The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market

Soros, who manages the Quantum mutual fund based in Venezuela, here traces the fund's performance in a controlled experiment using leverage in many markets (stocks, bonds, indexes, currency, etc.), to test the Reaganomics ""imperial circle'' and to demonstrate his own economic theory of ``reflexivity.'' It is investors' perception of market values, claims the author, which perpetuates up-or-down price trends, foreign exchange movements, periodic government regulation, and so on. The most studious investment calculations, he concedes, are in the end more alchemy than science. As to such problems as the massive U.S. domestic and trade deficits and the Damoclean Third World debt, Soros offers innovative suggestions, including an international oil-based currency and a system of variable interest-rate bonds keyed to the volume of a borrower country's export trade. (June 30)