Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief article - Book review

Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond. By James Grant. Axios Press, 452 pages. $22.

Many in the financial markets are familiar with James Grant and his smart and sometimes caustic journal, Grant's Interest Rate Observer. The publication's 25th anniversary is the general cause for this book, which comprises a series of essays, organized by broad topic headings, drawn from issues dating back to 1999.

"Mr. Market," he notes, is the fictional creation of investment sage Benjamin Graham, and represents a "manic-depressive" know-nothing clamoring to buy in good times and sell in bad. Grant dismisses him and his opposite, stock indexing. Grant notes in his forward that his journal "has never had a constructive thing to say about the S&P 500."

Grant, whose voice...