Long the preferred method of exchange for antiques and horseflesh, auctions are used today to sell everything from bestselling books to real estate, government bonds to abandoned automobiles. As sociologist Charles Smith reveals, the mechanical law of supply and demand rarely governs the auction process. Rather value is determined by a complex social process combining both the beliefs and actions of the auction participants and the assumptions and practices on the auction floor. Based on years of participation in and observation of different types of auctions and interviews with hundreds of...

This book takes the reader on an insiderOs tour of the psychology of stock market investing. In more than 3,000 hours of interviews and observations, Smith granted some of the most famous insiders on Wall Street the protection of anonymity to procure their deepest and most frank views on the operation of the market. Their words are heard here in vivid and often surprising detail. What emerges is a startling portrait of how the prejudices of six different types of players_fundamentalists, insiders, cyclists, traders, efficient market believers, and transformational idea adherents_influence the...