I knew this review from the author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street was coming, but I didn't know when, and I didn't know how nice it would be:
Mr. Fox's book is really a lively chapter in the history of ideas, describing the recent evolution of financial thinking as well as the instruments that such thinking has spawned, such index funds and derivatives. It is also a history of people -- notably the principal scholars in the field of financial investments, such as Paul Samuelson, Bill Sharpe, Harry Markowitz and Daniel Kahneman, and the influential practitioners, such as Jack Bogle, Michael Milken and Alan Greenspan.
Among much else, Mr. Fox presents lucid explanations of Portfolio
Theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and Option Pricing Theory
without the use of a single equation. And he brings the major players
in his drama to life with an appealingly breezy style.
Malkiel concludes:
With "The Myth of the Rational Market" Mr. Fox has produced a valuable
and highly readable history of risk and reward. He has not, however,
been able to bury the hypothesis that our securities markets are
usually remarkably efficient.
Well, depends what you mean by "efficient." But I'm not complaining. Definitely not.
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