Book Description
How do we find hot stocks without getting burned? How do we fatten our portfolios and stay financially healthy? Former hedge-fund manager and longtime Wall Street commentator Jim Cramer explains how to invest wisely in chaotic times, and he does so in plain English in a style that is as much fun as investing is -- or should be, when it's done right.
For starters, Cramer recommends devoting a portion of your assets to speculation. Everyone wants to find the big winners that can bring outsized gains, and Cramer explains how to allocate your portfolio so that you can afford to take this kind of risk wisely. He explains why "buy and hold" is a losing philosophy: For Cramer, it's "buy and homework." If you can't spend an hour a week researching each of your stocks, then you should hand off your portfolio to a mutual fund -- and Cramer identifies the very few mutual funds that he'd recommend.
Cramer reveals his Ten Commandments of Trading (Commandment #5: Tips are for waiters). He explains why he's not afraid to compare investing to gambling (and tells you which book on gambling you should read to become a better investor). He discloses his Twenty-Five Rules of Investing (Rule #4: Look for broken stocks, not broken companies).
Cramer shows how to compare stock prices in a way that you can understand, how to spot market tops and bottoms, how to know when to sell, how to rotate among cyclical stocks to catch the big moves, and much more. Jim Cramer's Real Money is filled with insider advice that really works, information that Cramer himself used to make millions during his fourteen-year career on Wall Street.
Written in Cramer's distinctive turbocharged style, this is every investor's guide to what you really must know to make big money in the stock market.
Download Description
"How do we find hot stocks without getting burned? How do we fatten our portfolios and stay financially healthy? Former hedge-fund manager and longtime Wall Street commentator Jim Cramer explains how to invest wisely in chaotic times, and he does so in plain English in a style that is as much fun as investing is -- or should be, when it's done right. For starters, Cramer recommends devoting a portion of your assets to speculation. Everyone wants to find the big winners that can bring outsized gains, and Cramer explains how to allocate your portfolio so that you can afford to take this kind of risk wisely. He explains why ""buy and hold"" is a losing philosophy: For Cramer, it's ""buy and homework."" If you can't spend an hour a week researching each of your stocks, then you should hand off your portfolio to a mutual fund -- and Cramer identifies the very few mutual funds that he'd recommend. Cramer reveals his Ten Commandments of Trading (Commandment #5: Tips are for waiters). He explains why he's not afraid to compare investing to gambling (and tells you which book on gambling you should read to become a better investor). He discloses his Twenty-Five Rules of Investing (Rule #4: Look for broken stocks, not broken companies). Cramer shows how to compare stock prices in a way that you can understand, how to spot market tops and bottoms, how to know when to sell, how to rotate among cyclical stocks to catch the big moves, and much more. Jim Cramer's Real Money is filled with insider advice that really works, information that Cramer himself used to make millions during his fourteen-year career on Wall Street. Written in Cramer's distinctive turbocharged style, this is every investor's guide to what you really must know to make big money in the stock market. "
Customer Reviews:
Great book for learning about trading stocks.......2007-10-02
Jim Cramer's book is full of usefull and sound advice about investing in stocks. All his rules make common sense and should be easy for anyone to apply in thier own investing. Discipline is the key, and he stresses that. He didn't become a multi-millionaire and get his own show on CNBC by being a dummy. No one can be right all the time, and Cramer is no exception, but he is right much more than he is wrong. And that is all you need to make alot of money on Wall Street. Dont listen to the Cramer haters out there, THEY KNOW NOTHING!!! and will never come close to duplicating Cramer's investing success.
Great Book for any Investor........2007-10-01
I am just starting to dabble in the stock market so I'm trying to learn as much as I can right now.
This book is very easy to understand and a very fast read. Being a really big fan of Cramer already this was a 'no-brainer', and although he is very educated he really translates his thoughts and advice in an easy to understand way.
I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the stock market.
Mad Man? Not really, more a Market Genius.......2007-09-29
Not much value on my side reviewing this book for the hundreds time. What's the take away?
I've been investing in stocks for nearly 20 years, with at least so much success that I keep with it, more or less. The difference is now I get why stocks move or don't (at least much more than I did before). And this book (and his show) is key to that. Awesome guiding priciples, rules of thumb, and market insights.
It's a fun book to read, if you have a certain level of interest in the business world, which is kind if key, of course. Many good laughs! I love his style (which I'm sure many might find offensive or so). But heck, it works for me. I bought both his other books as well. It's so good. The return on this "investment" can't be calculated. Hope this helps! :-)
Fundamental investing in a layman's language.......2007-09-23
Booya Jim!! This is a great book about investing using a fundamental approach. What is great is that the basics of investing are explained in a layman's language. You have to read chapter 5 to get a basic 101 on business cycles and how to exploit the cycle in buying and selling stocks.
I can list all the chapters and what they tell you about or list all the rules Jim explains - but that is rote repetition. Read chapter 4 about basics of evaluation. Jim does a wonderful job about comparing apples to apples e.g., Walgreen to RiteAid and goes into depth why he thinks what should be bought. This lesson alone is worth the price of the book for an investor starting out. Another good lesson is to evaluate the current value of a stock.
Of course, you can attend some expensive classes and get uncompreshensible instructions in an university, but for the price of the book, the value of the lessons here cannot be beaten.
In addition to business cycles, Jim gives some great insights e.g., he states that it is stupid to consider investing and trading as a dichotomy. How true! His famous buy-and-homework approach is like hearing a great 101 lesson from a Professor who also knows the real world. I haven't made any money in buying and holding. My emotions eventually have gotten hold of me. Instead, you need to know when to buy and when to sell. There are separate chapters on predicting tops and bottoms of both the market and individual stocks - again, wonderful reads.
In addition there are 40 rules about investing. Some gems are "I don't care what you paid for the stock, would you buy it now?" question to paraphrase. He gives a lot of credit to the Goddess, now his wife!
All in all, a great book and a must-have book in your investing library. I read the book almost two times so that I could reinforce the lessons, especially about valuation and business cycles. My style of investing, which has been pretty successful, is both a combination of fundamental and technical factors, while Jim's is more fundamental. But the fundamental 101s in the book is useful and should be a must background for anyone wanting to put their hard-earned money on the fire in the stock market.
Super Read.......2007-08-26
Awesome Read! I've read a few investment books, but this one is the best! I've been out of the market for a bit, my old way to investing had not produced what I thought it could. Jim has turned me around and retaught what all the professors in college could not. Super fast read, and I could not thank Jim enought for sharing is expertise. I feel like a new and better invester....Homework, Homework, Homework...the Key to succuess.
Five Stars******
Book Description
“We're going to raise traders just like they raise turtles in Singapore.”
So trading guru Richard Dennis reportedly said to his long-time friend William Eckhardt nearly 25 years ago. What started as a bet about whether great traders were born or made became a legendary trading experiment that, until now, has never been told in its entirety.
Way of the Turtle reveals, for the first time, the reasons for the success of the secretive trading system used by the group known as the “Turtles.” Top-earning Turtle Curtis Faith lays bare the entire experiment, explaining how it was possible for Dennis and Eckhardt to recruit 23 ordinary people from all walks of life and train them to be extraordinary traders in just two weeks.
Only nineteen years old at the time-the youngest Turtle by far-Faith traded the largest account, making more than $30 million in just over four years. He takes you behind the scenes of the Turtle selection process and behind closed doors where the Turtles learned the lucrative trading strategies that enabled them to earn an average return of over 80 percent per year and profits of more than $100 million. You'll discover
- How the Turtles made money-the principles that guided their trading and the step-by-step methods they followed
- Why, even though they used the same approach, some Turtles were more successful than others
- How to look beyond the rules as the Turtles implemented them to find core strategies that work for any tradable market
- How to apply the Turtle Way to your own trades-and in your own life
- Ways to diversify your trading and limit your exposure to risk
Offering his unique perspective on the experience, Faith explains why the Turtle Way works in modern markets, and shares hard-earned wisdom on taking risks, choosing your own path, and learning from your mistakes.
Customer Reviews:
Shell Game.......2007-10-01
The reviews would have you believe that this book is a great tutorial on trading. It's not. Instead, I found it to be jargon filled, difficult to understand, and internally inconsistent. Save your money.
Below the Moving Average of Expectations.......2007-09-01
I rarely like to trade against the market, but if the reviews on this board are the market, then I'm short. Like most of the reviews here, I was lured into buying this book primarily by the mystic surrounding the Turtles. Now, as far as my curiosity about how that 1980s bet began and played out, I was not disappointed. Faith spars no ink on letting the reader into how the Turtles were formed and what is was like trading within the group. What was missing, I thought, was anything approaching the hype. Faith gives short srift to some of the actual trades made, instead choosing to focus on general requirements that might have not been common then, but are standard practice for today's active commodities trader. Perhaps that statement is proof of just how successful the bet was. If so, praise be to the Turtles -- but this doesn't make the book worth the time or the money.
Interesting and Informative.......2007-08-31
Easy to read and captivating for those interested in the trading "lore." Also provides simplistic insight into systematic trading - not bad for those just getting into the game.
A real turtle speaks.......2007-08-22
This book is the real deal. No hype or BS. Very refreshing to finally see the real turtle rules explained in context by someone who lived them. You read the exact rules the turtles used AND why they had those rules. In a market full of books by posers this book shines.
This book has what all the other trend following books don't: A deep understanding of trading as a game of risk and clear thinking. The most valuable and enjoyable features of this excellent book is the clarity of the ideas expressed. This is only possible from someone who deeply understands them. Reading this book was a pleasure (except for the self involved foreword by Van Tharp).
Had high expectations but were not met by a long shot............2007-08-17
This book was supposed to teach you the way the turtle traders made millions, this book has some basic trading strategies that you can find in any other trading basics book. Jim Cramer's books teach you much more than this one, dont waste your money.
Book Description
The bestselling author of Pioneering Portfolio Management, the definitive template for institutional fund management, returns with a book that shows individual investors how to manage their financial assets.
In Unconventional Success, investment legend David F. Swensen offers incontrovertible evidence that the for-profit mutual-fund industry consistently fails the average investor. From excessive management fees to the frequent "churning" of portfolios, the relentless pursuit of profits by mutual-fund management companies harms individual clients. Perhaps most destructive of all are the hidden schemes that limit investor choice and reduce returns, including "pay-to-play" product-placement fees, stale-price trading scams, soft-dollar kickbacks, and 12b-1 distribution charges.
Even if investors manage to emerge unscathed from an encounter with the profit-seeking mutual-fund industry, individuals face the likelihood of self-inflicted pain. The common practice of selling losers and buying winners (and doing both too often) damages portfolio returns and increases tax liabilities, delivering a one-two punch to investor aspirations.
In short: Nearly insurmountable hurdles confront ordinary investors.
Swensen's solution? A contrarian investment alternative that promotes well-diversified, equity-oriented, "market-mimicking" portfolios that reward investors who exhibit the courage to stay the course. Swensen suggests implementing his nonconformist proposal with investor-friendly, not-for-profit investment companies such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. By avoiding actively managed funds and employing client-oriented mutual-fund managers, investors create the preconditions for investment success.
Bottom line? Unconventional Success provides the guidance and financial know-how for improving the personal investor's financial future.
Customer Reviews:
Investment to avoid-buying this book.......2007-09-02
While I have a lot of respect for Swensen's practical success with the endowment, his book has some great advice and some really poor advice. Swensen is to be commended for steering the investments from the '85 asset allocation to where it is today. It was visionary, courageous, very rewarding.
The author does a great job of advising investors to reduce exposure to US large cap equities, and the rationale behind it. He also makes a logical case for increasing exposure to various international equity and fixed income markets.
Where he goes astray, in my opinion, is by suggesting that investors look to index funds as a panacea for investing. While he and his team at Yale have found exceptional managers who bring value (above index returns, on a net of fee basis), he assumes that individual investors cannot. While few investors have the negotiating skill set he has (due to his Assets Under Management), individual investors who spend a few hours a month can find money managers via mutual funds that consistently outperform their peers and benchmarks.
Let me sum up his book for you: own a LOT more baskets to put your eggs in, than just the standard 5-6 you may have in your 401k, and invest in low cost index funds.
My suggestion: take the first bit of advice, and instead of low-cost index funds, find managers who consistently beat the indexes, and rebalance annually.
Oh, and borrow the book from the library instead of padding his wallet.
Its clear Mr. Swensen has never held the hand of an Individual Investor.......2007-07-21
I loved David Swensen's white paper about institutional portfolio construction; I liked his book on Pioneering Portfolio Management: An Unconventional Approach to Institutional Investment- with this book he stepped outside his area of expertise.
Among the rare few Investing Classics..........2007-04-26
This is a remarkably good book. Almost any investor will benefit from reading this book. Swensen distills a lot of wisdom into this volume touching on all aspects of Portfolio Policy. It would be rare for even very advanced investors to not gain a new insight or two from reading this book.
Having said that, I have a couple of issues with this book.
- Swensen's writing style is very labored. It was hard to read more than a few pages at a time. Not because the material was difficult, but because of his writing style.
- I am frankly puzzled by Swensen's glowing recommendation of Southeastern Asset Management (a Mutual Fund company that owns Longleaf Partners Funds). While Longleaf is a good fund outfit, I don't see how Longleaf is that much different from other, better Value style Mutual Fund companies out there. I don't see how Longleaf is any different from Dodge and Cox or Oakmark. I just don't see Longleaf being that special, so I am puzzled at Swensen's singling them out as exemplary. As I write this, Longleaf has one of the most expensive International Equity funds out there - with an Expense Ratio of 1.61%, compare that with an International Index Fund that you can buy at Vanguard for 25 basis points ! Charging almost 1.5%/year more in expenses will require some exceptional Active Management from Longleaf to generate returns, the odds are against investors in the active fund there.
A Standout Book!.......2007-03-29
This is an indispensable investment book in my opinion. Swensen clearly has an original and unique perspective on investing. There are plenty of books out there in favor of passive management, low costs, and asset-class investing. Here are some of the ideas and concepts he presents in this book that make him stand out from the crowd:
1. He believes treasuries are practically the only bonds worth considering for the individual investor. The chapter in which he discusses it is very interesting, and his arguments are compelling.
2. He is not a devout believer of efficient markets, and acknowledges that superior active performance can be attributed to skill. He explains that there are two games being played: short-term and long-term active management. Unfortunately, since most managers are pressured to have good annual, quarterly, or even monthly returns, they must think short-term, and are unable to invest for the longterm. The longterm game, consisting of far fewer players, is a completely different playing field.
3. He focuses an extraordinary amount of time on the profit-seeking behavior of mutual fund companies, and why they are detrimental to investors. Alignment of interests between shareholders and managers is a major theme in his book.
He suggests investors to construct a portfolio of passive, capitalization-weighted index funds (or ETF's), combined with treasuries and TIPS. Unlike Bogle and other pro-indexing gurus, Swensen seems to focus more on avoiding shareholder-unfriendliness than he is on the other benefits of index funds (style-purity, low costs, etc.). He also ignores Fama-French size and value factor loading, which is fine. There are other great books on portfolio design (William Bernstein is pretty much all you need to read on that subject).
My only complaint about the book is that he seems to enjoy reemphasizing points. Swensen will summarize his thoughts throughout the chapter, and one more time at the end of each chapter, and then a whole final chapter devoted to more summarizing. I think this book could have been 2/3rds the length with essentially the same content. However, that is a minor complaint, compared to the vast amount of knowledge I gained from reading the book. Highly recommended!
Interesting book, but not quite what I expected/wanted.......2007-03-15
Based on the title, the author's background, and the little I'd read about the book, I expected this to be mainly a 'how to' manual - how to best manage one's funds for maximum returns.
While there was some of that in the book, in fact the focus seemed more on castigating much of the financial industry for their misdeeds and greed. If you've read John Bogle's writings, you've seen some of this before, but Unconventional Success is perhaps even a bit more detailed and clear on the misalignment of interests between investors and financial products providers, and how that leads to the investors being taken for a ride in various ways.
So, there's a lot of "don't do this, don't buy that product"-type information in the book. As far as what he DOES recommend, he's relatively brief, and, IMO, doesn't go into enough detail. He advocates splitting your money among 6 major asset classes, and staying with low cost funds, mainly those offered by non-profit companies (Vanguard and TIAA-CREF). But there's not enough support for his statements that asset class X should be 15% of your portfolio and asset class Y should be some other percentage. He briefly discusses historical returns for asset classes and touches on some reasons why returns may differ going forward, but again, there's not much detail there.
Yale's endowment (which Swensen manages, very well) is known for unconventional investments (thus, perhaps, the book's title). But if you want to read about timber or other natural resources, or see much detail on why Yale's endowment is so successful, you won't find it here. Admittedly, many of the options available to Yale are not available to the common investor, or if they are, are so watered down with extra fees as to be unsuitable. Still, I was little disappointed about the lack of reference to his own investment strategies at Yale, which are the reason most of us have heard of him and the reason I bought the book.
One thing that was interesting to me was his analysis of why some indexes aren't well suited for use as a mutual fund benchmark. I have a significant slice of my portfolio in a fund that uses the Russell 2000 value index as a benchmark, and the Russell indexes are called out for criticism in the book. I will keep the criticisms in mind in planning future allocations/re-allocations.
Overall, it was an interesting read - I blew through it in one night. But it was not quite what I expected...
Book Description
Designed to form the basis of an undergraduate course in mathematical finance, this book builds on mathematical models of bond and stock prices and covers three major areas of mathematical finance that all have an enormous impact on the way modern financial markets operate, namely: Black-Scholes’ arbitrage pricing of options and other derivative securities; Markowitz portfolio optimization theory and the Capital Asset Pricing Model; and interest rates and their term structure. Assuming only a basic knowledge of probability and calculus, it covers the material in a mathematically rigorous and complete way at a level accessible to second or third year undergraduate students. The text is interspersed with a multitude of worked examples and exercises, so it is ideal for self-study and suitable not only for students of mathematics, but also students of business management, finance and economics, and anyone with an interest in finance who needs to understand the underlying theory.
Customer Reviews:
Mathematics for Finance: A useful tool for the unskillled investor.......2007-03-19
I enjoyed reading the book and solving exercises in it. I have a Ph.D.in chemistry and my wife and I did our his and her's MBA in the 1990s. I wanted to learn more concepts in finance and needed an easy entry, something I could enjoy, and without spending much money. The book by Capinski came recommended from a friend who teaches Economics at Cal State. I can speak for myself: I feel reasonably informed and I feel the book gave me concepts I can use to handle my own portfolio.
In the future, this text should be offered with an interactive CD that contains Xls, matrix, calculus, and graphing capabilities so one (I) can visualize the outcomes of proposed solutions.
Incoherent.......2007-01-18
Anyone can scribble a bunch of equations on paper and call it a book. Without sufficient context, they are useless.
Insufficient and disappointing. Not even a good introductury text........2006-05-15
As a graduate student in Financial Engineering I have found this book useless.
The title of the book is "Mathematics for Finance", but can you find in it even an elementary introduction to the stochastic processes? No. Ditto for the Ito's lemma and many other topics. The derivation of the Black Scholes formula is just sketched, and the insight that you can get from it is very limited.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind these limitations if this book provided a clear introduction to more advanced topics: unfortunately this book is not good even in that. In comparison to other textbooks the theorems and definitions are convoluted and do not go straight to the point. For example, in Shreve's "Stochastic Calculus for Finance" or Baxter & Rennie "Financial Calculus" the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing is stated in this way: "In a market with risk neutral probability there is no arbitrage". Can you find such a simple and explanatory definition in Capinski's book? Not at all. The theorem at page 83 (you can see it yourself by searching inside the book) basically says the same thing using 8 lines of text and little financial intuition.
The only good thing that I can say about this book is that all exercises are resolved.
Overall, "Mathematics for Finance" has been a big disappointment: it doesn't have either the mathematical depth of Shreve's books or the conciseness in explaining financial concepts of Baxter & Rennie.
Whatever is the level of education that you are pursuing, graduate or undergraduate, I don't see any point in using it.
Great Book for Undergrad Quants.......2005-08-29
Mathematics for Finance (An Introduction to Financial Engineering) is a book intended for undergrad students "IN MATHEMATICS" or other discipline with a relative high mathematical content.
The book assumes some basic notion of Calculus and Probability Theory and it is focused more on the mathematics than in its theory and application of Finance. If you are looking to dwell into the mathematics (Proof of Equations) this is a great book, but if you are looking for a book that is rich in theory and in application then you should consider "Option, Future and Other Derivatives" or "Quantitative Methods for Finance" as an alternative. Both books are "a most" for any finance student and are of great help. Now if you want an introduction into the mathematics behind Finance then this book is a perfect purchase.
Important to state that all the problems presented in this book are solved meaning that it is great for self teaching. Marek Capinsi and Thomas Zastawniak have done a great job on this book.
I gave it four stars, because it has room for impovement.
Joining the chorus.......2005-08-03
I can only echo the other reviewers. As far as I can tell this book has no serious competition. This is an excellent introduction to mathematical finance for those with a solid undergraduate level understanding of higher math but without graduate level exposure. I agree that it is ideal for self study as that is exactly what I am using it for. The price is right especially in contrast with its overpriced brethren. Five stars!
Book Description
Expert tactics to become make the most of every swing trade
In Mastering the Trade, veteran trader and educator John Carter shares his hard-won five-point technique for successful swing trading. In addition, Carter helps you move to the next level of confidence by explaining how markets really work and detailing behind-the-scenes market mechanics.
Customer Reviews:
Too many incongruences.......2007-10-08
I have just bought this book. Went to Chapter 8 and study it deeply. I challenge anyone to understand the strategy explained as there are many incongruence between what explained and the example charts. How can a trading book be confusing?
Do not trust my opinion? I challenge anyone to find chapter eight congruent. I challenge anyone.
Suggestion: do not buy this book.
Excellent.......2007-09-30
Well rounded book on trading for people to gain an overview of all markets. The best ones like this are by those who actually trade.
This is one of the first I read as a beginner, where some of the things were over my head but still held a lot of interest. Re-reading it now brings out the full benefit. Great book.
Anyone knocking this book does not trade daily........2007-09-27
When I first heard the reviews of John Carter's Book ,I was a bit confused. Some people said the book was great, some said it sucks. Then I bought the book and read it. This book is a very good look at trading from top to bottom and in the middle. The people that are dogging this book must not trade at all period. These are very simple and easy strategies to follow with examples to support. PLEASE BACKTEST and USE TIGHTER STOPS, because the guy is either filthy rich or got balls of steel....I am sure Carter did not put a lot of his losers in the book but he did put some. I find it sad that people dog this guy so much. Yeah, he is greedy..very greedy, but his products are what they are, GOOD. My only complaint is his DVD's are 2400.00 and his open software indicators are copied from the Tradestation library and are 1600.00. ALL in all he has a great book and a good website with a free trial that is only 14 bucks. He has some excel downloads worth that alone. Buy this book if you want to day trade or get a better perspective of other succesful traders. You will learn a lot. Try to buy his other products 2nd hand they are too HIGH. If the guy's products wasn't so high he would be a lot more popular and respected. He has been called a snake oil salesman. He is not that,he is just a greedy salesman and a helluva trader... Great Book on trading!!!!!!!!!
Great Read.......2007-09-08
I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it!! It covers all aspects of trading not just strategies and setups e.g. trading tools, trading mindset etc....lots of great information on futures, equities, options and forex.
A great trader's course.......2007-08-10
This book is a great trader's course. The author tells you everything you need to know, from selecting computer hardware (this info might be a bit dated), to risk management, financial psychology, discipline needed to trade all markets. There are about 10 chapters with setups where the author shows you the entry, exit points and stop loss points and gives about 4 or 5 examples of how he successfully traded each of the setups he is showing you. My only complaint is that the author only shows 3 or 4 failures in the whole book. This might lead a person to be overconfident and think that trading is so easy a caveman can do it. :)
If the author has a dozen setups that can work in any market, and he can trade 24/7 on the global markets, forex, etc. and he applies the risk and money management techniques in his book and he only has a 6% failure rate, he should be a multi-billionaire by now.
Overall, a very good book, but the author makes trading seem a lot easier than it really is. In real life trading, unlike the book, you won't have only 3 failures for every 50 successes.
Book Description
From the time of its first publication five years ago, The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing has established itself as a clear, concise, and highly effective approach to stocks and investment strategy. Since the dot.com crash and ensuing bear market, significant changes have come about in the investing world, and The Neatest Little Guide takes this into account. In this revised edition, readers will learn:
€ Strategies on how to double the Dow with one simple investment and the latest products required for this approach
€ Methods investors can use to avoid disasters such as Enron and WorldCom
€ Thoroughly updated reference lists, including new websites, new software, new brokers, and new publications
With the right information for investors to keep pace, and rooted in the principles that made it invaluable from the start, The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing is a resource that no serious investor can be without.
Customer Reviews:
Best Investing Book I have read so far!!!.......2007-10-15
AS I was looking for another book, someone left a book saying,"... if your a beginner at investing check out The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing." I am so thankful to that person, best decision of my life. If you know nothing about investing this book is for you. If your an investor and want to add a different strategy to your porfolio, check this book out.
Out of the several books I have read on the subject of investing this was not boring at all. At times, the author throws humor into this book. I love this book and can't wait to get the 2008 edition.
Review of Revised Editon NLG to Stock Market Investing.......2007-10-14
I am constantly on the lookout for books that I am comfortable sending my children to educate them about investing. Particularly with respect to managing your own portfolio rather than settling for the SP500 with mutual funds (or chasing it depending on your funds). This book is a good introduction to the language of the stock market, develops a model for stock picking, and a system to manage stocks currently invested and stocks under consideration for investing. This lays the groundwork for investing in a non-emotional way.
I can only add; I purchased a second copy for my daughter after passing on the first copy to my son with my recommendation.
EXCELLENT LITTLE BOOK!!!.......2007-10-02
If you are looking for simple and direct answers on how to invest in the stock market, then this book is for you. I also would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn the basics but does not have the technical background needed to go deeper in financial analysis. Great book!!!
Great Book for Market Begginers.......2007-08-28
I found this book a great starting point in my investment journey. There are lots of great basioc information, yet i found the book a joy to read.
Great Introduction to stock market investing!.......2007-08-28
An easy to read introduction to stock investing! I have not yet finish it (since I just got it recently) but what I have seen so far could get someone from having no real knowledge to having a kick start about stock market investing. The great thing about the book is that the end of the book is not really the end, as there is the website, which provides even more useful articles on investing and personal finance. For those who are really interested in investing could also subscribe to the news letter that the author has put out, which has a small subscription fee but it is really nothing compared to other sites that offer similar services.
Book Description
Sound, sensible advice from a hero to frustrated investors everywhere
William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing gives investors the tools they need to construct top-returning portfolios--without the help of a financial adviser. In a relaxed, nonthreatening style, Dr. Bernstein provides a distinctive blend of market history, investing theory, and behavioral finance, one designed to help every investor become more self-sufficient and make better-informed investment decisions. The 4 Pillars of Investing explains how any investor can build a solid foundation for investing by focusing on four essential lessons, each building upon the other. Containing all of the tools needed to achieve investing success, without the help of a financial advisor, it presents:
- Practical investing advice based on fascinating history lessons from the market
- Exercises to determine risk tolerance as an investor
- An easy-to-understand explanation of risk and reward in the capital markets
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read!.......2007-09-24
One of the best books I have ever read on investing. I have been recommending it to everyone I know.
Can't give this book enough stars.......2007-08-23
I wish every investor would read this book. Well, maybe not because I feel like I have a leg up on every other investor who believes he can time the market, get rich quick, or knows where the market is heading (well, after reading this book you'll see where the market is heading over the long term, and long term does not mean 6 months). This is by far the best book I've ever read, I cannot express enough how this book has open my eyes to investing, trading, saving for retirement, planning for the future, etc. Anybody who is at all interested in any sorts of financials, saving money for retirement, day trading, investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. this is the first book you should read. I would then recommend reading...
Common Sense on Mutual Funds
A Random Walk Down Wallstreet
The Future for Investors
The Intelligent Investor
The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing
Essential Reading for Investors.......2007-06-14
The title led me to believe this recommended book would be a boring waste of time, but I found it to be a summary of many books I'd already read.
Many of the books it recommends as further reading I've already digested and I'll say this book does a good job of summarizing the major points of those books.
I'm a believer that it is hard to beat the indicies over time and don't try anymore.
Fabulous overview of investing fundamentals.......2007-04-13
I'm a beginning investor who was tired of piecemeal advice. This book saved me a lot of headaches. It taught me the basic fundamentals of investing, so I was able to reconcile the often conflicting advice I received from other people. Bernstein uses many fascinating historical examples to illustrate these basic principles. Although there's no formula for becoming rich, he shows the average investor how to make wise decisions for strategic portfolio growth. Overall, I found this book very useful.
Get this book NOW!.......2007-03-24
If you are even slightly considering purchasing this book, get it NOW. It was a very fast read (I finished it in 3 days) due to the writer's natural style, and it will open your eyes to things like actively managed funds vs. index funds, fees associated with mutual funds, and the importance of asset allocation and diversification. I completely changed my long-term investment strategy after reading this book and I already feel like I am doing better than I had been for the past few years as far as increasing my portfolio's return while lowering its risk. Like I said, get this book now. I am getting a few copies for friends that deserve to make more money over the long term and I don't want to see make the same mistakes I did like paying for actively managed mutual funds with high fees that don't even perform well as the market!
Book Description
The definitive MBS guide, with fully updated material on the latest mortgage-backed products, methods, models, and portfolio strategies
By providing hands-on information vital to market participants, previous editions of The Handbook of Mortgage-Backed Securities were instrumental in fueling the growth of the mortgage-backed securities market. The sixth edition contains all the elements that made previous editions so successful and influential, and provides you with more than 25 new chapters on topics including collateralized mortgage obligations, prepayment derivatives, loan level determinants of repayments, new approaches to MBS valuation, and a survey of non-U.S. mortgage rates.
Customer Reviews:
Definitely lacking, but OK for traditional mortgage products.......2007-03-27
I have to say that Fabozzi has the formula down pat--he gets "guest writers" to contribute various chapters to this book and does very little writing himself. The result is a disjointed, sometimes repetitious, other times incomplete volume. This book focuses extensively on agency mortgages--Ginnies, Fannies, Freddies--and speaks only a bit to the Alt-A, subprime and more exotic privately-originated mortgage markets. To call this book comprehensive would be a lie. Although this book was highly recommended to me by a PM at a traditional long-only manager, I can only guess that previous versions were better, because this one was certainly a high-priced primer that still left many areas of the market uncovered. Areas that are glaringly missing (beyond non-agency topics) include the role of hedge funds, loss mitigation/foreclosure processes, more info on EPDs, and the erosion of lending standards/rise of the subprime market. I think that a chapter on common mortgage origination fraud issues is also merited.
This book is good for the basics, on agencies. Beyond that, it may leave you scratching your head and wondering, "And...." because there is a palpable sense of incompletion. Borrow this book from someone else that already has it--don't buy it!
Good book.......2007-01-26
If youre in the MBS business, you gotta have this as a reference book if nothing else. Its the industry standard. Item showed up brand new and good delivery.
Excellent but Compiled Work.......2003-02-15
I have seven years of experience selling these products, and I use Fabozzi's book often. This is a good reference, and a good treatment of mortgage and asset backed securities. I only gave it four stars because the fact that this is a compiled work of research material interrupts the flow of ideas. On the other hand, there is some merit to getting different angles on the subject from different viewpoints.
One caveat. Mortgage derivatives used to mean calls and puts on mortgage backed securities. Today, however, entire portfolios of mortgage risk are laid off in the form of credit derivatives.
Tavakoli has the best treatment of that topic in the book: "Credit Derivatives".
A major reference.......2000-08-02
A vast collection of articles by practitioners on Wall Street, this book covers a broad number of topics on Mortgage Backed Securities. While not a scholarly approach, 'street research' typically aims to educate the fixed income portfolio manager.
Fabozzi handbooks are overrated.......2000-06-28
It's the industry standard. Everyone has one. It stands alone in its field. And if you're reading this you're probably going to buy regardless of what is written here.
But I've found this book (along with some of the other Fabozzi 'Handbooks') to be overrated. Basically, the format of 30 or so different authors each writing a chapter in the form of an article diminishes the usefulness of the book. There is no narrative, pedagogical or otherwise. The format leads to significant gaps in coverage. The quality of the chapters is uneven, as is the level of detail covered.
Don't misunderstand me -- the Handbook isn't bad, by any strecth of the imagination. It's just not as good as it could be. It has almost no fluff, and all the information in it is good. And the competition is a very slim field. For many things Fabozzi is not only your best choice, it's your only one.
Book Description
During his fourteen years as Yale's chief investment officer, David F. Swensen has transformed the management of the university's portfolio. Largely by focusing on nonconventional strategies, including a heavy allocation to private equity, Swensen has achieved an annualized return of 16.2 percent, which has propelled Yale's endowment into the top tier of institutional funds. Now, this acknowledged leader of fund managers draws on his experience and deep knowledge of the financial markets to provide a compendium of powerful investment strategies.
Swensen presents an overview of the investment world populated by institutional fund managers, pension fund fiduciaries, investment managers, and trustees of universities, museums, hospitals, and foundations. He offers penetrating insights from his experience managing Yale's endowment, ranging from broad issues of goals and investment philosophy to the strategic and tactical aspects of portfolio management. Swensen's exceptionally readable book addresses critical concepts such as handling risk, selecting investment advisers, and negotiating the opportunities and pitfalls in individual asset classes. Fundamental investment ideas are illustrated by real-world concrete examples, and each chapter contains strategies that any manager can put into action.
At a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to cope with the relentless challenges provided by today's financial markets, Swensen's book is an indispensable roadmap for creating a successful investment program for every institutional fund manager. Any student of markets will benefit from
Pioneering Portfolio Management.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Investor Pulls Back the Veil on One of the Best Run Endowments.......2007-01-17
Swensen is certainly one of the brightest minds in institutional money management. In a world where there are ten million books on how to pick stocks, trade options, or some other get rich quick scheme, finally a great investor shows the methodology of how significant wealth should be managed. This book is a must read for anyone who manages or invests significant money, even if it isn't institutional assets.
A lot of nothing.......2006-02-07
This book has very little to teach you and it's virtually unreadable. Make sure you read one or two pages before you buy in case you are like me and you can't stand his style.
Great, but Swensen's New Book is Better.......2006-01-19
This book covers the HOW and WHY of diversification. While everyone claims to understand diversification, there have been few individuals or institutions that have actually applied the concepts as well as Swensen.
This book can be a little dry and is geared (in style) more towards institutional investors. His new book "Unconventional Success : A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment" has all the same lessons but is MUCH MORE readable. Get that book instead: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743228383/
solid primer on institutional money management.......2005-09-15
Swenson's reputation was made by the investment results he has generated, which in turn are based on good insights and steely discipline in managing a portfolio. That said, he could have used an editor on this book. His prose style is almost a mockery of a business presentation - here's what he's going to say, he says it, and then a recap of what he said. Still, his style, with its absolute emphasis on clearly communicating to the reader, is a huge improvement over quasi-academic articles in the Journal of Finance.
Equity bias and diversification - what's new there? Try the new lengths to which Swenson has taken portoflio diversification, and thus he has been able to afford an otherwise unsustainable level of investment in equities. Despite my comments on his style, the chapters on traditional and alternative asset classes can and should be read reptitively. (For fun, simultaeneously flip through _Triumph of the Optimists_, a historical survey of global markets.)
To my mind, the greatest problem fiduciaries seem to have is in staying consistent and disciplined in their approach to markets. While Swenson makes frequent tangential forays into describing the problem and how it manifests, this book on portfolio management would have benefited from a chapter on how to manage an investment team. Clearly stated objectives, consistent application, independence from portfolio managers, individual responsibilities vs. committee consensus, recruiting the right people...there is certainly enough there for a good chapter. The closing chapter on "Investment Process" is a valuable contribution, but it left me wanting to know more.
If you like his institutional book, you will also want to read his book for individual investors, called _Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment_. Swenson shows his flexibility in approach, arguing that individuals should save and invest in ways very different from those he advocates for institutions.
As for _Pioneering Portfolio Management_, buy it, read it, and be a better fiduciary.
Worthwhile addition to your investment library.......2004-12-27
Fine book, it is full of common sense and worth reading. Author covers a variety of topics, from different investment periods of high inflation to stock market bubbles, large cap equities to hedge funds, asset allocation to market timing, active management to passive management...
Book highlights include:
1. Looking beyond mainstream investment opportunities. Benefits awarded to those that travel in illiquid and inefficient segments of the market.
2. Portfolio rebalancing, correlation matrix assumptions, optimizers.
3. Contrarian Investing.
4. Manager performance assessment and biases in index data.
5. Benefits of US Treasuries in a portfolio.
6. Multiple examples of BAD Investment ideas. Panic of 1998. Outlier events.
Neil R. Chelo, CFA
Book Description
"This new edition of Active Portfolio Management continues the standard of excellence established in the first edition, with new and clear insights to help investment professionals."
-William E. Jacques, Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Martingale Asset Management.
"Active Portfolio Management offers investors an opportunity to better understand the balance between manager skill and portfolio risk. Both fundamental and quantitative investment managers will benefit from studying this updated edition by Grinold and Kahn."
-Scott Stewart, Portfolio Manager, Fidelity Select Equity ® Discipline
Co-Manager, Fidelity Freedom ® Funds.
"This Second edition will not remain on the shelf, but will be continually referenced by both novice and expert. There is a substantial expansion in both depth and breadth on the original. It clearly and concisely explains all aspects of the foundations and the latest thinking in active portfolio management."
-Eric N. Remole, Managing Director, Head of Global Structured Equity, Credit Suisse Asset Management.
Mathematically rigorous and meticulously organized, Active Portfolio Management broke new ground when it first became available to investment managers in 1994. By outlining an innovative process to uncover raw signals of asset returns, develop them into refined forecasts, then use those forecasts to construct portfolios of exceptional return and minimal risk, i.e., portfolios that consistently beat the market, this hallmark book helped thousands of investment managers. Active Portfolio Management, Second Edition, now sets the bar even higher. Like its predecessor, this volume details how to apply economics, econometrics, and operations research to solving practical investment problems, and uncovering superior profit opportunities. It outlines an active management framework that begins with a benchmark portfolio, then defines exceptional returns as they relate to that benchmark. Beyond the comprehensive treatment of the active management process covered previously, this new edition expands to cover asset allocation, long/short investing, information horizons, and other topics relevant today. It revisits a number of discussions from the first edition, shedding new light on some of today's most pressing issues, including risk, dispersion, market impact, and performance analysis, while providing empirical evidence where appropriate. The result is an updated, comprehensive set of strategic concepts and rules of thumb for guiding the process of-and increasing the profits from-active investment management.
Customer Reviews:
One to add to your reading list.......2007-06-30
I know many have this book and have never read it. Others read this book but never really understand it. However, if you can read it and understand it, it can offer a powerful tool for how to allocate capital. It actually is the basis for most indexing and quantitative methodologies. When applied to fundemental approaches to investment it can be quite powerful.
Sadly, though not enough money managers embrace what this book is trying to say with regards to risk and return.
Practical approach and mathematically rigorous at the same time.......2006-02-01
Excellent book for whom is looking for a practical approach that at the same time is presented through a rigorous mathematical methodology. The book is absolutely superior over the academic textbooks that usually limit themselves to CAPM and efficient market theory. Grinold and Kahn go much forward and at the same time had managed to clearly and meticulously show the CAPM model, its limitations and the more sophisticated tools developed from it. Beside of showing the active way of managing a portfolio, the serious mathematical presentations through which the different theories such as CAPM are described are very convincing of how difficult it could be to beat the market.
Theoretical framework with no practical examples........2005-01-20
There is important information in this book but most of us need to see numerical examples to reinforce theoretical concepts. This book really comes up short in this area. It provides some discussion with the formulas/equations it presents but is very incomplete in terms of worked out examples. Yes, including worked out examples might might mean a book three times as long, but the book would then be many, many times more useful to practitioners.
As it currently stands the book can only benefit the super-genius-theoretical types who do not need to see examples to understand OR someone who ALREADY really understands the concepts.
The book rather frequently presents variables or constants without explicitly defining them for the reader (it assumes we know what they mean from the accompanying discussion).
The book gives exercises, but without answers what good are these?
The one thing the book does is make you realize there is a lot you do not know. You can find ideas in portfolio management that exist by reading this book but if you are at all like me you are going to have to look elsewhere for the answers. I have had better luck with Google searches for stuff like Style Analysis.
The book shows how smart the authors are: they know stuff that must of us do not. Unfortunately this is the feeling I get as I read sections of their book. They intend to keep it this way. Bottom line: the book fails to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This is the seminal text for Quantitative Finance.......2004-11-11
If you work for one of the top alpha quant shops (Barclays, Goldman, etc.), this text is a the proverbial must read. These are the guys that essentially invented quantitative finance in its modern form, building upon the [only somewhat applicable] concepts of Sharpe and Rosenberg and demonstrating how they can be harnassed to drive alpha. Anybody who has given this text a poor review obviously doesn't work in quantitative finance (chances are they're merely stock-pickers). If you want to understand how to drive alpha and beat the market, this text goes a lot further than explaining the simple concepts of information ratio and tracking error; instead, this book touches on the beauty of multi-factor models and covariance risk management.
Very boring and dry.......2004-10-05
This book is a funny phenomenon in itself: it seems that every portfolio manager keeps a copy on her desk, but nobody I've talked to likes the book, or has even really read it. I read it and had to struggle hard to go from one page to the next. It's one of the WORST books I've ever read in any field. The book attempts to give the reader a comprehensive overview of the portfolio management discipline. Unfortunately, it's extremely dry, to the point of boring the reader to death. A lot of pages are also wasted on topics of dubious value, while important subjects like global management is treated lightly. I highly recommend against this book. It's a waste of money.
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- Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning (American Association for State and Local History Book Series)
- Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights and Liabilities of Making Images (Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights & Liabilities of)
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- Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs (Berklee Guide)
- Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex
- Murder of a Botoxed Blonde (Scumble River Mysteries, Book 9)
Books Index
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