Market Shock: 9 Economic and Social Upheavals That Will Shake Your Financial Future--and What to Do About Them

Will you keep your job as the Internet creates the "Scissors Economy," snipping white collar workers out of the labor market? Should you bet that the pharmaceutical scientists who developed Viagra will conquer Alzheimer's and breast cancer? Will your nest-egg expand or crack when the Japanese economy finally comes back to life and when China muscles in on more than just Nike shoes and Barbie dolls? Is your portfolio equipped to handle Generations X, Y and Z, who may resent the Baby Boomers' social security and instead go on their own shopping spree? Should you jump into fast-growing minority-oriented investments, as whites lose their majority among American families?

In a book that is revolutionary in both substance and style, Todd Buchholz, former White House economist, Harvard professor and managing director of the Tiger investment fund offers a masterful guide to the forces that will rock the financial markets in the coming years. Market Shock: 9 Economic and Social Upheavals That Will Shake Your Financial Future--and What to Do About Them probes the momentous economic and social events that will shape the next century in order to highlight the investment opportunities and risks these changes will present.

With a sweeping command of the latest economic and demographic data, Buchholz, author of the best-selling New Ideas from Dead Economists, explores the cutting edge of research in science, finance, and sociology to forecast some of the volatile scenarios that will move the markets. There are no arid, mathematical models here, however; Buchholz drives home his closely-argued analyses with novelistic flair, presenting a series of vignettes featuring fictional characters whose lives are shaken and stirred by the socioeconomic megatrends. Each chapter begins with a "docudrama" news flash, depicting the crisis in an urgent, timely style.

Market Shock is no doomsday tome, however, as it points to the uplifting as well as the worrisome trends, and it continually showsreaders how to prepare themselves for the coming changes. As more and more Americans leap into the stock market, this remarkable book's message is especially timely. The blissful news from Wall Street in the '90s¾ when even cab drivers are touting their favorite IPOs¾ has tempted many to turn over their portfolios to an automatic pilot that forever steers their money into stocks. Buchholz asks whether that automatic pilot isprepared for the metaphoric earthquakes that will shake the financial markets in the next few years, including such changes as:

• The rapid spread of the Internet, which enriches and empowers consumers, while frightening corporate titans
• The collapse of the mutual fund industry
• The aging of the Boomers along with the surging economic performance of minorities and immigrants in America
• Japan's new plans to buy up technology firms and create the "Jelly Doughnut" economy

Today's frothing young traders on Wall Street do not remember Leonid Brezhnev or the frightening power of OPEC in the 1970s, Buchholz notes. Can they handle the tectonic shifts ahead? Market Shock argues that individuals and families who want to protect and grow their wealth should not blindly lock themselves onto the stock market bandwagon. The markets will, no doubt, react to the explosive changes in the world: sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. With his customary wit and probing intelligence, Todd Buchholz shows investors and would-be investors how to get off that dangerous bandwagon and start looking out for themselves in the treacherous financial markets. After all, Buchholz says, George Soros and Warren Buffett didn't get rich following the crowd, they waved to the crowd in their rear-view mirrors.

About the Author:

Todd G. Buchholz is a leading expert on global economic trends who appears frequently on national programs including "World News Tonight," "Nightline" and "Good Morning America." Mr. Buchholz has served as a White House economic advisor, a managing director of the eminent Tiger investment fund, and was awarded the annual teaching prize by the Harvard Department of Economics. Mr. Buchholz is the chairman of Victoria Capital, based in Washington, D.C., and was recently called to advise Gov. George W. Bush on the megatrends of the new, technology-driven economy. He is a contributing editor to Worth Magazine and the author of the best-selling New Ideas from Dead Economists.