The former FDIC Chairwoman, and one of the first people to acknowledge the full risk of subprime loans, offers a unique perspective on the greatest crisis the U.S. has faced since the Great Depression.

“Investors who feel like they have what it takes to trade . . . should read Pit Bull.” —The Wall Street Journal Welcome to the world of Martin “Buzzy” Schwartz, Champion Trader—the man whose nerves of steel and killer instinct in the canyons of Wall Street earned him the well-deserved name “Pit Bull.” This is the true story of how Schwartz became the best of the best, of the people and places he discovered along the way, and of the trader’s tricks and techniques he used to make his millions. “The most entertaining and insightful look at Wall Street since Liar’s Poker.” —Paul Tudor Jones II, founder, Tudor Investment Corporation and the Robin Hood Foundation “An archetypal text, true to life on the Street, destined to be discussed over drinks at trader hangouts after the market closes.” —Kirkus Reviews “Hilarious and eye-opening . . . Pit Bull tells the real deal about life on Wall Street—and how you make money there.” —Martin Zweig, author of Martin Zweig’s Winning on Wall Street

This is the book that Wall Street doesn't want you to read. It's a book about my experiences, my insights, and my take on the brokerage business. As a top-producing Wall Street stockbroker for 20 years at some of its largest firms, I had the opportunity to see everything the junkets, the incentives, the sales strategies, the product preferences, and most of all how customers are treated. Demystifying Wall Street begins with some of my personal experiences, how I went from being a car salesman (and musician) to joining one of Wall Street's biggest brokerages. And then it explains how I discovered that car dealerships and brokerages operate in very much the same way: by incentives. More compelling, the book reveals a perspective that is often lost on consumers: Salesmen, whether of stocks or cars, are paid to sell products. They work, at the end of the day, for the manufacturers of those products and therefore their interests are never aligned with buyers. Those buyers on Wall Street are you. This is the flaw in the Wall Street business model that is at the crux of Demystifying Wall Street. Despite the bull, the advertisements, and all of the lip service, stockbrokers can never be the trusted advisers they portend to be. If they were, and put clients' interests ahead of their own, they'd be broke. Yet, the average income of stockbrokers is several hundred thousand dollars and can stretch up into millions of dollars. I explain how this then translates into a lifestyle trap for Wall Street stockbrokers, how they have to produce, produce, produce, to keep up their means. It shows how bigger and better EVERYTHING is rewarded by brokerage firm management. Managers want brokers to get nicer cars, buy bigger houses. They hold out carrots at the office too corner offices, secretaries, and trips all in a design to keep brokers in the firm's nest. Rife with information, including charts, tables, and graphs, Demystifying Wall Street is meant to be used as resource guide, a resource guide, mind you, that tells a story. My personal experiences and anecdotes are meant to grab readers' attention and engage them. But the book itself is full of easy-to-understand financial lessons.

Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered provides easy-to-read, solid investment advice organized around maxims that have endured and become timeless touchstones that, if followed, perform over time. Starting with his very personal prologue, "A True Tale of Woe," Gallea takes readers along as he revisits these market truths, extracting lessons for today's investor.

Discover the truth about stock analysts’ research. The Truth About Wall Street Stock Research–Now 100% Updated for Today’s Markets! They mislead. They confuse. You can’t afford to listen to one word stock analysts say–especially not right now. Wall Street won’t tell you how to protect your capital or steer you toward gains. The Street is good at selling, not analyzing; it wants you to trade, not invest. In Full of Bull, one of the Street’s leading insiders reveals the hidden code behind Wall Street’s Byzantine practices. For decades, Stephen McClellan was one of the Street’s top analysts–he knows exactly how the game is played. Now, in this revised guide for the individual investor, he describes how Wall Street came to cost investors billions by denying the realities of a market collapse in progress. He explains how a congenitally favorable bias led brokerages to keep recommending stocks, such as AIG and Fannie Mae, up until the moment of their ultimate demise. In Full of Bull, you’ll learn how to look for analysts’ favoritism and blind spots; how to react appropriately to upgrades, downgrades, and price targets; and how to recognize what company announcements really mean. Drawing on his immense body of experience analyzing top companies, McClellan shows you how to systematically evaluate a company’s prospects and choose investments based on principles that work. This is exactly the kind of objective, focused guidance you won’t be getting from your broker!

Offering an insider's look at the exciting modern art scene, this guide dishes out revealing stories and memorable encounters with the rich and famous--including Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Oprah Winfrey, and Luciano Pavarotti--as well as situations the author would rather forget, such as when a famous rock star tried to seduce her. Rich with personal insights and recollections, this entertaining account also offers a wealth of practical advice on how to successfully appraise and purchase fine art, furniture, antiques, and jewelry without getting cheated, whether in the United States or abroad. Tips on how to successfully sell acquisitions are also featured.

Stop, look, and discover—the streets and parks of Manhattan are filled with beautiful historic monuments that will entertain, stimulate, and inspire you. Among the 54 monuments in this volume are major figures in American history: Washington, Lincoln, Lafayette, Horace Greeley, and Gertrude Stein; more obscure figures: Daniel Butterfield, J. Marion Sims, and King Jagiello; as well as the icons of New York: Atlas, Prometheus, and the Firemen's Memorial. The monuments represent the work of some of America's best sculptors: Augustus Saint Gaudens’ Farragut and Sherman, Daniel Chester French’s Four Continents, and Anna Hyatt Huntington’s José Martí and Joan of Arc. Each monument, illustrated with black-and-white photographs, is located on a map of Manhattan and includes easy-to-follow directions. All the sculptures are considered both as historical mementos and as art. We learn of furious General Sherman court-martialing a civilian journalist, and also of exasperated Saint Gaudens’ proposing a hook-and-spring device for improving his assistants' artistic acuity as they help model Sherman. We discover how Lincoln dealt with a vociferous Confederate politician from Ohio, and why the Lincoln in Union Square doesn't rank as a top-notch Lincoln portrait. Sidebars reveal other aspects of the figure or event commemorated, using personal quotes, poems, excerpts from nineteenth-century periodicals (New York Times, Harper's Weekly), and writers ranging from Aeschylus, Washington Irving, and Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi to Mark Twain and Henryk Sienkiewicz. As a historical account, Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide is a fascinating look at figures and events that changed New York, the United States and the world. As an aesthetic handbook it provides a compact method for studying sculpture, inspired by Ayn Rand’s writings on art. For residents and tourists, and historians and students, who want to spend more time viewing and appreciating sculpture and New York history, this is the start of a unique voyage of discovery.

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.

Filled with everything you need to live a luckier life, Luck: The Essential Guide is here with information, advice, or if you just have to knock on wood.