A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
Average customer rating:

Quarterlife Finance says, "A Classic that Every Investor Should Read"

not a fan.

Excellent Message. Sweeps some exceptions (particularly those noted herein) under the rug.

Best guide ever

Still the Best

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
Burton G. Malkiel
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

One Up On Wall Street : How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market

ASIN: 0393062457

Book Description

The million-copy bestseller, revised and updated with new investment strategies for retirement and the most current research into behavioral finance.

Updated with a new chapter that draws on behavioral finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, here is the best-selling, authoritative, and gimmick-free guide to investing. Burton Malkiel evaluates the full range of investment opportunities, from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles. This edition includes new strategies for rearranging your portfolio for retirement, along with the book's classic life-cycle guide to investing, which matches the needs of investors in any age bracket. A Random Walk Down Wall Street long ago established itself as a must-read, the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio. So whether you want to brief yourself on the ways of the market before talking to a broker or follow Malkiel's easy steps to managing your own portfolio, this book remains the best investing guide money can buy.

Customer Reviews:

Quarterlife Finance says, "A Classic that Every Investor Should Read".......2007-10-03

I recently finished reading the 9th edition of Burton Malkiel's classic text A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition. First published in 1973, this book is a classic text that deserves a place on any investor's bookshelf.

Malkiel presents two possible security valuation models - one based on a firm foundation of value and one based on finding a "greater fool" to sell your speculative buys to. He analyzes the history of investment bubbles from the Dutch tulip mania some two hundred years ago all the way through the tech stock bubble of the late 1990s. He discusses fundamental analysis of stocks and thoroughly trashes technical analysis. Finally, Malkiel presents a strategy that virtually guarantees that your investments will keep pace with the market with minimal investment of time.

I enjoyed and recommend this book for several reasons. First and foremost, it blows the whistle on many common "beat the market" strategies, including all manner of technical analysis. As a relatively young investor, I was always intimidated by the chartist strategies (moving averages, buy points, etc) but after reading Malkiel there is no cause for fear. Those strategies simply do not work.

Moreover, I found the book to be an easy read relative to many texts on investment. While he covers different types of stock analysis, modern portfolio theory, the efficient market hypothesis, and asset allocation in detail, the book is not weighted down with too much heavy terminology. His writing style, use of historical anecdotes, and ability to challenge your beliefs again and again keeps you riveted to the book.

Finally, I believe that the strategies presented in the book are clear, concise, and can be employed by anyone to their immense gain. Too many people pay for poor investment advice, make mistakes by chasing gains and paying for active portfolio management, or even pay absurd 12b-1 fees on underperforming mutual fund investments. By reading this book and taking Malkiel's advice to heart, I believe that just about anyone can end up with more dollars in hand.

On the other hand, the book does delve into financial topics that may be intimidating for someone completely new to the investment world. The basic message (buy and hold a well-diversified portfolio of extremely low-cost index funds) could be expressed much more succinctly. However, I wouldn't change a thing with this book...just be prepared for a wild ride that challenges everything you thought you knew about investing.

not a fan........2007-10-03

This book was not what it was trumped up to be, as far as I am concerned. It's a gloomy, negative, pessimistic, unending drivel of known and common sense information and data presented in a much more complicated manner that they are in real life. After reading this book you may be inclined to start taking anti-depressants and definitely stay away from the stock and other securities markets. Weeooogh!!

Excellent Message. Sweeps some exceptions (particularly those noted herein) under the rug........2007-10-02

Particularly in a day and age where mutual funds are often touting themselves on the television, this book has an excellent, largely unbiased message for the average investor: buy low cost index funds and stay in them for the long haul.

The book is exceptionally well written, covering most of the lessons of an introductory to intermediate finance course in a very accessible format (i.e. all the right *ideas* without the confusing math). He utilizes dozens of powerful examples and good data to show that his basic premise, despite now being 30 years old, is sound. Due to its theoretical strength and accessible style, this book could be of particular value to Undergrad Business and MBA students who find the professor's academic approach to an Introductory Finance course confusing. Get the big picture here, making the math just that much easier to follow. (5 stars for making difficult financial concepts readable and interesting)

Despite my strong recommendation for both his message and style, the book does have some drawbacks. Number one is that he has clearly taken a side on the issue and has thrown impartiality to the wind. Regularly, the author depends on "transaction costs" (the cost to trade) to ensure that a trading strategy cannot beat his preferred portfolio (implying that it would have succeeded without the transaction costs). This "sweeps under the rug" several clear counter-examples to the basic efficient market thesis in order to reinforce his index-investment message. While I understand his reasoning for doing so -- a desire not to encourage investment in high cost funds or heaven forbid day trading -- it does lead to some skepticism about his willingness to admit any possibility that his thesis has weaknesses. To that end, I would discourage readers who are familiar with CAPM and efficient-markets from reading the book (2 stars as a brush up).

In the end, however, I think the message is sound. Rather than cite trading costs, I think the message can effectively be said another way: If you spent 5h a day investigating stocks, what are the odds that you can beat a professional manager? If a manager has a staff of 20 that invest 8h per day investigating stocks, what are the odds that they're going to beat the whole financial services industry? If the whole industry is taking advantage of every opportunity to profit from small deviations, and you're going to pay a manager most if not all of that profit anyway, investing in an index basically gets you the benefit of thousands of mutual funds and investment bankers without the cost of any of them (or of your time to do research).

With qualifications to the highly technical reader, who should pass on the book, I can't, in good conscience, fail to give this book 5 stars for a profoundly valuable message targeted at the individual investor.

Best guide ever.......2007-10-02

A good informative writing on the handling of your finances in regards to investing. I found it to be quite basic but I have been investing since a club in the 1960's. It still gave me a lot of information and ideas that I knew a little or nothing on. I would recommend it highly to any and all that wish to have anything in the future for their retirement.

Still the Best.......2007-09-10

I first read this book in its seventh edition. I was great then. I recently purchased the ninth edition as a "refresher." It's still a great book and the one I recommend to prospective clients or other investors prone to believe all of the active management garbage out there. Burton Malkiel does a masterful job of dismantling all of the Wall Street hype and laying out investing in a simple, straight-forward, and long-term approach.

If you read this book and still believe in the Wall Street gurus then you're hopeless. And, you deserve every bit of the bad advice you're following.

Heard on the Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews

Average customer rating:

very helpful
Decent
Great interview prep. book
Nice book
Interesting book

Heard on the Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews
Timothy Falcon Crack
Manufacturer: Timothy Crack
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0970055250

Book Description

The tenth edition contains 165 quantitative questions collected from actual job interviews in investment banking, investment management, and options trading. The interviewers use the same questions year-after-year and here they are---with solutions! These questions come from all types of interviews (corporate finance, sales and trading, quant research, etc), but they are especially likely in quantitative capital markets job interviews. The questions come from all levels of interviews (undergrad, MBA, PhD), but they are especially likely if you have, or almost have, an MS or MBA. The latest edition includes over 120 non-quantitative actual interview questions, and a new section on interview technique---based partly on Dr. Crack's experiences interviewing candidates for the world's largest institutional asset manager. Dr. Crack has a PhD from MIT. He has won many teaching awards and has publications in the top academic, practitioner, and teaching journals in finance. He has degrees in Mathematics/Statistics, Finance, and Financial Economics and a diploma in Accounting/Finance. Dr. Crack taught at the university level for 20 years including four years as a front line teaching assistant for MBA students at MIT. He recently headed a quantitative active equity research team at the world's largest institutional money manager.

Download Description

Over 140 quantitative questions collected from actual job interviews in investment banking, investment management, and options trading. The interviewers use the same questions year-after-year and here they are---with solutions! These questions come from all types of interviews (corporate finance, sales and trading, quant research, etc), but they are especially likely in quantitative capital markets job interviews. The questions come from all levels of interviews (undergrad, MBA, PhD), but they are especially likely if you have, or almost have, an MS or MBA. The latest edition includes over 120 non-quantitative actual interview questions, and a new section on interview technique---based partly on Dr. Crack's experiences interviewing candidates for the world's largest institutional asset manager.

Customer Reviews:

very helpful.......2007-10-02

I think this book is very useful even just from the perspective of finding something interesting to do when you get bored. Not mention it indeed provides a lot of relevant information about how to answer the interview quesionts.

Decent.......2007-07-08

This is a decent book. I only looked at a couple of chapters on analytical and statistics problems. Some of the problems marked "hard" were quite interesting and challenging. Quite a few of the problems were trivial and repetitive though. The solutions are generally well written, though sometimes a bit too verbose (for my taste).

Overall, not a bad investment if you are preparing for job interviews which may expect you to crack a few puzzles.

Great interview prep. book.......2007-04-23

This is a great book preparing for an interview, with lots of logic puzzles, stat. and derivatives questions, solid interview advice and some funny stories. The logic questions range from fairly straightforward and simple to more advanced, and I think most people will at least find a couple of them challenging.

Great fun!

Nice book.......2007-02-27

I used this book to prepare for some Wall Street interviews, and I found the questions on Black-Scholes pretty useful to orient my study of Mathematical Finance (my background is in Theoretical Physics, so I used this book to get an idea of the kind of things I would have to learn to work as a Quant). The puzzles and brain teasers in the book were quite straightforward, but I guess one cannot ask too difficult a question in an interview, so they may be in keeping with the kind of questions one typically gets asked.

Interesting book.......2007-01-18

Some of the problems I solved in high school in Russia, some are new and interesting. Some are deep finance oriented and require significant background.
Would be 5 if had a hard cover

Applied Equity Analysis: Stock Valuation Techniques for Wall Street Professionals

Average customer rating:

great book for those in finance
for SELL-SIDE analysts only
One of the Best
Probably the best
Very readable, very insightful, and extremely practical

Applied Equity Analysis: Stock Valuation Techniques for Wall Street Professionals
James English
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0071360514

Book Description

Applied Equity Analysis treats stock valuation as a practical, hands-on tool rather than a vague, theoretical exercise—and covers the entire valuation process from financial statement analysis through the final investment recommendation. Its integrated approach to valuation builds viable connections between a firm’s competitive situation and the ultimate behavior of its common stock. Techniques explained include EVA, newer hybrid valuation techniques, and relative multiple analysis.

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Applied Equity Analysis treats stock valuation as a practical, hands-on tool rather than a vague, theoretical exercise--and covers the entire valuation process from financial statement analysis through the final investment recommendation.

Customer Reviews:

great book for those in finance.......2006-06-20

This book is great if you're in the field of finance. This is not for the average consumer looking for investment advice. I've been in corporate financial planning and analyis for the past five years and always wondered how equity analysts built their models. This books will give you insight into their thinking and also give enough detail to build your own models. I would have rated it five stars if the book included a CD with his examples in Excel. The author does have website where you can download sample models.

for SELL-SIDE analysts only.......2006-01-14

I bought this book based on the strong reviews as a complement to Damodaran's classic on valuation, but felt disappointed.

To qualify my comments: First, I am not a sell-side analyst, and secondly, I haven't finished the book. After about 50 pages, I threw in the towel.

My first stylistic objection to the book is its low content density. There is tremendous repetition and examples are trotted out in excruciating detail, even where the conclusions are fairly obvious. For example, on p. 34: "At competitive equilibrium, the firm can identify no incremental investment opportunities likely to generate returns in excess of capital costs. Competitive equilibrium is often defined as a condition in which investment opportunities generate returns equal to capital costs, but existing investments continue to earn abnormal rates." To me these two sentences are already redundant. But in case you still didn't get it, further DOWN on the SAME PAGE: "...This situation is called economic equilibrium, or economic parity. What does equilibrium mean? When returns are forced down to capital costs, then economic rents and/or abnormal earnings disappear and no further incentive to enter the business exists".

But the most frequently repeated point of the first two chapters, is best summed up on p. 19: "As I say many times in the coming pages [and he's not kidding, there], equity analysis is not prophecy; it's opinion. It was never meant to be objective description, but it is strong advocacy." If you're the sell-side analyst, having to "dress up a pig" to help your firm gain some banking business, this book might offer some ideas. But where does this leave the consumer of such analysis? "It's the investor's job to 'diversify' by considering a variety of analysts' positions." (p.9)

I think better advice for the investor might be to learn how to perform sound analysis themselves. For that, I recommend Damodaran's book. I lost my faith in this book's intent to provide balanced (let alone predictive) analysis.

One of the Best.......2005-11-01

There are reams and reams of investment valuation books on the market -- that is obvious.

In my opinion, the three no one should be without are Applied Equity Analysis, Stephen Penman's monster tome "financial statements and...", and lastly, Aswath Damadoran's book, "investment valuation."

Most hyperventilating MBAs default to Damadoran; I really enjoy the simplicity behind Applied Equity Analysis.

Caution: Neither of the 3 are what you'd call "light reading."

If you have any money left, honorable mention goes to Cooke's "security analysis on wall street."

Probably the best.......2004-07-15

I've been looking for a practical step by step book on equity analysis from a practitioners viewpoint. This is it. Other books try to take shortcuts. This book does not take short-cuts, but neither is it bogged down with unncessary academic exercises. If you really want to understand how to do valuation and applied equity analysis I can't recommend any book more highly. It is head and shoulders above anything else out there. Penman's book (from Columbia Business School) is also good but it is a VERY serious and weighty book that probably should only be attacked after you have read this one. Get this book by English and you will not be sorry. I have spent way too much time reading hundreds of other books that weren't nearly as educational. Again, however, it is only for the serious investor.

Very readable, very insightful, and extremely practical.......2001-09-23

James English's "Applied Equity Analysis" is a how-to manual on evaluating stocks based on his 20 years of experience at JP Morgan. The book is very well-written and readable since the author employs plain english (no pun intended) to make his three major points: 1) accounting numbers--while by no means perfect--are excellent tools in evaluating stocks, 2) accounting-based stock valuation is superior to (but does not neccessarily supplant) cash flows, and 3) competition ensures that eye-popping financial performance doesn't last forever.

Contrary to another reviewer, English employs excellent examples to clarify and explain his points. Some examples: Gateway 2000's earnings history was used to explain how to find and interpret non-recurring items (NRI) on financial statements. Ratio analysis was demonstrated by looking at the PC industry in 1998. Emerson Electric was the company chosen to show why mature companies were still good buys. Many other examples abound, and English does a successful job in tying their relevance to his arguements.

But successful use of examples is not just the only strength of the book. The author also tackles a range of topics complete with insightful and clear discussions: the flaws of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), Economic Value Added (EVA), financial statement analysis, fundamental analysis, etc.

A quick glance at the table of contents below gives you an idea of the scope of English's book. I highly recommend this book to not just Wall Street analysts, anyone who is interested in finding fundamental value in evaluating stocks instead of following the crowd.

Pt. 1 Getting Started
Ch. 1 A Day in the Life
Ch. 2 Fundamentals of Equity Valuation
Ch. 3 Strategy and Competition I: The Firm's External Environment
Ch. 4 Strategy and Competition II: The Firm's Internal Competitive Resources
Ch. 5 Fundamentals of Stock Behavior
Pt. 2 The Basic Tools
Ch. 6 Reading a Financial Statement: The Accuracy, Sustainability, and Predictability of Financial Information
Appendix 6-1 Gateway Financial Statements
Ch. 7 Reading a Financial Statement: the Composition of Returns
Appendix 7-1 Comparative Financial Analysis: Personal Computer Industry
Ch. 8 Reading a Financial Statement: Early-Stage Companies and Investment Capacity
Ch. 9 Reading a Financial Statement: Later-Stage Companies and the Transition to Maturity
Ch. 10 Economic Value Added: An Alternative to Traditional Analysis Techniques
Appendix 10-1 Gateway's Cost of Capital
Pt. 3 Financial Models
Ch. 11 Financial Modeling: Base Case Assumptions and Model Design
Appendix 11-1 Dell Computer Corporation Consolidated Statement of Income
Ch. 12 Financial Modeling: The Income Statement and Balance Sheet
Ch. 13 Financial Modeling: The Statement of Cash Flows
Pt. 4 Equity Valuation
Ch. 14 Valuation: Foundations and Fundamentals
Ch. 15 Combat Finance: Relative Methods and Companion Variable Models
Ch. 16 Hybrid Valuation Techniques
Ch. 17 The Quirky Price/Earnings Ratio
Ch. 18 Valuation of Speculative Stocks
Ch. 19 Equity Analysis and Business Combinations
Pt. 5 Getting It Down on Paper
Ch. 20 Financial Writing: Don't Bury the Lead
Bibliography
Index

What Works on Wall Street
Average customer rating:

MBA Course Material

Interesting data, questionable utility for most

Right on the money

The best stock tactics of all time:with proof

Disappointed - a small investor review

What Works on Wall Street
James P. O'Shaughnessy
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Investors -- be they aggressive or conservative, self-directed or professionally managed -- are always on the lookout for an edge. And in James O'Shaughnessy's What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time, they'll find a solid one: authoritative analysis of popular practices from the past. The author examines three decades of stock market data to show how 15 of the most common investment tactics have fared over time.

Book Description

"A major contribution . . . on the behavior of common stocks in the United States."
--Financial Analysts' Journal

The consistently bestselling What Works on Wall Street explores the investment strategies that have provided the best returns over the past 50 years--and which are the top performers today. The third edition of this BusinessWeek and New York Times bestseller contains more than 50 percent new material and is designed to help you reshape your investment strategies for both the postbubble market and the dramatically changed political landscape.

Packed with all-new charts, data, tables, and analyses, this updated classic allows you to directly compare popular stockpicking strategies and their results--creating a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate and often confusing investment process. Providing fresh insights into time-tested strategies, it examines:

Value versus growth strategies
P/E ratios versus price-to-sales
Small-cap investing, seasonality, and more

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This consistently bestselling guide explores the investment strategies that have provided the best returns over the past 50 years--and which are the top performers today.

Customer Reviews:

MBA Course Material.......2007-06-12

I am fortunate enough to be taking a class on investment strategy. This is the book we use. We also have access to the compustat database to test trading theories. Thus far, I have been able to get a 44.1% return with a corresponding Sharpe ratio of 1.22 through the database using the methods outlined in this book. Using compustat could not be easier. You enter the criteria you want to filter for (there are literally thousands of built in criteria) and it builds the model by buying the stock at the beginning of the time period and selling it at the end. It does this for the specified amount of time. Mine is every 12 months and it has been run over a 20 year period. So it buys and sells 20 times over the course of the model. I beat the S&P 17 of the 20 years and my worst 'down' period was -8.37%. I just hope I have the discipline to follow through with this model, look out Warren! there is a new oracle in town.

There are over 22,000 companies in the database and I will forever use it to guide me.

Interesting data, questionable utility for most.......2007-01-30

I am of mixed opinion on this book. I think it's probably a 4-star for me, but likely to be less useful (thus deserving a lower rating) for many others.

First, the good:

The author has access to the Compustat database, generally considered the gold standard for this kind of research, with the cleanest data. Many other databases exclude companies that are no longer active, which can cause HUGE distortions in long term analyses.

He uses this data to test a variety of "hard rules" based strategies. These strategies mainly consist of selecting the 50 best and 50 worst stocks within the database, which has 8000 companies, though in many cases he restricts the tests to the larger stocks, for reasons he outlines (that I accept as valid).

Most of the book consists of chapter-at-a-time analyses of these strategies. In general, he finds superior risk-adjusted returns to certain value-oriented strategies, and also to the use of 1-year price momentum (stocks that had good price movement last year will overperform this year).

Now the bad:

Still, most of these strategies are rather riskier than owning a broad index. And that's WITH the use of 50 stock baskets, rebalanced annually, for each of his strategies. As other reviewers have mentioned, that implies a lot of transactions, far more than most individual investors would do. You could use smaller baskets (fewer stocks), but your risk would be even higher (less diversification).

Later in the book, he moves into multi-factor strategies (i.e. buy the 50 highest stocks where condition A is true, rank-ordered by condition B). On the one had, some of these strategies yield MUCH higher returns than both the single factor strategies and the market as a whole. On the other hand, there's far more room with these strategies for data mining - combining each of his single factor strategies (there would logically be MANY permutations), until he gets the biggest winners, then presenting only those cases.

Also, the primary database he's using (CompuStat) is prohibitively expensive for most individual investors. So if an individual investor want to test permutations of these strategies, that would be difficult. There are some links to websites with accessible data, but I haven't thoroughly investigated those, and doubt their datasets are as good as CompuStat's.

Finally, his multi-factor strategies amount mainly to screens. At their most complex, he winnows the dataset by a small handful of factors (using an absolute test - a stock is IN or OUT), then ranks the survivors and chooses the 50 best according to his final factor. To me, it would make more sense to develop weighted models. Develop a weight for each of 3..N factors, supplemented by perhaps a couple of screens to remove certain stocks with suspect data, then pick the 50 highest. He mentions towards the end of the book that he does the money he manages, but he doesn't include those results/models here for the rest of us.

Conclusion:

I know this sounds like an awful lot of criticism. Nonetheless, there was a lot to like about this book for the advanced investor. I have not seen such a detailed study on CompuStat data. His use of the best data, and inclusion of risk statistics is illuminating. And I like his emphasis on hard numeric data/analysis, rather than 'gut feel' that is common in the investment community (i.e. IBM's new product X looks like a hit. I give IBM a **BUY**).

Still, I doubt more than a handful of readers will be able to put his ideas into practice. Still, if you, like me, want to see the numbers on various investment concepts, using reliable data, I would recommend this book.

Right on the money.......2006-11-22

This book should be read in conjunction with the author's other books. After reading his much simpler, "How to Retire Rich" some 5 years ago or more and with a "wealth" of relatively poor investment experience under my belt it was clear to me that Reasonable Runaways was the way to go. However, there were a number of uncertainties. The basic question the author was answering - how do I maximize a lump sum I have now over the long term i.e. 15, 20 years or more - was not exactly the same as the question I was trying to answer. My problem was - how can I invest regular monthly surplus sums from my salary and maximize the value over the long term. It took me a few months to figure out that I could do it. Instead of rebalancing the entire portfolio once a year I rebalance a 12th part of it every month. I am therefore "rebalancing" i.e. selling what I bought 12 months (plus a day) ago and purchasing the next few stocks that pop out of my Reasonable Runaway's screener that I don't already own. Of course the math is a little convoluted and I am never really going to get the rebalancing absolutely correct but I still end up with a pretty well diversified portfolio that I am regularly turning over on a steady and most importantly unemotional objective basis. When I analyze the performance on a trade by trade basis I find the inevitable reversion to the mean. After a total of 109 trades I have calculated an average annualized performance (for simplicity and tax reasons I extended the holding period to 13 months) of 21%. What is more this average performance is quite stable over the last year or two. I still have a spectacular variance in individual performance but the net result at the end of each year averages out in the healthy positive direction. The more I have been doing this since starting in May 2002 the more I am asking myself why there isn't a massive crowd of investors buying those buys just before me and selling them just before me driving my purchase prices up my selling prices down and my profits into the cellar. The answer is clearly to be found in the author's recent third book "Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow". It appears that there is only a very small crowd of us out there who can stomach the ups and the downs and ride out the course. I've tried to figure out whether the author knows that his strategies when spread out on a rolling basis - as I describe above - give the investor a much steadier and healthier performance and therefore much less emotionally challenging ride. I also suspect that my approach of buying the next stocks down the list on the screener every month means that I am often buying the stocks that most recently arrived on the list and possibly more likely therefore to perform better. But then I am still an amateur at this and decided not to break my head any further. Back to "What Works on Wall Street". There is a really exciting part (sad isn't it but seriously when you see how well this stuff works it is a lot of fun) when he explains how tweaking or combining the value strategies reduces volatility and improves overall return. When I read that I assumed he was going to expand further but the point sort of got lost and I'll have to do a re-read to find it again. As an amateur I am also stuck with internet stock screeners and not all of them give you the parameters or the level of detail you need to get the screener working exactly as you need. The best advice on that is given at the end of "Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow" fortunately for me I worked that out for myself years ago. If you are like me you will end up reading just the main text and skimming over the tables. Do I recommend this book? Well put it like this - I am pretty certain that I will be retiring rich thanks to Mr. O'Shaughnessy (Seriously Sir if you do ever read this, my sincere gratitude.) I am just surprised to discover that there seem to be so few of us out there able to pick up on this and follow through.

The best stock tactics of all time:with proof.......2006-08-31

This is the rare 5 star ***** book. It is no nonsense and gives you exactly what its title suggests. It shows what has really worked on Wall Street from 1951 to 1996 by using the Standard and Poors compustat data base to simulate what would have happened if an investor (or mutual fund) would have bought the top 50 stocks meeting the criteria measurement. Example: Highest P/E ratios, top 50 price increases, top 50 price decreases, best dividends, high or low book to price value, etc.He goes further by breaking the top 50 into only the large cap meeting this criteria and if he bought out of all stocks available. He measures stocks and their performance from almost every imaginable angle. It is fascinating and educational to see what the final dollar amount is for each investment approach. He also shows how each style performed in each decade and how each percentile of stock did in each category.(Example: how the top 5 stocks did with low P/E's versus the bottom 5 in the top 50 stock group, this helps the individual stock investor focus his investments).

Here are the books big findings. If you took $10,000 and invested it in 1951 and invested it in the following top 50 stocks that met the following criteria, while resetting it every year to match your criteria, in 1996 you would have had:

Top 3 ways to invest
PSR <1,high relative strength,All stocks $12,999,698
Earnings yield>5,High relative strength,All stocks $12,570,451
Price/Book <1,High relative strength,all stocks $12,552,352

Worst 3 ways to invest
Lowest 1-year relative strength, All stocks $29,666
High PSR, All stocks $64,220
High Pcfl,All Stocks $224,741

I really like this book because It is scientific, not opionated and shows that Warren Buffet was right all a long, buy stocks that are a great value based on their sales, and price to book with low P/E's and strong relative price strength and you will always win in the long term.

Disappointed - a small investor review.......2006-08-21

I was disappointed with the book. It was not as helpful for the small, individual investor as I wanted it to be. $10,000 spread over 50 stocks means investing $200 per stock without even talking about any fees for buying and selling 50 different stocks. So from this book I can narrow down my indivual selection of stocks to 25 or 50, but if I only want to purchase 3-5 stocks how do I decide which 3-5 of the 50 to buy?

The book did give me a broader understanding of the different strategies used behind mutual funds. When I review a mutual fund's strategy, now I know the lingo and what the fund manager is looking for in a stock and how that strategy compares to other strategies. So I think the book has made me a better mutual fund shopper, but has not helped me as much in purchasing individual stocks.

The Motley Fool Investment Guide : How The Fool Beats Wall Streets Wise Men And How You Can Too

Average customer rating:

Their stock picking strategy to think about.....
Fool Some of the People All of the Time
Book
Motrley Fool Investment Guide
The Best Investment Book For Beginners- seems too good to be true, but it is RIGHT!

The Motley Fool Investment Guide : How The Fool Beats Wall Streets Wise Men And How You Can Too
David Gardner , and Tom Gardner
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Motley Fool's Money After 40: Building Wealth for a Better Life
One Up On Wall Street : How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market

ASIN: 0743201736

Amazon.com

Should you let a Fool tell you where to invest your money? If he's a Motley Fool, the answer is a resounding YES! David and Tom Gardner launched the most successful investment information service ever to grace cyberspace, and now they show you how to beat the market, even if you don't know a dividend from a divining rod. With this guide, you'll find out how the information revolution can put money in your pocket.

Amazon.com Audiobooks Review

"Thanks to online communication," say David and Thomas Gardner, founders of the Motley Fool investment Web site, "it is now little-guy investors, not huge-guy brokerage firms, who hold the most valuable cards." The Gardners, narrating their own Guide, lay out their Foolish market-beating techniques like the college economics instructors you wish you'd had. They explain, in everyday language (and with just the right touch of sarcasm), exactly why some people do better than others when they invest their money. Most important, they tell how you can be one of the few who do better. (Running time: 1.5 hours, one cassette) --Lou Schuler

Book Description

For Making Sense of Investing Today...the Fully Revised and Expanded Edition of the Bestselling The Motley Fool Investment Guide

Today, with the Internet, anyone can be an informed investor. Once you learn to tune out the hype and focus on meaningful factors, you can beat the Street.

The Motley Fool Investment Guide, completely revised and updated with clear and witty explanations, deciphers all the new information -- from evaluating individual stocks to creating a diverse investment portfolio.

David and Tom Gardner have investing ideas for you -- no matter how much time or money you have. This new edition of The Motley Fool Investment Guide is built for today's investor, sophisticate and novice alike, with updated information on:

Finding high-growth stocks that will beat the market over the long term
Identifying volatile young companies that traditional valuation measures may miss
Using Fool.com and the Internet to locate great sources of useful information

Download Description

For the millions eager to make sense of today's world of investing comes a completely updated edition of the Motley Fool's bestselling guide. Includes a new Foreword by the authors and information on non-traditional business models, the 50 best companies worldwide, new ways to capitalize on fast growth industries, and investing in the U.S. from abroad.

Customer Reviews:

Their stock picking strategy to think about............2007-10-03

This is a well-written, easy to follow, and a solid book for people who attain a basic knowledge about mutual funds and stocks. This book is a must read for people who are interested in learning, exploring and testing stock picking techniques. The book offers a useful eight-item checklist that investors and speculators most follow when choosing the best small cap growth stocks. Also offers the pertient ratios from balance sheet,income statement, and cash flow that investors need to pay careful attention to when picking the right small cap stocks.

Although this book is generally good, there is one chapter on dow investment technique that people should be wary and skeptical about. The brothers give false hope to investors that anybody is guaranteed a 25.5% annual growth return for 20 years if they buy 2 of the second lowest and 1 of third,fourth, and fifith lowest price from 30 dow stocks or called foolish 2-2-3-4-5 approach. This might be true in the past 20 years but due to our unstable and unforeseeable economy in the future, a stock return of 25.5 % for 20 years is highly unlikely to happen. A likely situation we can experience is witnessing another stock market crash or seeing a rise of inflation 4 % every year making 25.5% return look a dismal 14%. The only aspect on their approach to Dow investment that I agree with is their claim about the safeness of dow stocks. Nobody can argue this claim since Dow stocks consist of 30 well-established companies which have been in business for a century and it would be hard picturing them filing bankruptcy.

Fool Some of the People All of the Time.......2007-08-09

The Motley Fools, for a novice investor, can be a life changing experience. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" and their savvy insights regarding investments have served me well. Their stock market insights are delivered with wit and wisdom, and I was actually sad when I turned the last page and realized I had finished the book. That's my personal criteria for a well written book, does it leave you wanting more. The Fools deliver.

Book.......2007-05-13

Took the full 10 days to get here, after the 3 days until it shipped. But the condition of the book is excellent since it was a used book. And can't beat the price. Better than taking notes of the contents in Borders.

Motrley Fool Investment Guide.......2006-06-25

Good primer for the beginner stock trader. Also an excellent review for those who have "been around"

The Best Investment Book For Beginners- seems too good to be true, but it is RIGHT!.......2006-02-19

1) I read the book, and tried it out without actually spending money; my portfolio soared.

2) I put money in; my portfolio soared.

3) I added more; my portfolio soared.

4) The market dropped; my portfolio soared.

5) The market soared; my portfolio soared more.

It's so simple; it does seem too good to be true; but it is all correct! I hoped to beat the market by 1-2 %, and to beat pro's by 3-4% (since they do underperform the market 90% of the time!).
I have absolutely hammered the market, just like the Gardeners say in this book.

Two of my closest friends have done/ been doing so also.

In my last 3-4 years I have averaged 43% average COMPOUND gain. I trebled my money in 3 years.

I have bought this book for other friends, and recommended it to many, many more.

Basically, it teaches you to only buy very, very safe companies that are small enough to increase substantially in value (as more and more analysts start to cover their financials). It works.

Security Analysis on Wall Street: A Comprehensive Guide to Today's Valuation Methods, Univ. Edition

Average customer rating:

Chicago MBAs LOVE this book.....
Very resourceful from a broad persperctive
A Must For The Serious Investor
Good in a broad sense, not very in depth
Powerful and Incisive

Security Analysis on Wall Street: A Comprehensive Guide to Today's Valuation Methods, Univ. Edition
Jeffrey C. Hooke
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Applied Equity Analysis: Stock Valuation Techniques for Wall Street Professionals
Contrarian Investment Strategies in the Next Generation
Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset, Second Edition
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Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings

ASIN: 0471362476

Book Description

Security Analysis on Wall Street The principles of investing have always been simple: buy low, sell high. The information needed to make these potentially lucrative decisions, however, is often hard to find, difficult to decipher, and not always reliable. This authoritative new book is the essential reference for students who want to learn the rational, rigorous analysis that is still the most successful way to evaluate securities. Security Analysis on Wall Street explains how the values of common stocks are really determined in today's marketplace and takes a comprehensive look at the entire security evaluation process, as well as the major valuation techniques currently being used by Wall Street professionals. Beginning with an overview of the environment in which stocks are issued, researched, bought, and sold, Hooke examines the roles of the various players, the rules of the markets, and the activities surrounding initial public offerings. He then probes the intricacies of analyzing and reporting on securities with proven methods for evaluating the merits of a stock. This sophisticated yet straightforward system teaches students how to assess profitable firms; understand marginal performers, leveraged buyouts, and corporate takeovers; and-most importantly-to break down different analyses and get the big answers: Is the security fairly valued, and why or why not? "A welcome successor to Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis." -Barron's

Customer Reviews:

Chicago MBAs LOVE this book............2006-04-23

University of Chicago MBAs looking to work on the Street live and die by this book. It happens to be one of my favorites...

Other valuation books I like

1. DAMADORAN'S book -- buy it; it walks you through the WACC, etc.......
2. the McKinsey and Co book is a Bible -- another MBA first year staple.....
3. the "Streetsmart Guide to..." isn't bad either, since it's DCF focused...

Picking stocks isn't just valaution, so make sure you read PORTER for an overview on industry dynamics.....

Very resourceful from a broad persperctive.......2004-04-16

I would recommend this book to someone who wants a broad exposure of "Security Analysis on Wall Street." Mr. Hooke gives a great overview of the many facets of securities analysis. The drawback of this book is that it lacks specifics. For example, I was interested in getting a deeper analysis of valuation methodologies, however, what I found was a general overview of this section--the author then jumped right on to the next section. This example relates to all of the topic areas. Going deeper into topic areas so that more educated and experienced readers could get insight was not available for the most part. Nevertheless, I rate this book 4 stars because it does a great job of giving a strong overview of security analysis. I would recommend this book, especially for beginners and intermediate students and practitioners.

A Must For The Serious Investor.......2000-07-23

This book is the best I've ever read on stock valuation. It has helped me understand the fundamentals behind valuation. It is an easy read for those who have some background in finance but not impossible for the layman to understand.

Good in a broad sense, not very in depth.......2000-06-17

My opinion, this book is good in a broad sense, but certainly not thatin depth. Comparing it to Graham and Doddville is streching. Sorry, I disagree. Of course, this is my opinion and other might have different opinion.

Powerful and Incisive.......2000-03-30

This may be the best book currently available on investing because it is so relevant to today's security analysis,not just some ancient tome like Graham and Dodd's. this book is worlds better and much more practical. It emphasizes exactly what the "powers that be" on Wall Street look for and that is simply GOLD!

You Got Screwed! Why Wall Street Tanked and How You Can Prosper

Average customer rating:

Very informative, worth every penny
The title of this book should be YOU GOT SCREWED! AND HOW JIM CRAMER SCREWED YOU!
Typical Cramer Rant - But What's The Point?
Unbelievable
Trust no stock under $30????

You Got Screwed! Why Wall Street Tanked and How You Can Prosper
James J. Cramer
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World
Confessions of a Street Addict
Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich
The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received: Priceless Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Steve Forbes, and Dozens of Other Top Financial Experts
Picking Winners: A Horseplayer's Guide

ASIN: 074324690X
Release Date: 2002-11-05

Book Description

You've been screwed.

You've been bludgeoned, skewered, crushed, mutilated by the stock market. Every day you read about another corporate scandal: loans to CEOs that didn't have to be repaid, accounting "irregularities," profits that never existed. You think the stock market must have been rigged. And you're right.

You were betrayed by the stock promotion machine -- the mutual fund managers, the brokers, analysts, strategists, and stock gurus who brainwashed you into buying and holding and believing that stocks, like parents, always come through and bail you out in the end.

So now what do you do? Where do you put your money? You can't just leave it in the bank or stuff it under the mattress.

For fourteen years Jim Cramer ran a hedge fund that compounded money at a rate of 24 percent annually after fees, and then he got out at the end of 2000. He knows that there are ways to make money, smart ways that don't require you to own stocks blindly. There are other investments that won't send you to the poorhouse.

This book will tell you what went wrong, who the bad guys were, and what you have to do to restore your financial health. You can't just close your eyes. Ignoring Wall Street isn't the answer. Cash alone isn't the answer. This book has the answers.

Download Description

"You've been screwed. You've been bludgeoned, skewered, crushed, mutilated by the stock market. Every day you read about another corporate scandal: loans to CEOs that didn't have to be repaid, accounting ""irregularities,"" profits that never existed. You think the stock market must have been rigged. And you're right. You were betrayed by the stock promotion machine -- the mutual fund managers, the brokers, analysts, strategists, and stock gurus who brainwashed you into buying and holding and believing that stocks, like parents, always come through and bail you out in the end. So now what do you do? Where do you put your money? You can't just leave it in the bank or stuff it under the mattress. For fourteen years Jim Cramer ran a hedge fund that compounded money at a rate of 24 percent annually after fees, and then he got out at the end of 2000. He knows that there are ways to make money, smart ways that don't require you to own stocks blindly. There are other investments that won't send you to the poorhouse. This book will tell you what went wrong, who the bad guys were, and what you have to do to restore your financial health. You can't just close your eyes. Ignoring Wall Street isn't the answer. Cash alone isn't the answer. This book has the answers."

Customer Reviews:

Very informative, worth every penny.......2007-05-09

This short but very informative book gives you a history lesson on how companies have been screwing over the public for years to make a small group of people a lot of money, It teaches you how to watch for it and avoid becoming a victim of insider trading yourself.

Worth every penny.

The title of this book should be YOU GOT SCREWED! AND HOW JIM CRAMER SCREWED YOU!.......2007-02-18

In late December 1999/early January 2000 at the height of the tech bubble, Jim Cramer appeared on CNBC and screamed this mantra like a maniac at viewers, "If you don't buy ICGE now you are an idiot!! ICGE -- ICGE -- I SEE GE -- I SEE THE NEXT GE -- Get it -- Get it now!" If I remember correctly those were the words he screamed in a fury. The word "idiot" may have been "imbecile" but the point is he wanted to make you feel really stupid if you missed this golden opportunity.

Shortly afterwards the stock started dropping like a rock and Internet Capital Group fell from something like $220 a share to half that in no time flat. Now check out a chart to see where the next General Electric is.

How Jim Cramer got away with this is beyond me. I just found an article in my archives dated 12/20/1999 about "Why Jim Cramer is a Big Fan of Internet Capital Group" but because of copyright laws I don't believe I am allowed to post it here. In the article he stated that his hedge fund owned a large stake in the company and that he was looking to buy more on any pullbacks. What a load of bull. When he says BUY, you should say BYE as you switch to another TV channel.

Good luck if you put your trust in this guy.

Typical Cramer Rant - But What's The Point?.......2006-12-31

Don't get me wrong, I kinda like Cramer. He's entertaining. He's funny. He's run a successful Hedge Fund. He's made a lot of money. He's also often wrong.

Here's my personal experience with Cramer. A few weeks before the collapse of Tyco, Cramer was hyping the stock on his Real Money radio program. If I remember the quote correctly he said, "I would be remiss if I didn't buy Tyco at these levels". So Tyco fell to $32, I bought 1,000 shares. Tyco went to $35 a week later, I sold and made a sweet profit. A week after that Tyco tanked. The rest is history.

I got lucky.

Even though I made money, I suddenly realized how foolish it is to buy stock on the advice of any pundit. I counted my blessings, thanked God I didn't get creamed, and learned a valuable lesson. I wonder how many others weren't so fortunate.

This book fires bazooka rounds at the corporate excesses of the 90's and early years of the millennium. It lobs well deserved grenades into the boardrooms of the brokerage industry. Then it spits a pea shooter's worth of advice at how to avoid getting "screwed" again. Like I said, Cramer is entertaining.

Clearly, Cramer is angry at something or somebody. Maybe he's feeling guilty about his own contributions to the largess of Wall Street and wants to make amends. If that's the case then I understand why he wrote this book. It's a laudable goal. Who knows?

What I do know is there's nothing really new in this book. It provides some very interesting background information about a pivotal point in the country's financial history. It readdresses some of the deck stacking practices of the financial services industry, and it rehashes, in a minimal way, sage self-help advice that can be found in numerous other places for free.

It's not a bad book. And Cramer is not a bad guy. I actually believe the Real Money Cramer is a far different man than the Hedge Fund Cramer. A man for the better in my opinion. So I give him the benefit of the doubt.

If you know nothing about how corporate shenanigans work or how Wall Street works this book is a good primer. You'll just have to go elsewhere for the details.

Unbelievable.......2005-05-28

James J. Cramer is responsible for much of what occurred during the tech bubble. He was a cheerleader for the tech boom and now says that others got screwed? HE WAS DOING THE SCREWING! This is hypocrisy at its best.

From his near firing at Goldman to the collapse of his own company (TheStreet.com is down 90% plus from its IPO price) Cramer is a genius - at cashing in on his own failures.

Do not touch this book with a 50 foot pole.

Trust no stock under $30????.......2005-05-14

Jim Cramer rules. Anyone who can mix schadenfreude (German for vicarious pleasure in others' misery), Pangloss from CANDIDE, sports analogies, and pop culture references with a straight shooting approach to finance and investing is cool. More importantly, he does a better, more readable job of dissecting big bad Corporate America than Michael Moore ever could (Cramer and Moore both got skewed in a bad-guy list of RADAR that stated the scariest facts about both, respectively, were "Is married and has children," and "Won an Oscar"). Jim Cramer isn't a get-rich-quick franchise.

The Wall Street Self-defense Manual: A Consumer's Guide to Intelligent Investing

Average customer rating:

Excellent!
OK but nothing special
Great book. Lots of common sense
I forgive you, Henry.
Worth $10 but not $15

The Wall Street Self-defense Manual: A Consumer's Guide to Intelligent Investing
Henry Blodget
Manufacturer: AtlasBooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Book Big Profits)
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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Capital Ideas Evolving

ASIN: 0977743322

Customer Reviews:

Excellent!.......2007-06-21

Henry Blodget has done the investing public a great service in publishing this cheaply priced paperback. Blodget sucessfully distills the tenets of academic finance and modern portfolio theory into a book that any member of the investing public should easily understand.

After reading this book, one wonders how much the investing public has squandered or needlessly spent. Usually, the more you spend, the better the product or service received. The investing world is much different. An S&P 500 index fund (Vanguard had the first, but there are others out there now), has performed better than an actively managed mutual fund (after the difference in expenses is accounted for). One you factor in the superior tax efficiency of an index fund vs. an actively managed fund, it makes you wonder how all of those mutual fund managers are able to stay employed.

I can sum up this book simply: decide on an asset allocation of bonds vs. stocks, buy passively managed index funds, and hold on to those funds for as long as possible.

Although Blodget leads the reader to other, more sophisticated sources, this book is probably the only book that the avergae person with only a passing interest in investing needs to read.

OK but nothing special.......2007-05-07

This is a quick read and most of the advice is sound but has appeard before. His style is sharp and to the point, so it is probably a good read for a neophyte investor.

Great book. Lots of common sense.......2007-04-29

The book gives much common sense to investing. It's a great antidote to many of the other books. Key concepts: Don't try to beat the market; looking at the fees on mutual funds; rebalancing your your portfolio, start investing for retirement--the earlier the better, settle with lower earnings expectations.

I forgive you, Henry........2007-02-27

I had seen this book on one of my local bookstores' shelves, and quite honestly I had no intention to buy it until I say the New York Times review that completely trashed the book in the truest sense of the term. I have been one of those hapless small-time "investors" who lost a bunch of money during the dot-com boom, thanks to the advice of "market sages" like Blodget. I have started wondering what Blodget might have to say nowadays, and I plunked down the sticker price to buy the book.

I have to say the book was a pleasant surprise. As other reviewers have stated, if you already know about the benefits of passive investing and have read books such as the "A Random Walk on Wall Street" by Malkiel; there is little that the book can provide you in terms of investing information. This book is far shorter, and has
pretty much the same information in an arguably more entertaining and interesting format. Even though I consider myself well-versed in the basic tenets of passive investing; there were quite a few things that the Blodget book taught me that I did not know, such as how Benjamin Graham basically renounced fundamental analysis towards the end of his life, etc. It's far easier to read and follow than Malkiel's book, too. (By the way, if you have not read Malkiel's work, by all means please go and read both books together)

I am not sure about the alleged $10 million (according to the NY Times reviewer) of accumulated wealth that Blodget managed to retain from his days as high-flying analyst; but as far as I'm concerned, Blodget earned the couple bucks of royalty he will be getting from the copy I bought. I found the book useful, entertaining, and weirdly poignant at times where Blodget talks about his past in Wall Street(because it reminded me of my own investment follies from the era). It was refreshing to see that as I had wisened up from my experiences, so had Henry Blodget, too.

Overall, this is a good and informative book. Good job, Henry. I had been pretty upset at you and your colleagues when I lost money at the end of the dot-com boom; but hey, I forgive you now. A few hours of enjoyable reading more than paid for it.

Worth $10 but not $15.......2007-02-21

If you already know a fair amount about passive index fund investing, you aren't going to find any new information in this book. With that being said, this book is perfect for someone who still relatively new to investing or thinks that they are somehow going to beat the market. Blodget lays out a series of common pitfalls that amateur investors face and provides simple examples for each situation. In some respects "The Wall Street Self-defense Manual" does seem a little too simplistic and reads like an extended Slate colum. What sacrifices are made in terms of informational density are largely made up for in clarity and simplicity. I'll definitely lend this book out to friends and family now that I am done. Ideally I will be able to convince my dad to rework his portfolio after he reads this. If I can get him to do that, then Blodget will have more than redeemed himself as far as I am concerned.

The Book of Investing Wisdom: Classic Writings by Great Stock-Pickers and Legends of Wall Street (Book of Business Wisdom)

Average customer rating:

A solid conservative investment for your reading portfolio.
Informative and well organized.
A must read for serious investors!

The Book of Investing Wisdom: Classic Writings by Great Stock-Pickers and Legends of Wall Street (Book of Business Wisdom)

Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Book of Leadership Wisdom: Classic Writings by Legendary Business Leaders (Book of Business Wisdom)

ASIN: 0471294543

Amazon.com

When the stock market booms--as it did through most of the 1990s--relatively inexperienced investors like to believe there's a new paradigm at work. That's why it's refreshing to take a look occasionally at how investors survived previous booms--and busts. What did the founders of Moody's, Value Line, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average think about the markets they were analyzing and attempting to quantify?

Thus, when Charles Dow writes in an essay titled "Booms and Busts" that "There is a pronounced difference between bull markets that are made by manipulation and those that are made by the public," you perk up. Sure, he was writing all this in the Wall Street Journal in 1899, but he could just as easily be talking about day traders and 401(k) savers in 1999.

Essays by more current investment gurus appear, too. Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, and Abby Joseph Cohen pitch in, as does George Soros in a must-read section called "Crash and Learn". Not all investing involves the stock market, so even Donald Trump makes an appearance, with an essay called "Trump Cards: The Elements of the Deal."

You won't find hot stock tips here, but you will find the greatest investors of the past century or so discussing the principles that governed or govern their decision-making. And since those decisions created some of the greatest fortunes of all time, it's a vital read. --Lou Schuler

Book Description

Charles H. Dow, Benjamin Graham, George Soros, Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett, Mario Gabelli, and Donald Trump. You won't find a seminar or lecture anywhere that boasts a panel quite like this-a group of the great stock-pickers and market gurus, both past and present, brought together to instruct you on the art of investing. The Book of Investing Wisdom offers you a unique insight into how these professionals and many others achieved financial success through intelligent investing-all from the comfort of your armchair. Never before have the writings of such a large and diverse group of brilliant investors been collected between the covers of a single book.

The Book of Investing Wisdom is an anthology of 46 essays and speeches from the most successful, well-known investors and financiers of our time. In their own words, these legends of Wall Street share their best investment ideas and advice. You'll hear from Bernard Baruch on stock market slumps, Peter Bernstein on investing for the long term, Joseph E. Granville on market movements, John Moody on investment vs. speculation, Otto Kahn on the New York Stock Exchange and public opinion, William Peter Hamilton on the Dow theory, and Leo Melamed on the art of futures trading, to name just a few.

For easy reference, the 46 essays featured in The Book of Investing Wisdom are organized into eight categories, covering the nuts and bolts of analysis, investing attitude and philosophy, investing strategies, market cycles, views from the inside, lessons from notorious characters, insights from the Great Crashes, and advice beyond your average blue chip. Each essay is preceded by a brief introduction that provides intriguing and insightful background information about its author's life and career, and places the essay in historical perspective. Significant statements, inspiring thoughts, and even quirky bits of wisdom have been highlighted throughout the book to call attention to each contributor's most memorable ideas.

Offering practical advice, strategic wisdom, and intriguing history, The Book of Investing Wisdom will inspire and motivate everyone from the professional money manager to the do-it-yourself investor to the business student.

PETER KRASS is a freelance writer and editor living in Connecticut. He contributes regularly to Investor's Business Daily. His other books include The Book of Leadership Wisdom: Classic Writings by Legendary Business Leaders and The Book of Business Wisdom: Class Writings by the Legends of Commerce and Industry, also available from Wiley.

Customer Reviews:

A solid conservative investment for your reading portfolio........1999-03-30

An exceptional collection of essays by 46 great names business such as Pickens, Baruch, Moody, Buffet, Lynch, Forbes, Soros, and Trump. Key themes include: basic of analysis; attitude and philosophy; strategy; cycles; views from the inside; and more. Each essay includes a biographical sketch of the writer.

This collection of essays proves to be interesting, entertaining, and filled with informative thoughts. This is not a 'how to get-rich-quick in the stock market book'; it is more of a solid, conservative investment for your reading portfolio. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Informative and well organized........1999-03-24

Krass' style creates an easy to follow, easy to understand narrative of some of the best business minds and their approach to financial investing.

A must read for serious investors!.......1999-03-23

Well conceived and organized with keen insight into how some of the best investors attained their success through intelligent financial investments.

The Predictors: How a Band of Maverick Physicists Used Chaos Theory to Trade Their Way to a Fortune on Wall Street

Average customer rating:

boring,,,i dont care about the weather
Required Reading Before Trying to 'Beat the Market'
Interesting Reading
Interesting Topic not Handled Well
Another book about a start-up

The Predictors: How a Band of Maverick Physicists Used Chaos Theory to Trade Their Way to a Fortune on Wall Street
Thomas A. Bass
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Introduction | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Chaos & Systems | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0805057560

Amazon.com

Using a computer to beat Wall Street from afar is, arguably, the new American dream. While it will remain just that for most of us, an offbeat gang of academics turned financial wizards is showing it can be done. Led by acclaimed physicists Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard, the Santa Fe-based Prediction Company has proven since its 1991 founding in an adobe bungalow furnished with plastic lawn chairs and top-of-the-line Sun workstations that it is indeed possible to make millions in the world's financial markets by anticipating trends and developing software that automatically capitalizes on them. In The Predictors, Thomas A. Bass colorfully relates their tale of fiscal triumph--and reveals in the process how even an unorthodox group of antibusiness intellectuals in far-off New Mexico can make the world's biggest institutions sit up and take notice.

Long esteemed in the scientific community, Farmer and Packard have become legendary in hacker circles since their failed attempt to beat the roulette tables in Las Vegas with toe-operated computers was chronicled in Bass's well-regarded 1985 book called The Eudaemonic Pie. This time, though, the two hit the jackpot with their cutting-edge computer programs and the company they created to trade German marks, Chicago commodities, Japanese treasury bonds, Texas oil futures, and New York securities. Bass's prose is a bit flowery at times, but his perceptive you-are-there account is nonetheless entertaining and sure to cement the pair's reputation as today's ultimate masters of "phynance," the successful, and now oft-copied, merger of physics and finance. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

How a band of maverick physicists used chaos theory to trade their way to fortune on Wall Street.

How could a couple of rumpled physicists in sandals and Eat the Rich T-shirts, piling computers into an adobe house in Santa Fe, hope to take on the Masters of the Universe from Goldman Sachs? Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard may never have read The Wall Street Journal, but they happen to be among the founders of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. Who better to try to find order in the apparently unreasoned chaos of the global financial markets? Thomas Bass first made readers aware of Farmer and Packard in The Eudaemonic Pie, in which he chronicled their assault on the casinos of Las Vegas. Here, Bass takes us inside their start-up company, at first a motley collection of long-haired Ph.D.s, nervously testing their computer forecasting models. As confidence builds, Farmer and Packard make their way to the centers of financial power, where they find investors and ultimately go live with real money. Once they are off and running, The Predictors becomes a dizzying, often hilarious tale of genius and greed, power brokers and rebels, as well as a brisk education in chaos, complexity, and the world financial markets.

Customer Reviews:

boring,,,i dont care about the weather.......2006-06-07

this book could be better, but the author is giving too much details of some unnecessary objects, like describing the weather and shape of the chin of someone or what sandwich some unrelated guy is eating and what underwears they like for 2 paragraphs. suddenly he jumps to talk about the history of sante fe and the Zozoba a couple of times which i still dont know what the heck is it.

i got so irritated readin about the excessive writings on completely unrelated objects and subjects that i paid less attention even when he is talking about the related characters.

after all the mental abuse, we are left with nothing about how the adventure eventaully goes...REFUND!Not a recommended read, skip!

Required Reading Before Trying to 'Beat the Market'.......2006-01-31

With over 80,000,000 Americans investing in the stock market, many believe that they can quickly and easily go in and 'out-think' all those other traders who "just aren't as smart as I am." Well, before you go in and compete against the big boys, you might want to read this book to get a good understanding of who and what you are competing against.

There is an old saying that goes "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out." Yeah, well, maybe not. But, when you try to outwit the market, you better realize that you are competing against rocket scientists, and physicists, and mathematicians who attack the market in ways the average investor can't even comprehend. Yet, that is who you compete against in the market.

This book tells the story of a group of physicists and their friends who set out to build an automated trading system that would rule the market. Did they succeed? Well, I wouldn't want to give away the ending. But, needless to say, before you jump into the stock market and get your ego and pocketbook devastated, you might want to read about how difficult it is to 'rule the market' even when you have some of the best brains in the US tackling the problem with resources that you and I will never have.

This book should be required reading before a person can invest in the stock market.

Interesting Reading.......2005-03-11

Plenty of facts here and good first reading for someone wanting to understand the world markets - it will whet your appetite.
The book jumps around a lot from events to biographies of the people involved, so try to hang on.
There is no technical information given on the methods used other than generalizations. The books leaves you thinking that the company will be a huge success. Its hard to tell if this is the case by looking at the company's website at www.predict.com.
The book is the best thing to happen to this company - better than its technology.

Interesting Topic not Handled Well.......2004-04-12

I agree with many of the other reviewers. This book is 90% filler. Instead of discussing the topic at hand, we are repeatedly bombarded with a desciption of the weather, the El Paso fiesta season, etc... This is a story about a group of (in my opinion, uninteresting) characters, and not a book on Investing or Science. Not recommended.

Another book about a start-up.......2003-11-28

This book is less about the market and more about the personal relationships and dealings of a business start-up. I'm surprised that the book lists its category as BUSINESS/SCIENCE when truly it lies in the former. I guess mentioning chaos theory, neural networks and genetic algorithms was all that was needed.

Regardless, it was an entertaining story about a group of physicists, being totally ignorant of the market, decide that they can predict the market. The storyline follows what I would consider typical of any start-up; the fights, arguments, doubts, meetings galore, etc... As I said, entertaining but not too much different from any other story about a start-up.

My two biggest complaints:

1) The back cover from the San Francisco Chronicle calls this book "one of the best books ever written about commodities, currency, and derivatives trading." I don't think they even read the book since this book isn't about trading but all about the traders.

2) The over use of descriptive fashion and landscape. I lost track of how many times we needed to be told who was wearing what and how blue the sky was in Santa Fe. It really got annoying after awhile.

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