This entertaining book describes the global history of economic fluctuations and business cycle theory over more than 300 years. It explains the core of the problem and shows how cycles can be forecast and how they are managed by central banks. The book concludes with detailed studies of how sub-sectors of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, private equity funds, gold, exchange rates, real estate, commodities, art and collectibles fluctuate over different categories of business cycles.

Lars Tvede, holds a master’s degree in Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree in international commerce. He spent 11 years as derivatives trader, portfolio manager and investment banker before moving to the telecommunication and software industries in the mid 1990s, where he co-founded and seed-funded a number high-tech companies. He returned to the financial industry at the start of 2005 to become general partner and fund manager in the Swiss hedge fund company ProValue (www.provalue.ch). Lars Tvede has published several books on general economics, marketing, telecommunication and trading, including his best-selling The Psychology of Finance, which has been translated to all major languages. He lives in Zug, Switzerland.