Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Confusión de Confusiones

Martin S. Fridson is a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch & Co.and a member of Institutional Investor's All-America Research Team.He is the author of Financial Statement Analysis, Second Editionand Investment Illusions, both published by Wiley. Fridson alsoserves on the editorial board of Financial Analysts Journal.

Charles Mackay, L.L.D., was a Scottish journalist in the nineteenthcentury. He received an honorary law degree from Glasgow Universityand was a renowned poet and songwriter.

Joseph de la Vega was a businessman and poet residing inseventeenth-century Amsterdam. He lived in a community ofPortuguese Jews whose ancestors had fled the Spanish Inquisition.