TAKE ON THE STREET: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don't Want You to Know—What You Can Do to Fight Back

Levitt, the Securities and Exchange Commission's longest-serving chairman, supervised stock markets during the late 1990s dot-com boom. As working Americans poured billions into stocks and mutual funds, corporate America devised increasingly opaque strategies for hoarding most of the proceeds. Levitt reveals their tactics in plain language, then spells out how to intelligently invest in mutual funds and the stock market. His advice is aimed squarely at small, individual investors, as he explains how to look for clues of malfeasance in annual reports, understand press releases and draw more from reliable sources. Woven throughout are his recollections about the SEC boardroom fights he oversaw. While most of them serve to illustrate a point about the market and its machinations, some passages, often outlining a failure or frustration, are oddly apologetic. In particular, when addressing the origins of recent corporate scandals (e.g., those involving Enron and Arthur Anderson), his effort to lay the responsibility equally on indifferent legislators, special interest groups, greedy CEOs and, perhaps most of all, lazy investors, makes it clear that Levitt wishes to avoid criminalizing corporate officers' actions. (After all, many of them are his friends and colleagues.) The final chapters, detailing how stocks are bought after they're ordered ("Pay Attention to the Plumbing") and retirement plans are structured ("Getting Your 401(k) in Shape") return to practical, profitable advice. One in particular, "Beware False Profits: How to Read Financial Statements," is worth the book's price. Levitt's mini-MBA course—sans the lifelong club connections—should be mandatory reading for anyone with a dollar invested in the stock market. (Oct. 8)

Forecast:Levitt's high profile, coupled with his authority and integrity, will make him a man in demand by the mainstream media. A 150,000 first printing, a big plug to booksellers from the publisher at BookExpo this past May and a big advertising push may put this business book on the bestseller lists.