Book Description
Designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, this successful book is regarded as "the bible" in trading rooms throughout the world.
The books covers both derivatives markets and risk management, including credit risk and credit derivatives; forward, futures, and swaps; insurance, weather, and energy derivatives; and more.
For options traders, options analysts, risk managers, swaps traders, financial engineers, and corporate treasurers.
Customer Reviews:
Good.......2007-09-14
The book was in great condition. It took only five days to get the book.
The greatest concise reference for the fundamentals of financial engineering.......2007-05-30
Whilst this text was not a recommended text for my Australian investments course, it was more useful than any other reference material prescribed by my professional body and proved more than its value over the space of just a few weeks. I encourage especially those that may be sitting on the fence, thinking it is a lot of money (because it is), that this text is worth every cent if you are in need of the best derivatives pricing book that exists today - this is it.
Solid textbook.......2007-05-08
This textbook has been very helpful for my financial instruments class (MBA level). Good examples and explanation of formulas.
Good Book Humayun R Ali.......2007-03-01
I am in the first few chapters and finding the book easier to read than other financial books. I like the examples to explain the purpose of futures and options. The first few chapters introduce you to futures and options then gets into more advanced topics. I also got the student study guide. There are certain books that are well worth the price, this is one of them. It is not a "get rich quick" guide, but rather a book designed to give the reader an in depth understanding.
A PhD student's review.......2007-02-07
Like all too many PhD students trying to push their way into the already overcrowded quant. finance job-space, I too had heard that Hull is the "bible" of quant. finance, and it should be the first book you should read.
WRONG. Dead wrong. Hull should be the LAST book you should read, and I mean it literally. That is, you definitely SHOULD read Hull, but after reading some good quant. finance books and getting some intuition behind what is going on.
The good parts of Hull are:
1) breadth of topics covered - there is no other single book that covers the range of topics that Hull does.
2) some amount of feel of real markets that it gives (all this means is that it describes the mechanics of markets).
For someone just starting out learning quant. finance, however, the above two become big stumbling blocks. The breadth of topics means that several topics are covered in a, and I am being kind, patchy manner. In fact, you can go through quite a lot of Mr. Hull's babble about "worlds" (something he uses interchangeably for "measure") without understanding whatever the heck a risk-neutral measure is. There are risk-neutral worlds, forward-neutral worlds, stock-worlds...and you don't know the underlying simple, simple principle, so you just keep following him, and he goes on and on...
Another example - Black's formula in fixed income products - he just goes on and on about its applications to this that and the other (bond options, swaptions...), discusses the "validity of Black's formula" (which supposedly tells you that it is more general that it is usually believed to be, but tells you neither how general it is, nor how general it is believed to be)...All this without giving you the simple, one sentence reasoning behind the Black formula.
Time and again in the book there are formulae that seem to be just pulled out of thin air. There are better compilations of formulae (Haug, for example), so I don't quite understand what the idea is. You keep wondering HOW a valuation formula came about, because you want to know what assumptions lie behind that valuation, and how to change it if some of those assumptions change...But as frequently as not, you will be left turning pages in the vain hope of trying to find out.
Add to that a poorly composed index, ill defined terms sprinkled all over the book, hand-waving galore, and it equates to hours of frustration. Just understanding clearly what is being talked about takes a lot of page turning, searching for definitions and so on.
And don't go by people who look down folks wanting to be precise. I am not talking about any ivory tower precision - I am talking about real, practical precision. The precision you need in a book to be able to answer a non-rote question properly. That precision is not there in most of Hull.
Book Description
The Only Three Questions That Count is the first book to show you how to think about investing for yourself and develop innovative ways to understand and profit from the markets. The only way to consistently beat the markets is by knowing something others don’t know. This book will show you how to do just that by using three simple questions. You’ll see why CNBC’s Mad Money host and money manager James J. Cramer says, "I believe that reading his book may be the single best thing you could do this year to make yourself a better investor.
In The Only Three Questions That Count, Ken Fisher challenges the conventional wisdoms of investing, overturns glib theories with hard facts, and blows up complacent beliefs about money and the markets. Ultimately, he says, the key to successful investing is daring to challenge yourself and whatever you believe to be true. Packed with more than 100 visuals, usable tools, and a glossary, The Only Three Questions That Count is an entertaining and educational experience in the markets unlike any other, giving you an opportunity to reap the huge rewards that only the markets can offer.
Customer Reviews:
Great book, one of the best I've read in a while .......2007-09-03
I consider myself fairly well read when it comes to investing, but I was really suprised by this book.
I've poured through books by and about Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Jim Rogers, some of the new classics (Market Wizards by Schwager) and some of the old classics that never go out of style (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Money Game). I was actually just browsing through my local bookstore when I saw this.
Fisher's well known for his advertising. His ads though, and his style turned me off (somewhat analogous to a doctor that advertises on a bus stop or a lawyer advertising in the back of a phone book, you just don't quit trust it).
He's got some real gems in here though. The book could have been about 150 pages shorter, but the essence of it, that the only way to beat the market is to know something that others don't, is spot on.
If you answer his 3 questions before investing (especially #3, what is your brain doing to mess you up), you'll be well ahead of the game.
It's amazing that people will invest huge sums of money in the market, and not even know what the biases are that cause misjudgement. Fisher does a beautiful job of reducing things down to "primitive man", and what was great for hunter gatherers 50,000 years ago hunting lions is terrible for your portfolio.
Still, I think the book falls into some traps that most other investment books fall into:
-Some of it is too neat, too ivory tower, too clean and mathematical. There's no people in the book, there are no memories.
For example, he thinks stocks have no correlation to past results. The odds of a stock moving tomorrow up or down are 50-50.
But investors have memories. Investors got scarred for life after the '29 crash, they never felt the same way about stocks again. I don't think stocks have a 50-50 chance of moving up or down after that. It also doesn't take into account where companies are in their life cycle. It doesn't take into account competitive advantage (or lack thereof).
-A direct quote from the book..."Since 1926, there have been 66 15 year rolling time periods. In 61 of them (92%), stocks beat bonds, returning an average of 481% while bonds returned 150%"
He then adds to the arguement, and basically says stocks always outperform bonds, buy stocks. But most people get into stocks at the wrong time! There's no mention of valuation, there's no mention that people buy stocks when everyone else is buying them.
People can and do lose money...if you bought stocks in the mid 20's or later, you didn't break even for 20 years. If you bought stocks during the raging bull market of the 60's and held, you got killed. The DOW was at 700 in the early 60's and 800 in the early 80's, after some grueling declines. Business Week ran their famous (infamous) cover in 1979, "The Death of Equities". People were putting their retirement money into gold and diamonds back then.
People do not buy stocks equally during all time periods. There's some other arguements made that can be a little dangerous. Some of the arguement made about the deficit, the declining dollar, I don't know.
Fisher is obviously brilliant, he's on the Forbes 400, but no one should be above questioning or critical thinking. Absolutely come to your own conclusions. I don't think some of the arguements will hold up in 15-20 years.
But still, it's well worth adding to your library. Some of the key chapters should be re-read many times to get all the nuances.
No real help here!.......2007-09-03
Fisher describes a number of interesting stock market fallacies and why they should be ignored in any serious investing plan, and also illustrates some common emotional problems that plague a large percentage of investors. He describes several admittedly outdated fundamental indicators which, although possibly of some academic interest, are no longer useful, as they now have been discounted by the market.
He suggests that the individual investor select an index and track his or her performance with respect to this index, presumably taking advantage of knowing what most other investors do not. Most unfortunately, the methodology of attaining this precious knowledge is not made clear, at least to me. If an investor knows important details about equity issues that are not generally known, then he or she has no need of this book!
The writing style of Fisher, while occasionally entertaining, contains a good deal of self-serving statements, and, as commented by others, the basic information could be provided by perhaps one quarter the number of pages.
very informative.......2007-08-28
I've read a lot of finance books in my day but this one takes a whole other approach. Instead of the same old conventional methods of analyzing the stock market through ratios and fundamentals, this book takes you through how to look at the market differently. The Only Three Questions shows you the power of sentiment on the market and specifically how to gauge investor sentiment and use it to your advantage. While the book is full of data and graphs, it also is a surprisingly humorous and enjoyable read. If you're looking for a completely different investment strategy, this book is for you.
Needed an editor.......2007-08-26
A well constructed book cries out for discipline, particularly one dealing with investment. There is little discipline here, and this may stem from the way it was written. It reads in a disjointed, jaunty, disconnected way, very much as if dictated while working out on treadmill. Also hard to say what role the other two writers had in the making of the book.Aside from being far too long for the wisdom the book imparts, and it does provide some interesting insights, there are some rather questionable conclusions that other reviewers have pointed out, such as the irrelevance, presumably, of US debt, of debt in general. He makes light of other methods of selecting stocks, such as (his own) discovery of the importance of the price to sales ratio. His advice is, on the whole, fairly vague. One gets out of the market when one knows more than others.... Right. But the tables and graphs are well worth perusing, more than once. On that basis I reconsider and would recommend the book to those who have a fair amount of investing experience. Not for beginners!
Think before you act.......2007-08-23
Managing money is not my strong suit. Because I don't have any in the first place. This may explain why I am right now so "house-rich and cash-poor". I therefore bought this book out of sheer curiosity. How do "big predators" behave? How do they reach their ultimate goal: BEATING THE MARKET ?
M. Ken Fisher gives us a clear, perfectly documented answer ( think before you act), thereby debunking some hard-dying myths like the "gold haven". M. Fisher's book is crystal clear, strongly worded, often very funny and on the whole totally convincing. I simply love the visuals. I recommend without reservation this book to any investor trying like me to avoid a further decline of his (hardly worth mentioning) savings.
Even with Mr. Fisher's invaluable assistance, I will probably never beat the market. But I might want to take advantage of his most interesting tips: watch for prospective buy-outs !
Download Description
"""Guy Cohen is the master when it comes to taming the complexities of options. From buying calls and puts to iron butterflies and condors, Guy explains these strategies in a clear and concise manner that options traders of any level can understand. His chapter on options and taxes is especially welcomed (and needed). The Bible of Options Strategies is a straightforward, easy-to-use reference work that should occupy a space on any options trader's bookshelf."" ¿Bernie Schaeffer, Chairman and CEO, Schaeffer's Investment Research, Inc.
""The author delivers clarity, insight and perception making learning about options a joy, and practicing the art of making money that much easier: truly a bible from a guru."" ¿Alpesh B. Patel, Author and Financial Times Columnist
""Guy Cohen truly makes learning about options easy in this fact-filled guide. Bullet points make for a quick and enlightened read, getting to the heart of what you really need to know about each options strategy. This book is a must for any serious trader's library."" ¿Price Headley, Founder, BigTrends.com
Pick the right options strategies...implement them step-by-step...maximize your profits!
Introducing today's first and only comprehensive reference to contemporary options trading!
OptionEasy creator Guy Cohen identifies today's popular strategies...and tells you exactly how and when to use each one and what hazards to look out for! It's all here....
- Basic Strategies including: Buying and shorting shares, calls, and puts. I
- ncome Strategies including: Covered Call, Naked Put, Bull Put Spread, Bear Call Spread, Long Iron Butterfly, Long Iron Condor, Calendar Call, Diagonal Call...
- Vertical Spreads including: Bull Call Spread, Bull Put Spread, Bear Call Spread, Bear Put Spread, Ladders...
- Volatility Strategies including: Straddle, Strangle, Guts, Short Butterflies, Short Condors...
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- Leveraged Strategies including: Call Ratio Backspread, Put Ratio Backspread, Ratio Spreads...
- Synthetic Strategies including: Collar, Synthetic Call, Synthetic Put, Synthetic Straddles, Synthetic Futures, Combos, Box Spread...
- ...and many more strategies...
Plus essential tax-saving information, and more!
- No other book presents this much authoritative, current information on options trading strategies
- Covers all of today's best income, volatility, leveraged, synthetic, and sideways market strategies
- Discover why each strategy works, when it's appropriate, and how to use it¿step by step
- Includes a full chapter on tax issues associated with options strategies
- By Guy Cohen, whose OptionEasy application has helped thousands of traders achieve breakthrough results!
The Bible of Options Strategies is the definitive reference to contemporary options trading: the one book you need by your side whenever you trade.
Options expert Guy Cohen systematically presents today's most effective strategies for trading options: how and why they work, when they're appropriate, when they're inappropriate, and how to use each one responsibly and with confidence. The only reference of its kind, this book will help you identify and implement the optimal strategy for every opportunity, trading environment, and goal."
Customer Reviews:
Truly the bible of all bibles!.......2007-09-30
I really enjoyed this book and continue to do so. As others have commented, it's not a cover-to-cover type of book, but I can reference any strategy so easily and get the salient information I need at the flick of a page.
I've also got the author's other book (Options Made Easy) and there's something different about the way he explains the subject of options that I previously found much more difficult and now find remarkably easy. Great book.
Great reference, full of errors.......2007-09-15
This book is an excellent reference book for options traders, novice and experts. It describes in great detail most of the strategies for trading options. I like the structure and the organization of the book. It helps easily locate a stragety based on several criteria, like your trading expertice or your perception of where the underlying stock is going.
I'm dissapointed at the amount of errors in the book. I've only read 2 chapters so far and have found, not only mispelled words, but errors related to the description of the strategy, risk and reward calculations and inverted names (call instead of put, for example).
If not for the errors, I would have given 5 stars to the book.
Technical Alanlysis "Bible".......2007-09-11
A large volume that covers just about anything you want to know about charting. I was most interested in Elliott Wave info and it has a good section about EW. For the options trader, this is the book to study.
good for beginner to novice.......2007-09-03
I meet Guy during SF Money Show,it was a good experience.
One thing that i notice from most of options book, they are all talking the same thing, mostly strategy description, including this book. What i want from this book is more explanation towards when and how to the strategy should be applied when fundamental, TA and sentiment comes to picture.
Good referrence book.......2007-08-23
I did learn a lot of reading this book. I have read a number of options book but what I liked the most about this book was the method that it used to cover the option strategies by grouping them. Also by covering the variables for each option strategy in the same manner.
I use the data in this book in another manner as well. Often different groups UBS etc ask me to invest in some product that they have developed. I graph the the possible results and then compare that graph to the graphs at the back of this book to find the closest option strategy. I then read up on that strategy establishing where it works best, worst etc. This often gives me some insight as to where if any the product might fit into my investemnt portfolio. This is not the only selection criteria but it helps.
Book Description
Winning by not competing: a fresh approach to strategy Since the dawn of the industrial age, companies have engaged in head-to-head competition in search of sustained, profitable growth. They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future. In a book that challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating “blue oceans”: untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves—which the authors call “value innovation”—create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade. Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this book charts a bold new path to winning the future.
Customer Reviews:
Question the status quo.......2007-09-25
The book forced me to rethink the way I normally would look at business developments for my companies: either value based or feature based. The idea of a creating new space in a crowded market and making a leap in growth through the blue ocean strategy stirred up my thinking juices. Personally, I don't like how to books with "three simple steps" This book was great; a must read.
Good Book.......2007-09-24
1. This is NOT a marketing book
2. There is no such thing as a fail safe strategy
3. This is a tool and is only as good as the user
4. Applicable in different situations
5. Good companion to Competitive Strategy written in the 80's by Mike Porter which is THE industry book
6. The book is NOT a pioneer and is NOT proported to be. It is a study in those companies who seemed to have created new markets such as Cirque De Soleil. The authors did NOT set out to create a new "theory" and then retroactively "fit" companies but rather study an emerging pheonom. and try to locate patterns.
I think that pretty much covers all the gripes of the previous entries. I first came across this book in a competitive strategy class in a business organizational change degree. It is an excellent text and gives another viewpoint to the old study of competitive strategy. I have used the strategy canvas tool located in chapter two AS A TOOL to assist me in both departmental and industry situations to locate existing patterns of competition.
Worth the money.
But then, I am just a "mere" academic (albeit with many years of industry experience) so if you truly do not like the book I suggest returning it. :)
What is your greatest challenge?.......2007-09-13
The greatest struggle for most business people is to come up with a truly original and valuable idea. Close behind that is how to get employees to work together. This book makes me want to cry, because it actually, simply, lays out how to do both. Beautiful.
Academics rarely demonstrate how to do it!.......2007-09-11
I bought this book. Their identifications are valid enough. Great companies have always created uncontested market space while making their competitors irrelevant. This is not in dispute. However...
The authors Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne are just mere academics. And what is annoying is that they haven't battle tested their Blue Ocean model from hard knocks in the trenches business wars to find out what works and what doesn't for themselves! Again, this is what I find annoying with academics. They say a lot but never prove it themselves! Remember Merton & Scholes and LTCM?
For an example...in the book, the authors have an interesting strategic canvass graph approach that supposes to prove how Blue Ocean events come about. That's fine, but how do you prove it? Moreover, the 'values' are different for each company, so there is nothing consistent to glean from this.
What I'd like to have seen is a Dash Board type matrix template that allows any company or budding entrepreneur to carry out Blue Ocean due diligence on any industry or market niches...proofing these Blue Ocean catchments from a zero learning curve application! The book does have important points but lacks the cutting edge tools to unify Blue Ocean diligence and proofs for any company!
Thus, what this book lacks is a more honed processing of enquiry from the authors. And I suspect this to be the case because like many academics they haven't proven the unifying dynamics that goes into capturing Blue Ocean strategies for themselves with businesses they have built through their own mindset!
Again, this book is a case of 'do what I say, because I don't have to prove what I say'.
There are great industry shapers out there who can shift and move whole industries and markets in their favour...but the authors of this book are not one of them.
However, there are great positives the authors have identified. The book contains a very interesting 'Strategic Grid' technique. From this simple grid technique any one can mentally survey how to change one's industry or market from a macro-vantage point. But shifting and moving your new found Blue Ocean grid at a tactical level to rule your competition making them irrelevant is another matter entirely. The chapters that explain this grid are worth the book, but don't expect any thing else.
What you really want is a knowledge base that allows you to dig out Blue Ocean criteria from a template of enquiring tools STACKED PROCESS BY PROCESS UNTIL YOU PROOF YOUR OWN BLUE OCEAN POWER. This book fails on this!
I would suggest that any one buying this book should read 'Blue Print to a Billion by David Thomson to understand how real Blue Ocean executions are carried out correctly. In addition, Chet Holmes' Ultimate Sales Machine' gets you to understand how to carry out big frame strategies at the tactical level.
Both these books will plug the holes lacking with Kim & Mauborgne's work.
Blue Ocean Strategy.......2007-09-10
I like the non text book clear presentation. You do not have to have an MBA to enjoy and learn from this book.
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******
Amazon.com
Buffett, the Bard of Omaha, is a genuine American folk hero, if folk heroes are allowed to build fortunes worth upward of $15 billion. He's great at homespun metaphor, but behind those catchy phrases is a reservoir of financial acumen that's generally considered the best of his generation. For example, in an essay on CEO stock options, he writes, "Negotiating with one's self seldom produces a barroom brawl." This is his way of saying that an executive who can give himself compensation totally disproportionate to his performance surely will. There are uncountable gems of financial wisdom to be harvested from these essays, taken from the annual reports he writes for Berkshire Hathaway, his holding company. Just to pick one more, here's a now-famous line about those he competes with when making stock-market investments: "What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest--whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection--than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?"
While Buffett has a policy of seldom commenting on stocks he owns--he feels public pronouncements will only lead to the public's expectation of more public pronouncements, and he likes to keep his cards close to his vest--he loves to discuss the principles behind his investments. These come primarily from Ben Graham, under whom Buffett studied at Columbia University and for whom he worked in the 1950s. First among them is the idea that price is what you pay and value is what you get--and if you're a smart investor, the first will always be less than the second. In that sense, the value of the lessons learned from Buffett's Essays could be far greater than the book's price. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
The definitive work concerning Warren Buffett and intelligent investment philosophy, this is a collection of Buffett's letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway written over the past few decades that together furnish an enormously valuable informal education. The letters distill in plain words all the basic principles of sound business practices. They are arranged and introduced by a leading apostle of the "value" school and noted author, Lawrence Cunningham. Here in one place are the priceless pearls of business and investment wisdom, woven into a delightful narrative on the major topics concerning both managers and investors. These timeless lessons are ever-more important in the current environment.
Customer Reviews:
Perfect.......2007-08-14
Lucid and brilliant, a clear lesson on capital allocation. The only objection would be the repeated content, but truthfully it helped the ideas sink in a bit.
Thank you for editing this collection Professor Cunningham.
Real Wisdom at a Good Price.......2007-08-05
I work for a financial services company, and I'm subjected to corporate gobbledegook on a daily basis. Warren Buffett gets to the point. His explanations of financial transactions seem so effortless, I can't imagine how others get so confused and obtuse. Here's a mind worth delving in to, and this book lets you sit on the shoulder of a modern genius to see how he thinks. Good stuff.
excellent.......2007-07-09
These are the actual words penned by Buiffett. Not as dry as one would think, he's actually a wonderful writer. The Oracle of Omaha can turn a phrase and while parts of this are slow going, I enjoyed it throughly.
I heartily recommend this book for those desiring wealth. I also strongly recommend The Millionaire Mind by Tom Stanley. The Millionaire Mind
Buffett's Favorite book about him.......2007-06-06
In the CNBC Liz Clayman interview with Buffett, he stated that of all the books written about him, this one is his favorite...it is an excellent read.
Lessons for Corporate America.......2007-05-14
This is a great book for people to understand the relationship between Corporate governance and business wellness. a must read for a long term investor.
Book Description
This latest edition of Investments continues the legacy of excellence established in previous versions. Chapters on behavioral finance, arbitrage pricing theory, multifactor models of risk and return, and international diversification have been dramatically rewritten to meet changes in today’s transformed markets. In addition, unnecessary mathematical and technical detail continues to be left out wherever possible.
Customer Reviews:
No concepts.......2007-05-31
After reading most of the book, my conclusion was that I definitely needed to find better material in order to REALLY understand Investment theory. I found the book to be unnecessarily wordy, often repetitive, and yet very unclear about the basic conceptual ideas behind the theory.
Most of the problems stem from the fact that the mathematics used is very simple, and that no effort is made to focus on ideas. Instead of presenting the CAPM and APT models by formally setting the framework, stating the assumptions, introducing proper mathematical tools to tackle the development, and coming back to highlight key concepts, the book tries to circumvent any slightly difficult area by providing an endless string of confused explanations.
I guess this might be OK if you are seeking a very basic introduction to the topic but even then, I am not sure that a 700+ pages book of muddled diatribes is what you need.
fantastic textbook.......2007-01-06
really enjoyed this one. the writing is clear, simple and concise. the examples are derived from the text, build on the fundamentals, and strengthen overall concept comprehension. too often texts end up reading like the authors wanted to impress you with how intelligent they are, at the expense of actually effectively presenting the material. this is definitely not the case here, as the information is presented in a compelling and incredibly lucid way.
4th edition.......2006-06-24
This book is well organized, but you better have a solid calc and stats theory background. The newest edition has more chapters. Book is more wordy than concise.
Highly recommended textbook.......2006-01-23
Great book! It's comprehensive and easy to understand. Highly recommended textbook.
Resourceful: Do You Like Intellectual Pain?.......2005-11-22
This is the tome used in top MBA programs across the US.
It's comprehensive and filled with "extras" like website recs and sample CFA questons.
Everything you need to know is here.
2 thumbs up.
Customer Reviews:
Chock full of knowledge.......2007-08-15
I bought this and another highly reviewed book on flipping and this book was vastly superior. It contains a wealth of information about every phase of flipping a property, including detailed information on how to calculate quiet costs, good rules of thumb for rehab costs, and detailed lists of what is involved in a rehab and the correct order to undertake them in. They have obviously flipped a lot of houses and have condensed their experience into extremely helpful lists and formulas that anyone can benefit from.
I could have done without the fictional storyline that accompanies each chapter, but since you can skip it without losing anything, I'm not docking their score.
This Book Is An Excellent Investment.......2007-08-08
I've been interested in flipping houses since I first heard of the concept about 10 years ago. I just never knew where to start. This book walks you through the entire flipping process. It's written in an easy to follow, logical start to finish format. There are formulas for calculating all your costs and your profit before you even make an offer on a house. Outstanding book! I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to get started in house flipping.
Good reference, not very well written.......2007-07-12
First, I must say that this is so far the best book I have read on this subject. The authors seem to be very experienced and knowledgeable in the field of rehabbing homes. I am very pleased with what I got for $15 (or whatever I spent). I feel that with this book, I could successfully FLIP homes. My first primary home was a fixer upper, and I did pretty much all of the work myself. I turned a nice profit when I sold it, but I think that I could have done better had I known then what I know now.
There was not a lot of information that was new to me, but the book did bring together a variety of related topics. Likewise, the authors presented a few smart systems for completing the project.
The reason I gave this book only 4 stars is that I don't like the writing style of the authors. This book could have easily been 150 pages or less. The font was a little big, and there was WAY too much worthless text, random anecdotes, and stupid analogies. One page in particular was about Punxsutawney Phil...it wasn't until the third or fourth paragraph that the author crafted some way of connecting that to flipping houses.
Overall an excellent book worth every penny (the authors need to stick to flipping houses though). I wish I could get my friend who has recently jumped headlong into rehabbing houses to read this book...
Best book of it's kind.......2007-06-14
I am a small time real estate fix and flip investor. I have read many books on this subject and this is by far the best.
Excellent Resource.......2007-05-25
As a Realtor in the Denver Real Estate area, this is a great book! It spells out what it takes to make a flip successful.
Book Description
Investing is all about common sense. Owning a diversified portfolio of stocks and holding it for the long term is a winner’s game. Trying to beat the stock market is theoretically a zero-sum game (for every winner, there must be a loser), but after the substantial costs of investing are deducted, it becomes a loser’s game. Common sense tells us—and history confirms—that the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation’s publicly held businesses at very low cost. The classic index fund that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees you with your fair share of stock market returns.
To learn how to make index investing work for you, there’s no better mentor than legendary mutual fund industry veteran John C. Bogle. Over the course of his long career, Bogle—founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world’s first index mutual fund—has relied primarily on index investing to help Vanguard’s clients build substantial wealth. Now, with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he wants to help you do the same.
Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will show you how to incorporate this proven investment strategy into your portfolio. It will also change the very way you think about investing. Successful investing is not easy. (It requires discipline and patience.) But it is simple. For it’s all about common sense.
With The Little Book of Common Sense Investing as your guide, you’ll discover how to make investing a winner’s game:
- Why business reality—dividend yields and earnings growth—is more important than market expectations
- How to overcome the powerful impact of investment costs, taxes, and inflation
- How the magic of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs
- What expert investors and brilliant academics—from Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham to Paul Samuelson and Burton Malkiel—have to say about index investing
- And much more
You’ll also find warnings about investment fads and fashions, including the recent stampede into exchange traded funds and the rise of indexing gimmickry. The real formula for investment success is to own the entire market, while significantly minimizing the costs of financial intermediation. That’s what index investing is all about. And that’s what this book is all about.
JOHN C. BOGLE is founder of the Vanguard Group, Inc., and President of its Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the four "Investment Giants" of the twentieth century; in 2004, Time named him one of the world’s 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Customer Reviews:
Valuable Investment Advice.......2007-10-02
I have been "investing" for years without a sustainable strategy. The information provided in this book is educational, reassuring and eye-opening. Mr. Bogle showed that Investing need not be complicated and provided many examples and facts to support his assertions. If you need good, sound proven financial advice from an industry giant, this is invaluable and a must-read book. I bought 5 copies (one is audio CD) and gave them to my friends and sister.
An aptly titled book.......2007-08-14
As a professional portfolio manager since the 1960's [now retired] I most highly recommend this book. I have purchased copies for my adult children, as well as for some for-profit and non-profit boards on which I serve. I am telling all that this easy, one-day read has the potential to be a financial life-enhancing event, if they agree with the basic premise. And that there is no reason not to agree with the premise. I very much like that Bogle includes supporting data at the end of every section. A true five-star book.
Index investing is good but not perfect.......2007-08-08
I don't disagree with the doyen of Index investing.
There is no doubt that Index investing is the best way to maximize returns using a passive "buy and hold" strategy
and in many ways superior to most actively managed funds.
However, what the book fails to explain is the fact that Index investing is not immune to systematic risks. The index will crash if there is a bubble similar to what we witnessed in 2000. Index funds are based on efficient market hypothesis- if all known information is already factored into the price, there is no room for arbitrage.
But,if all investing were to become index based, EFT and electronic, who will actively seek information other than what is disclosed as per law by publicly traded companies? We should not forget that dot coms and Enron were also part of the index at some point. The duration of holding is also relevant, as investors close to retirement still need to follow the good old rule of thumb, your age is the %age of bond/money market holdings in your portfolio,which probably explains why even Vanguard is offering life cycle funds.
If not for John Bogle and Vanguard, we would not even had an alternative to complacent, fee-hungry fund managers.
The Best Advice Ever.......2007-08-06
The Facts Are In The Numbers
There is a repetitive theme in this book, not redundance. And it's supported by expert analysis, portfolio comparisons, and the numbers: "humble arithmetic." Over time Index Funds out-perform most managed mutual funds. The longer the amount of time, the more detrimental the damage - if - you own managed funds. "Where returns are concerned, time is your friend. But where costs are concerned, time is your enemy."
Bogle notes (like so many others) how fund advertisements mislead and outright lie by stating that "X fund has an annual average return of 12% per yer," but omits the costs: portfolio transaction costs, Load charges, 12-1bs, and taxes accrued on realized gains. (And inflation must always be factored.) The S&P 500 rose by an average of 12 percent for twenty years, but most managed mutual funds got far, far, lower returns than that.
The 4 E's: Enemies of Equity investors are Expenses and Emotions, according to Warren Buffet.
Financial Intermediation has created enormous fortunes for those n the fields of managing other people's money.
One example:
Merrill Lynch is the largest brokerage firm in the world. One of its biggest marketing and profitable successes also created one of the biggest losses for investors. At the height of the bubble in 2000, Lynch launched two new funds: the "Focus Twenty" and the "Internet Strategies" Fund. Like clockwork, at the height of the bubble frenzy the consumers were drawn in. The best time to sell a fund is the worst time for consumers to buy it. $2 billion dollars poured into Merrill Lynch. "Internet Strategies" sank almost immediately and lost 86 percent, while the "Focus Twenty" (which comprised the top 20 favorite stock picks of Merrill Lynch managers) lost 28% in 2000, 70% in 2001, and 39% in 2002 (p. 106). Ouch. A lot of funds declined in this three-year period, but not nearly as much. Funds chosen by managers earn 40 percent less than index funds, in general (source, NY TIMES).
But it's not just John Bogle that states this. Bogle hits home with his "Don't take it from me" passages throughout the book, quoting and sourcing what other financial minds say about managed vs. index funds, and organizational and individual investment psychology. There are tons of exhibits and tables with comparisons. Sources are provided throughout.
Relation to 401K and IRAs:
IMO, regular non-IRA (non tax deferred) index funds can be a vehicle that supersedes endangered Defined Pension Benefit Plans for those wanting to add more than the limits, or simply supplement the IRA and 401K limits to retirement accounts. Or, add more diversification and control over one's portfolio. Indexing can also be useful for those that don't have the two tax-deferred options available to them and is another choice because of low taxation and low expense costs.
Including indexing another but related topic, company pensions can inhibit and limit the worker. They often anchor employees into a company or industry. Many want to change, but stay and wait to cash out. The pension fund makes the rules. They tell you how long to stay to receive X amount.
This the best investment book I've ever read. It's also been the most honest.
Greatest Investing Book Ever!.......2007-07-28
What an incredible, straight forward book about investing! It should be required reading for every high school class in the country. Another great job Mr. Bogle!
Book Description
Bodie, Kane, and Marcus’ Investments is the leading textbook for the graduate/MBA investments market. It is recognized as the best blend of practical and theoretical coverage, while maintaining an appropriate rigor and clear writing style. Its unifying theme is that security markets are nearly efficient, meaning that most securities are usually priced appropriately given their risk and return attributes. The text places greater emphasis on asset allocation, and offers a much broader and deeper treatment of futures, options, and other derivative security markets than most investment texts.
Customer Reviews:
Not yet received.......2007-06-27
I have yet to receive this book and I need it quite urgently.I was just wondering if there is anything wrong with the delivery/order?
undeliverable item.......2007-05-22
dear sir
i did not receive the book yet.
plz. inform me with the name of the shipping agency you have used to ship the book.
URGENT
Hani Hanbali
So Far, So Good.......2007-05-11
As an investment banking analyst and proprietary investor for Wall Street's two most prestigious firms, I would like to attest to the firm economic underpinnings of this book. It is refreshing to see a chapter devoted to criticisms of the efficient market hypothesis, though a further discussion of behavioral finance would be greatly welcomed. This book is concise and provides a good balance of theory and practical knowledge.
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General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Heard on the Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews
Financial Calculus : An Introduction to Derivative Pricing
Stochastic Calculus for Finance I: The Binomial Asset Pricing Model (Springer Finance)
Stochastic Calculus for Finance II: Continuous-Time Models (Springer Finance)
Fixed Income Securities: Tools for Today's Markets, Second Edition
