"The stock market is big news now, influencing every aspect of the modern economy. Accepted wisdom has it that the market will provide retirement security for anyone willing to diligently save and invest. ". "Yet many people still alive can remember a very different time, when the stock market was little more than a primitive insider's game viewed by most Americans with skepticism and suspicion. In Toward Rational Exuberance, B. Mark Smith, a retired stock trader with nearly two decades of practical experience, tells the story of how this stunning transformation occurred. In the course of the narrative, Smith traces the evolution of popular theories of stock market behavior, showing how they have become widely accepted over time and have greatly influenced the way the investing public views the market. But he also shows how some of these theories - such as the notion that the market is often susceptible to speculative "bubbles" that will inevitably burst - are based on faulty interpretations of market history that may lead investors to draw inaccurate conclusions about the market today. "--BOOK JACKET.