Popular Financial Delusions

2011 Reprint of 1933 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Smitley wrote Popular Financial Delusions in 1933, when the world was in the depths of the Great Depression. He had started out on the New York Stock Exchange, but gave it up to buy a bookshop on Wall Street, and he became an expert. Better still, he understood markets–and he had a bigger collection of pithy phrases than the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. The book is a collection of about 70 sections, each of which stands on its own. None has any reverence for the sacred cows of the investment world. From the investment trust to the mortgage, to the pension, bank deposit and - yes - even Gold; one after the other Smitley skillfully slices them up, and shows them for what they so often are. Review by Paul Tustain.