Includes index

English

Chapter 1 The panic of 2008 3 -- What led to the 2008 crash? 6 -- The bubble bursts 13 -- A real panic 15 -- Stages of the 2008 panic 18 -- The 2008 panic in perspective 20 -- Chapter 2 Preparing for panics and profiting from them 23 -- Bear markets yield the biggest gains 25 -- Bring on the crises 27 -- Buying panics 28 -- Why are investors bargain-averse? 29 -- A simple strategy for success 30 -- Booms and bubbles 32 -- Identifying crashes and panics 35 -- Telling signs 37 -- Learning from history 38 -- Professionalism, Oscar Wilde and the conducting of orchestras 41 -- Chapter 3 Types of panics 43 -- Phoney panics 44 -- Self-induced or end-of-cycle panics 50 -- Contagious panics 56 -- Real panics 63 -- Panics follow the market`s own bizarre logic 67 -- Chapter 4 The panic cycle 69 -- Panics get bigger, more unpredictable 71 -- Volatility 72 -- Looking for causes of boom-and-bust cycles 73 -- Stages of the cycle 79 -- Government attempts to cope with panics 82 -- This time, will it be different? 87 -- New world -- new crashes 89 -- Dubious practices and crooks move in 93 -- More a case of neglect than fraud 97 -- Chapter 5 A new age of panics 99 -- Stock markets bigger than national economies 100 -- Mr Ponzi is alive and well 102 -- New markets = new capital? 103 -- New markets, new volatility 105 -- Where does all the money go? 107 -- So, what role are stock markets actually performing? 111 -- Contributing to instability -- derivatives trading 115 -- Contributing to instability -- hedge funds 118 -- Contributing to instability -- portfolio insurance 120 -- Contributing to instability -- momentum investment 122 -- Contributing to instability -- program trading 123 -- Contributing to instability -- new technology 123 -- Concentration of power 124 -- The rise of the investment banks 128 -- The stock option virus 134 -- Infectious greed 135 -- Chapter 6 The trader and the fund manager 137 -- The trader / Warren Primhak 137 -- The fund manager / John Carey 146 -- Chapter 7 The psychology of panics 155 -- Rational explanations for the seemingly irrational 156 -- It`s people, not markets, who panic 156 -- Herd behaviour 160 -- Hostility to contrary opinions 162 -- Optimism overcomes fear 164 -- Fear overcomes greed 165 -- Risk aversion 166 -- Coping with new information 167 -- Momentum 172 -- Illusions of control 174 -- How the past becomes a distant country 175 -- Behaviour in emerging markets is different 178 -- Perception is all -- defying the herd 180 -- Chapter 8 Does diversification provide protection against stock market fluctuations? 183 -- Decision regret 184 -- When to switch 184 -- Returns for diversified portfolios 185 -- Diversification into property 187 -- Diversification into gold 191 -- Diversification into bonds 195 -- The case for equities and only equities 198 -- Diversifying within the equity market 200 -- The great defensive stock myth 201 -- Switching between markets 203 -- Diversification through derivatives 204 -- Doing nothing is best 207 -- Chapter 9 Is the market always right? 211 -- Back to basics 212 -- The origins of equity investment 212 -- The problem with efficient markets theory 215 -- What is rational stock market behaviour? 218 -- The god of shareholder value 220 -- The earnings game 221 -- The M&A game 224 -- Paying shareholders, robbing companies 228 -- How the markets batter economies 230 -- Entrepreneurs shunning stock markets 231 -- The hired hands versus the controlling shareholders 232 -- Despite everything -- the case for stock markets 236 -- Understanding the contradictions 238 -- Like revolutions, markets kill their babies 239 -- Stock markets nurture the strong 240 -- Shutting out market noise 241 -- Chapter 10 Opportunity 245 -- Bear markets produce the greatest opportunities 245 -- Speculating on recovery 246 -- Understand the bias -- understand the market 248 -- Timing 250 -- Setting targets 252 -- The brave investor 255 -- Predicting extreme behaviour 256 -- New markets -- old patterns 257 -- The stakes are higher 259 -- A conflict of interest 259.

Many investors were lulled into complacency by the stock market bull run stretching from 2003 to 2007. Now that the markets have moved into extreme bear territory investors are wondering what to do and whether it is still the case that equities have delivered the best returns among all investment classes

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