million, has achieved such mediocre investment
results for his investors in the Oppenheimer group of mutual
funds. Mr. Levy is the founder and chairman of the Oppenheimer
Funds.
Nonetheless, Mr. Leon Levy has provided some great insights to
the inner workings of Wall street, including some of the lesser
known specultaive techniques -- e.g., the Euro call option
market.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Levy's Perspective on the past 50 years
Levy's financial memoir tells of his 50 years on Wall Street. He highlights his contributions including the success of Oppenheimer. He tells many tales, including the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. He blames that collapse on the fund manager's overconfidence in the efficiency of markets. Levy offers his perspective on the recent stock market bubble, concluding the bubble continues (with lower prices ahead). His conclusion that Newt Gingrich's 1995 "contract with America" paved the way for the egregious acts of corporate executives and accounting firms makes for interesting reading.
This book is worth your time.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Psychology and Experience
Leon Levy died in December 2002. He was one of the grand old men of Wall Street. The founder of the Oppenheimer mutual funds, he built himself a truly substantial fortune in the market (Forbes 400 list). This book is not a compendium of investment techniques but the history of an astute trader and a glimpse of how he saw the market. His outlook is largely a combination of basic economics and psychology which appear to have about equal weight. Just before Levy died he wrote an interesting but pessimistic essay on the future of America's economy. He pointed out that there is more than a sniff of deflation in the air. He may still be right. The deflation may be masked by government sponsored financial inflation. On balance, a very interesting book. Similar Products
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