A mathematician plays the market

Anticipating others' anticipations: falling in love with WorldCom; being right versus being right about the market; my pedagogical cruelty; common knowledge, jealousy and market sell-offs. Fear, greed and cognitive illusions: averaging down or catching a falling knife?; emotional overreactions and home economics; behavioral finance; psychological foibles, a list; self-fulfilling beliefs and data mining; rumors and online chatrooms; pump and dump, short and distort. Trends, crowds and waves: technical analysis - following the followers; the Euro and the golden ratio; moving averages, big picture; resistance and support and all that; predictability and trends; technical strategies and Blackjack; winning through losing?. Chance and efficient markets: geniuses, idiots or neither; efficiency and random walks; pennies and the perception of pattern; a stock-newsletter scam; decimals and other changes; Benford's law and looking out for number one; the numbers man - a screen treatment. Value investing and fundamental analysis: e is the root of all money; the fundamentalists' creed - you get what you pay for; Ponzi and the irrational discounting of the future; average riches, likely poverty; fat stocks, fat people and P/E; contrarian investing and the "Sports Illustrated" cover jinx; accounting practices; WorldCom's problems. Options, risks and volatility: options and the calls of the wild; the lure of illegal leverage; short-selling, margin buying and familial finances; are insider trading and stock manipulation so bad?; expected value, not value expected. what's normal? not six sigma. Diversifying stock portfolios: a reminiscence and the parable; are stocks less risky than bonds?; the St Petersburg paradox and utility; portfolios - benefiting from the Hatfields and McCoys; diversification and politically incorrect funds; beta - is it better? Connectedness and chaotic price movements: insider trading and subterranean information processing; trading strategies, whim and ant behavior chaos and unpredictability; extreme price movements, power laws and the web; economic disparities and media disproportions. From paradox to complexity: the paradoxical efficient market hypothesis; the prisoner's dilemma and the market; pushing the complexity horizon; game theory and supernatural investor/psychologists; absurd emails and the WorldCom denouement.