Take on the Street: How to Fight for Your Financial Future

Investors today are being fed lies and distortions, are being exploited and neglected. In the wake of the last decades rush to invest by millions of households and Wall Streets obsession with short-term performance, a culture of gamesmanship has grown among corporate management, financial analysts, brokers, and fund managers, making it hard to tell financial fantasy from reality, salesmanship from honest advice.

In Take on the Street, Arthur Levittformer chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commissionshows how you can take matters into your own hands. At once anecdotal (names are named), informative, and prescriptive, Take on the Street expounds on, among other subjects: the relationship between broker compensation and your trading account; the conflicts of interest inherent in buy-hold-or-sell recommendations of analysts; what exactly happensand who gets a piece of the actionwhen you place an order; the “seven deadly sins” of mutual funds; the vagaries and vicissitudes of 401(k) investments; how accountants engage in sleight of hand to fake impressive company performance; how to find the truth in a companys financial statements; the real reason for the Streets hostility to full disclosure; the crisis in corporate governance, and, given these shenanigans and double-dealings, what specific steps you can take to safeguard your financial future.

With integrity and authority, Levitt gives us a bracing primer on the collapse of the system for overseeing our capital markets, and sage, essential advice on a discipline we often ignore to our perilhow not to lose money.

From the Hardcover edition.

"Levitt's book is first rate. Read it and be saved." Liz Smith

"The small investor has never had a better friend than former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt. His goal was unwavering: To have markets that served the interests of investors, both large and small." Warren Buffett

"A David battling the Goliaths of Wall Street...with a mighty accurate sling-shot. All his considerable business savvy and political acumen [are] on eloquent display in this book...." Henry Paulson, The Financial Times

In Take on the Street, Arthur Levitt--Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for eight years under President Clinton--provides the best kind of insider information: the kind that can help honest, small investors protect themselves from the deliberately confusing ways of Wall Street.

At a time when investor confidence in Wall Street and corporate America is at an historic low, when many are seriously questioning whether or not they should continue to invest, Levitt offers the benefits of his own experience, both on Wall Street and as its chief regulator. His straight talk about the ways of stockbrokers (they are salesmen, plain and simple), corporate financial statements (the truth is often hidden), mutual fund managers (remember who they really work for), and other aspects of the business will help to arm everyone with the tools they need to protect—and enhance—their financial future.

The ultimate insider reveals the culture of collusion and how it affects the individual investor. With integrity and authority, the former chairman of the SEC gives essential advice on how not to lose money.

First appointed in 1993, Arthur Levitt was the longest-serving SEC chairman. He was also chairman of the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the American Stock Exchange. He co-founded the brokerage firm that eventually became Citigroup. He lives in Connecticut.