Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004

by Maggie Mahar

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Editorial Reviews
Product Description

In 1982, the Dow hovered below 1000. Then, the market rose and rapidly gained speed until it peaked above 11,000. Noted journalist and financial reporter Maggie Mahar has written the first book on the remarkable bull market that began in 1982 and ended just in the early 2000s. For almost two decades, a colorful cast of characters such as Abby Joseph Cohen, Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget, and Alan Greenspan came to dominate the market news.

This inside look at that 17-year cycle of growth, built upon interviews and unparalleled access to the most important analysts, market observers, and fund managers who eagerly tell the tales of excesses, presents the period with a historical perspective and explains what really happened and why.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

"Buy and hold" does not work, 2008-12-06
The bull market history sheds light on today's volatile stock market - well paced, read quickly and came away with the cardinal lesson "buy and hold" is a myth that does not work. Read how people caught in that trap were led to financial ruin, then look at how you are investing today. Good perspective. Good read.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

BULL!, 2008-11-10
Excellent book, if some people would've read this 5 years ago, we wouldn't be in the current economic mess we're in now :)

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Too important for individual investors to ignore, 2008-05-23
Mahar gives the individual investors a lot to consider with her brilliant history of the stock market from 1982 to 2004. Millions of Americans invest their money directly or indirectly in the stock market. From retirement funds to regular taxable accounts, through mutual funds, individual stocks or hedge funds, billions of dollars get invested. Buy and hold, invest for the long term, don't time the market, buy large blue chips - these are some of the advice that investors are given by "experts". Mahar examines some of these "truths" by taking a more analytical look at not just the stock market, but the players' motives and incentives. For example, why are executives who are getting multimillion dollar salaries need further incentives (ie: stock options) to do their job properly? If a CEO who gets paid 5 million needs stock options to do her job, do you really want her to be the one to run your company? Are stock options really effective in aligning executives' interests with shareholders?

While at times repetitive, I found this book compelling. There are plenty of references and I plan to study some of the characters and sources that the author wrote about. Highly recommend it.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Get a glimpse of bull and bear markets.., 2007-10-09
If you haven't actually observed various bull and bear markets in your life, this is one of the books which will give you different stories of boom and bust during years from 1982 to 2004. I was not observing the markets during the technology boom of 2000, but heard lots of stories on how the technology shares plummeted after the boom period. So I started reading this book to get a feel of what happened during these periods of boom and bust, surely I was not disappointed with the efforts of author in giving the glimpse of different events.

This book has some interesting chapters, one being about how the corporates lobbied to get around revealing the cost of stock options in financial statements and to get immunity from being sued with overly optimistic projections of profits. At times this book is boring with overly descriptions of some personalities who became celebrities during the boom periods and also about some stories of individual investors. So if you haven't really experienced different cycles of boom and bust, then this book might be a good for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Mind-opening views of investment history, 2007-05-14
This is a very well written book about the ups and downs of the stock market. Mahar puts great investors' view points, plus convincing facts through the 20 some years of investment history. A very mind-opening and enjoyable reading. No wonder Warren Buffett recommanded it.

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