Plummeting stock prices. Decimated 401(k) accounts. Shocking corporate scandals.Thus is the beginning of the twenty-first century. The boundless prosperity of the 1990s is now a remnant of history. With the turn of the millennium came a national reversal of fortune. In a period of under twelve months, the Nasdaq Composite index lost over 60 percent of its value, costing average Americans billions of dollars.If only we could've seen it coming.But perhaps it wasn't our lack of vision that blinded us to the approaching disaster. Perhaps all we needed to do was change our perspective. Too often we invest on whims and headlines, instincts and hot tips. We focus on the short-term possibilities and ignore the long-term picture.In this groundbreaking account, best-selling author and renowned CNBC anchor Ron Insana proves that we can profit from the best of times while preparing for the worst. Through an impressively illuminating investigation of financial market bubbles, manias, and trends, Insana shows how to predict confidently the seemingly erratic financial market booms and busts, getting in while the getting is good and getting out before we are gotten.We've all heard the adage: History repeats itself. In economic terms this truism could not be truer. Delving deep into the history of American investing, Insana?s enlightening study charts both well-known and widely overlooked events, proving definitively that the ups and downs of financial markets follow astonishingly similar patterns. Bubbles replicate those before them, trends imitate other trends, and the cycle repeats itself time and again.With keen insight, Insana, one of the world's top business journalists, will teach you how to recognize key signs and indicators so that you can determine when a bubble is forming, how long it will continue growing, and at what point it's going to burst.Too often, the public is the last in and the last out of the game. We lose money because we react to the decisions of others rather than anticipating fads on our own. Insana's eye-opening investigation will teach you how to stop following the herd and start finding your own way to investment success. Drawing on concrete evidence from the past to forecast the real-world changes of the future, this fascinating study paves the path for more secure, more dependable, and more profitable investing. It's your money. From Booklist Insana is the senior anchor on CNBC and has written two prior books on market history. This is a thoroughly enjoyable perspective of the market manias and bubbles that are a prominent feature of speculative trading. Although these events seem rare to the casual observer, Insana informs us that bubbles like the 2000 "tech wreck" are forming all the time, and there will probably be another in the not-too-distant future. Although these investment fads typically have similar characteristics, such as new technological breakthroughs, unrealistic expectations, and fraudulent claims, the participants in these events never seem to recognize them for what they are until after the damage has occurred and the public has once again been taken to the cleaners. The typical opinion at the height of the mania is that "this time is different." Such is never the case. Insana insists that by recognizing these similarities in advance one can spot the formation of a bubble and avoid the worst of its damaging effects. His lighthearted approach makes for a fun read.David SiegfriedCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Ron Insana is familiar to millions of viewers as the popular business journalist and anchor in CNBC. His show, Street Signs, is seen in 70 million American households and in 71 countries. Insana makes frequent guest appearances on NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, and Imus in the Morning.