Just as spin has taken over politics in America, so too has it come to define the long bull market on Wall Street. The booming trade in stocks, which has become a national obsession, has produced an insatiable demand for financial intelligence - and plenty of new, highly paid players eager to supply it. On television and the Internet, commentators and analysts are not merely reporting the news, they are making news in ways that provide huge windfalls for some investors and crushing losses for others. And they often traffic in rumor, speculation, and misinformation that hit the market at warp speed. Howard Kurtz, widely recognized as America's best media reporter, and the man who revealed the inner workings of the Clinton administration's press operation in the national bestseller Spin Cycle, here turns his skeptical eye on the business-media revolution that has transformed the American economy. He uncovers the backstage pressures at television shows like CNBC's Squawk Box and CNN's Moneyline; at old-media bastions like The Wall Street Journal and Business Week, which are racing to keep up with the twenty-four-hour news cycle; and at Internet start-ups like TheStreet.com and JagNotes, real-time operations in the very arena where fortunes are made and lost with stunning swiftness. Bombarded by all this white noise, who among the fortune tellers can investors really trust? Kurtz provides an indispensable guide with this eye-opening account of an unseen world, based on eighteen months of shadowing the most influential, colorful, and egotistical people in business and journalism. Among the people we meet in its pages are: * Ron Insana, Maria Bartiromo, David Faber, Lou Dobbs, and the other famous faces of cable TV * The manic king-of-all-media Jim Cramer, who juggles four different identities - Wall Street trader, television commentator, columnist, and Internet entrepreneur - with wildly varying degrees of success * Shoe-leather reporters Steve Lipin, Chris Byron, and Gene Marcial, whose exclusives drive up stocks or quickly deflate them * Superstar analysts Ralph Acampora, Abby Joseph Cohen, and Henry Blodget, whose predictions make the Dow and Nasdaq gyrate * Internet CEOs Kim Polese and Kevin O'Connor, who struggle to ride the media tiger while promoting their high-flying companies No one has ever reported from inside the Wall Street media machine or laid bare the bitter feuds, cozy friendships, and whispered leaks that move the market. Kutrz exposes the disturbing conflicts of interest among the brokerage analysts and fund managers whose words can boost or bash stocks - thanks to scoop-hungry journalists who rarely question whether these gurus are right or wrong. And he chronicles the journalistic hype that helped propel Net stocks into the stratosphere until they began plummeting back to earth. In a time of head-spinning volatility, The Fortune Tellers is essential reading for all of us who gamble our savings in today's overheated stock market.

Marcia VickersBusiness WeekAn impressive job of penetrating the rumors, hidden alliances, and cutthroatcompetition that drive financial news.

David LazarusSan Francisco ChronicleA must-read account of the way stock prices are manipulated by information-hungry media outlets and no-account market analysts.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Spin Cycle comes this engrossing, entertaining exposé of how the media — from television to newspapers to the Internet — drive the financial markets today.

The booming economy and mass investing have produced an insatiable demand for financial news and given rise to a group of "fortune tellers" eager to scoop and spread the latest intelligence. In this riveting, unsettling book, Howard Kurtz introduces the powerful journalists, commentators, and analysts whose reports — too often based on rumor, speculation, and misinformation — have a real-time impact on the rise and fall of stocks and on the financial health of millions of investors.

Focusing on such well-known figures as cable TV's Ron Insana, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs; Christopher Byron and other print reporters who specialize in exclusives; and superstar analysts Ralph Acampora and Henry Blodget, The Fortune Tellers is an incisive, often amusing, and sometimes terrifying report by a journalist well known for his sharp-eyed observations and behind-the-scenes access. In a time of head-spinning volatility, The Fortune Tellers is essential reading for all of us who gamble with our savings in today's overheated stock market.

Howard Kurtz is the media reporter for The Washington Post, and also writes a weekly column for the newspaper and a daily blog for its website. He is also host of CNN's Reliable Sources, the longest-running media criticism show on television. His previous books include New York Times bestselling Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine (1998) and The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation (2000). His book Hot Air: All Talk All the Time (1996) was named by Business Week as one of the ten best business books of the year and Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers (1993) was chosen as the best recent book about the news media by American Journalism Review. Kurtz joined The Washington Post in 1981, and his work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Newsweek, New York, and other national magazines. He lives with his family in Chevy Chase, Maryland.