There are few more important questions to be answered in modern finance. Financial market history is a guide to understanding the future. Looking at the four occasions when US equities were particularly cheap — 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982 — Russell Napier sets out to answer these questions by analysing every article in the "Wall Street Journal" from either side of the market bottom.

In the 70,000 articles he examines, one begins to understand the features which indicate that a great buying opportunity is emerging.

By looking at how markets really did work in these bear-market bottoms, rather than theorising how they should work, Napier offers investors a financial field guide to making the best financial provisions for the future.

This new edition includes a brand new preface from the author.

Russell Napier is a consultant with Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA) writing on issues affecting global equity markets. After studying law, he began his investment career at Baillie Gifford in Edinburgh managing funds in the Japanese, then the US, and finally the Asian markets. Moving to London he was responsible for managing Asian portfolios. In 1995 he relocated to Hong Kong to become the Asian strategist for CLSA. He occupied that position full time until 1999 during which he was ranked number one for Asian strategy in all major industry polls. Since 1999, apart from fulfilling a consultancy role for CLSA, Russell has created and established a new course called "A Practical History of the Financial Markets" which is taught through Edinburgh Business School.