CONFESSIONS OF A WALL STREET INSIDER

From the expectant title to the covert authorship to the glib style to the caustic opinions expressed to the cloying invitation to ""Let me show you around my favorite battleground. . . the most dangerous, most fascinating, most alluring street on the face of the earth,"" this is a copycat of Brutus' Confessions of a Stockbroker (published in January; p. 1233, 1971), except that Brutus' had market potential whereas Hazard does not. His only theme -- and he rides it constantly as if it were something new -- is that the Street is risky business for the investor, ""it is a game of chance,"" the market is rooted in the ""Principle of Certain Uncertainty,"" it is ""not a rational engine,"" etc. Hazard (get it?) also has some equally faded commentary on brokers (don't trust them), advisory services (ditto), ""Our good shepherd"" the SEC (ditto), and his own clever method for psyching the market called the Dart System (as in throwing them at the Journal's quote pages and buying accordingly). Quite a bit of time, too, is spent schmoozing about his Street friends -- Off-A-Point Badly, Odd Bodkins, Obergruppenfuehrer Fleischkopf -- and customers like Fundamental Fred. If you fear Depression, don't go near Hapless Hazard.