Little Kevin doesn’t read the Wall Street Journal, nor does he worry about the US economy. He believes in Santa Claus and loves to munch on a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. Yet, he has created a portfolio of securities that fetch returns that would make a seasoned fund manager turn green with envy. How does he do it? By applying some common sense and simple second-grade arithmetic, with help from...

It is not easy to write a book on market panics and say something new. But this book manages to do that. While it covers interesting topics like types of panics, panic cycle and recent factors that have caused panics, even on something as basic as “is the market always right”, Vines offers fresh perspective. This is all the more surprising because Vines was a journalist. But instead of...