The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.

In the 1970s we saw a massive shift of household savings from the banks to the brokerage firms.

I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.

We really haven't had very much experience with people funding their retirement out of the stock market, and we don't know, frankly, how it would work under every scenario.

When news of the crash came, probably a lot of people in small towns and farms across America felt a sense of grim satisfaction that the sinners had finally been punished for their wicked ways.

A romantic striving for an impossible ideal.

In the 1920s, Wall Street was a world that was really dominated by professional speculators and stock pools. These people had a monopoly over information.