Gene G. Marcial has been BusinessWeek's "Inside Wall Street" columnist for the past 26 years, and is a former columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Marcial's BusinessWeek column is one of today's most influential stock columns, and is closely watched by investors and corporate executives alike. A favorable mention in his column often results in a rise in the stock price on the first trading day the magazine becomes available to the public. Marcial received an undergraduate degree in Journalism from the Santo Tomas University in Manila before studying law at the New York Law School and receiving a graduate degree in Political Science from New York University.