America’s fascination with the stock market dates back to the Gilded Age. Winner of the BAAS Book Prize of the British Association of American Studies Americans pay famously close attention to “the market,” obsessively watching trends, patterns, and swings and looking for clues in every fluctuation. In Reading the Market, Peter Knight explores the Gilded Age origins and development of this peculiar interest. He tracks the historic shift in market operations from local to national while examining how present-day ideas about the nature of markets are tied to past genres of financial representation. Drawing on the late nineteenth-century explosion of art, literature, and media, which sought to dramatize the workings of the stock market for a wide audience, Knight shows how ordinary Americans became both emotionally and financially invested in the market. He analyzes popular investment manuals, brokers’ newsletters, newspaper columns, magazine articles, illustrations, and cartoons. He also introduces readers to fiction featuring financial tricksters, which was characterized by themes of personal trust and insider information. The book reveals how the popular culture of the period shaped the very idea of the market as a self-regulating mechanism by making the impersonal abstractions of high finance personal and concrete. From the rise of ticker-tape technology to the development of conspiracy theories, Reading the Market argues that commentary on the Stock Exchange between 1870 and 1915 changed how Americans understood finance—and explains what our pervasive interest in Wall Street says about us now.

Introduction -- Market reports -- Reading the ticker tape -- Picturing the market -- Confidence games and inside information -- Conspiracy and the invisible hand of the market -- Epilogue

In 2005, Joel Greenblatt published a book that is already considered one of the classics of finance literature. In The Little Book that Beats the Market—a New York Times bestseller with 300,000 copies in print—Greenblatt explained how investors can outperform the popular market averages by simply and systematically applying a formula that seeks out good businesses when they are available at bargain prices. Now, with a new Introduction and Afterword for 2010, The Little Book that Still Beats the Market updates and expands upon the research findings from the original book. Included are data and analysis covering the recent financial crisis and model performance through the end of 2009. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author’s time-tested formula that makes buying above average companies at below average prices automatic. Though the formula has been extensively tested and is a breakthrough in the academic and professional world, Greenblatt explains it using 6th grade math, plain language and humor. He shows how to use his method to beat both the market and professional managers by a wide margin. You’ll also learn why success eludes almost all individual and professional investors, and why the formula will continue to work even after everyone “knows” it. While the formula may be simple, understanding why the formula works is the true key to success for investors. The book will take readers on a step-by-step journey so that they can learn the principles of value investing in a way that will provide them with a long term strategy that they can understand and stick with through both good and bad periods for the stock market. As the Wall Street Journal stated about the original edition, “Mr. Greenblatt…says his goal was to provide advice that, while sophisticated, could be understood and followed by his five children, ages 6 to 15. They are in luck. His ‘Little Book’ is one of the best, clearest guides to value investing out there.”

In this 1931 Wall Street classic, author and noted economist Humphrey B. Neill explains not only how to read the tape, but also how to figure out what’s going on behind the numbers. Illustrated throughout with graphs and charts, this book contains excellent sections on human nature and speculation and remains a classic text in the field today.

What do Charles Dow, Jesse Livermore, and Richard Ney have in common? They used volume and price to anticipate where the market was heading next and so built their vast fortunes. For them, it was the ticker tape; for us, it is the trading screen. The results are the same and can be for you, too. I make no bones about believing I was lucky to start my own trading journey using volume. To me it just made sense. The logic was inescapable. And for me, the most powerful reason is very simple. Volume is a rare commodity in trading - a leading indicator. The second and only other leading indicator is price. Everything else is lagged. There's ONLY one question! As traders, investors, or speculators, all we are trying to do is to forecast where the market is heading next. Is there any better way than to use the only two leading indicators we have at our disposal, namely volume and price? In isolation, each tells us very little. After all, volume is just that, no more no less. A price is a price. However, combine these two forces, and the result is a powerful analytical approach to forecasting market direction with confidence. What you will discover This book will teach you all you need to know from first principles. So whether you're a day trader or a longer-term investor in any market, instrument, or timeframe, this book is the perfect platform to set you on the road to success and join those iconic traders of the past. All you need to succeed is a chart with volume and price…simple.

A complete collection of Jack D. Schwager's bestselling Market Wizards series In his Market Wizards series, author and financial industry expert Jack D. Schwager reveals inside secrets, tips, and insight from the top traders in today's financial markets. Packed with winning advice for individual traders and professionals alike, this five-volume collection compiles Schwager's best in one package at one low price. The set includes: The hardcover edition of the original Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders featuring guiding trading principles based on firsthand interviews with successful traders in most financial markets The hardcover edition of The New Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Traders featuring even more invaluable insight from even more super-successful traders The hardcover edition of Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders featuring enlightening stories from successful stock traders, from self-taught traders to professional hedge fund managers The hardcover edition of Hedge Fund Market Wizards: How Winning Traders Win featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the world of hedge funds and fifteen traders who have consistently beaten the markets The Winning Methods of the Market Wizards DVD which reveals the key tactics and shared traits of the world’s most acclaimed traders

An inside look at what it really takes to become a better trader A proprietary trading firm consists of a group of professionals who trade the capital of the firm. Their income and livelihood is generated solely from their ability to take profits consistently out of the markets. The world of prop trading is mentally and emotionally challenging, but offers substantial rewards to the select few who can master this craft called trading. In One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Trading, author Mike Bellafiore shares the principles and techniques that have enabled him to navigate the most challenging of markets over the past twelve years. He explains how he has imparted those techniques to an elite desk of traders at the proprietary trading firm he co-founded. In doing so, he lifts the veil on the inner workings of his firm, shedding light on the challenges of prop trading and insight on why traders succeed or fail. An important contribution to trading literature, the book will help all traders by: Emphasizing the development of skills that are critical to success, such as the fundamentals of One Good Trade, Reading the Tape, and finding Stocks In Play Outlining the factors that really make the difference between a consistently profitable trader and one who underperforms Sharing entertaining, hysterical, and page turning stories of traders who have excelled or failed and why, many trained by the author, with an essential trading principle wrapped inside Becoming a better trader takes discipline, skill development, and statistically profitable trading strategies, and this book will show you how to develop all three.