Rating: 
Summary: Well written, short on facts, long on Levy's story.
Review: A hundred pages into the book, I stopped and said "Wait, where's the psychology of Wall Street this book touts?" and realized the book is no more than a work touting Levy's every move.
While entertaining and well written, the book is a fast read that is short on substantial information. The book is interesting; it just falls very short of providing any sort of substantial fact or opinion on his psychology of the street premise.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but not very informative
Review: I generally agree with Leon Levy's thesis that behavioral finance moves markets and stocks. It took me a while to grasp this idea after 4 years of Wharton where market efficiency and investors' rationality were expounded. Working as a practioner on Wall Street and living through the recent Internet bubble and subsequent collapse has taught me the value of respecting the effect of investors' psychology on stock prices. That said, I found this book disappointing. Some of Levy's economic and finance theories are dubious, and there were few ideas on how to actually make money from shifting investors' sentiment. Still, the book only took me a couple of hours to read (large print, 200 pages), and it did have some interesting anecdotes. All in all, it's pretty light-weight fare, and ok for a quick browse.
Rating:
Summary: Nice but not memorable story
Review: I like to read business biographies and hope to also gain some perspective on investing. I found this book to be lightly written in that there is not much depth in any subject. While there are many business stories, they really provide nothing insightful not covered from reading business periodicals. This does give a complete history of Mr. Levy's family and his entry in Wall Street but there is really nothing compelling there except that his dad was an economist and this shaped Mr. Levy's career through the years.This is not a bad book and it was quite easy to read. But compared to Sandy Weill's recent biography, it is pale in comparison.
Rating: 
Summary: Rare Insight from a Seasoned Professional
Review: If you are looking for a secret formula to accumulate wealth in the stock market, don't buy this book.
Leon Levy, a founder of Oppenheimer Funds, Odyssey Partners and legendary investor, reflects on his more than 50 years of investing experience to explain why the market confounds so many. He borrows from his avocations, psychology and archaeology, for perceptive insights into the financial landscape.
Success in finance, he says, is an art form, not a science. It relies on the vagaries of the human condition. Readers who search this book for a secret wealth formula will be disappointed. The only door, Levy says, that leads consistently to wealth, is access to privileged information. As many have recently discovered, this path is fraught with peril.
Yet, if investing is an art form, it can be learned. The best way is to put yourself on the line. Take a position. Players outperform professors. Recognize your weaknesses. Seek to control them.
I was particularly interested in Levy's insights into the collapse of Savings and Loans, the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and the Internet Bubble.
This book does not belong in the class bad books written by bored billionaire investors, too many of whom have confused luck with insight. Although these individuals have a high regard for themselves, clarity, coherence and conciseness are not among the qualities which contributed to their success.
Leon Levy is likeable, incredibly informed and nothing short of brilliant. Investors for generations to come will be grateful he finished his discourse on of greed's perils and the market's mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: Psychology and Experience
Review: Leon Levy died in December 2002. He was one of the grand old men of Wall Street. The founder of the Oppenheimer mutual funds, he built himself a truly substantial fortune in the market (Forbes 400 list). This book is not a compendium of investment techniques but the history of an astute trader and a glimpse of how he saw the market. His outlook is largely a combination of basic economics and psychology which appear to have about equal weight. Just before Levy died he wrote an interesting but pessimistic essay on the future of America's economy. He pointed out that there is more than a sniff of deflation in the air. He may still be right. The deflation may be masked by government sponsored financial inflation. On balance, a very interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: Levy's Perspective on the past 50 years
Review: Levy's financial memoir tells of his 50 years on Wall Street. He highlights his contributions including the success of Oppenheimer. He tells many tales, including the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. He blames that collapse on the fund manager's overconfidence in the efficiency of markets. Levy offers his perspective on the recent stock market bubble, concluding the bubble continues (with lower prices ahead). His conclusion that Newt Gingrich's 1995 "contract with America" paved the way for the egregious acts of corporate executives and accounting firms makes for interesting reading. This book is worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read!
Review: The late, legendary Wall Street investor Leon Levy offers a glimpse into his financial mind in this easily digested work, which is part memoir and part study of investor psychology. Writing with journalist Eugene Linden, he persuasively argues that investors' moodiness often drives the market as much as any fundamentals. Unlike many Wall Street investment strategies, Levy's approach was long-term. And as this book shows, Levy's ego was refreshingly understated. Yet his modesty proves this memoir's biggest weakness. He declines to criticize his rivals and walks us through his triumphs in only a cursory way. At the same time that he's leaving juicy details out of his memoir, he also gives short shrift to his study of investor psychology. Still, the biggest criticism of this book is that it should have been longer. We recommend this memoir to investors interested in learning from a master.
Rating:
Summary: A Dealmaker Reminisces
Review: There are few insights or wise pearls about Wall Street provided here. This is a broad brushed overview of Levy's years in the business from the late 40's onward. Taken on that level, it's an enjoyable book. Things are fairly well sanitized in Levy's history of his world. He says there's no secret formula and hard work and research were his key to success. Well, that might actually be true but after all the recent scandals please forgive me for checking my BS meter. I would have enjoyed some scandalous tattling or a few secrets about all those greedy, egomaniac bastards on Wall Street. Levy says he never felt rich until recently because he was always in debt or leveraged for his deals. That's the motivator. Sounds like a guy who never felt he had enough. Imagine feeling "not rich" with a net worth of 750 million. If you say so. Towards the end he does provide his downbeat assessment of the market's near future stating that the indexes are headed back to at least early 1995 levels. Also, this will be the deepest recession since the 1930's. Levy is a numbers and research man and seems to know what he's talking about so take heed.
Levy comes across as a decent guy but I think this would have been a better book if he'd written it himself without an eye on his legacy. Too much juicy stuff is left out or toned down.
Rating: 
Summary: Total Waste of TIME
Review: This book is an example of how someone with a decent track record in investing thinks they can be as successful in writing, but then fail miserably at creating anything meaningful. I was able to finish this book in less than 9 hours! The author actually makes an attempt at explaining the market based on the theories and doctrines of Behavioral Finance, or so he says. Unfortunately, the book is nothing more than a ramble about the "excess of the late 90's", as if we need more literature on that subject. In reality, the book would be thrown out of Behavioral Finance class rooms as a miserable failure. In one instance, the author refers to Amazon.Com as "nothing more than a mail order house". He also suggests that Amazon's model of selling books is not going to be sufficient to bring this company to profitability. Hmm...Maybe an update is required but this book was published in 2002!! Throughout the book, the author constantly refers to his and his firm's success, suggesting this to be nothing more than a $15 advertisement. There is no resemblance to work such as "Reminiscence of a Stock Operator", which is the classic book on speculator psychology. Unless you have never ever invested in the market and have nothing more than a basic understanding of what an investment is, don't buy this book. Instead, consider work by Schwager, LeFevre, Bernard Baruch and even classic Technical Analysis work such as "TA of Stock Trends", which goes more into the psychology behind successful investing than this author. I also highly recommend the two books written by Victor Neiderhoffer. In instances where the author actually begins to discuss anything remotely close to behavioral finance, he immediately drops off into another subject. He continually refers to the subjects of Greed and Fear. However, greed and fear are merely symptoms of the herd mentality. Nothing new there! On the plus side, Ch. 12 covers EuroDollar Call Options and the benefits of trading these instruments when playing the interest rate curve. Unfortunately, in the middle of this discussion which was no more than a page, he changes the subject abruptly and begins talking about the benefits of archeological digs in present day Syria and why one should make philanthropic donations based on trust. This is literally the next paragraph after EuroDollars!!! If you have an advanced grasp of markets, read "Alchemy of Finance". This is in fact the greatest work on the subject and quite honestly, the recent implementation of Behavioral Finance as a course of study amongst many universities is based on the work of George Soros, the greatest speculator of all time, and his "Theory of Reflexivity", which was first introduced in Alchemy of Finance.
Rating:
Summary: Total Waste of TIME
Review: This book is an example of how someone with a decent track record in investing thinks they can be as successful in writing, but then fail miserably at creating anything meaningful. I was able to finish this book in less than 9 hours! The author actually makes an attempt at explaining the market based on the theories and doctrines of Behavioral Finance, or so he says. Unfortunately, the book is nothing more than a ramble about the "excess of the late 90's", as if we need more literature on that subject. In reality, the book would be thrown out of Behavioral Finance class rooms as a miserable failure. In one instance, the author refers to Amazon.Com as "nothing more than a mail order house". He also suggests that Amazon's model of selling books is not going to be sufficient to bring this company to profitability. Hmm...Maybe an update is required but this book was published in 2002!! Throughout the book, the author constantly refers to his and his firm's success, suggesting this to be nothing more than a $15 advertisement. There is no resemblance to work such as "Reminiscence of a Stock Operator", which is the classic book on speculator psychology. Unless you have never ever invested in the market and have nothing more than a basic understanding of what an investment is, don't buy this book. Instead, consider work by Schwager, LeFevre, Bernard Baruch and even classic Technical Analysis work such as "TA of Stock Trends", which goes more into the psychology behind successful investing than this author. I also highly recommend the two books written by Victor Neiderhoffer. In instances where the author actually begins to discuss anything remotely close to behavioral finance, he immediately drops off into another subject. He continually refers to the subjects of Greed and Fear. However, greed and fear are merely symptoms of the herd mentality. Nothing new there! On the plus side, Ch. 12 covers EuroDollar Call Options and the benefits of trading these instruments when playing the interest rate curve. Unfortunately, in the middle of this discussion which was no more than a page, he changes the subject abruptly and begins talking about the benefits of archeological digs in present day Syria and why one should make philanthropic donations based on trust. This is literally the next paragraph after EuroDollars!!! If you have an advanced grasp of markets, read "Alchemy of Finance". This is in fact the greatest work on the subject and quite honestly, the recent implementation of Behavioral Finance as a course of study amongst many universities is based on the work of George Soros, the greatest speculator of all time, and his "Theory of Reflexivity", which was first introduced in Alchemy of Finance.
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