The Smartest Portfolio You'll Ever Own: A Do-It-Yourself Breakthrough Strategy


Daniel R. Solin - 2011
    Readers can maintain complete control over their money-and not sacrifice precious points to an advisor or broker.Using a strategy that minimizes volatility and maximizes returns, Solin makes investing according to the principles of the most sophisticated financial models accessible to individuals in a way that has never been possible before.As readers have come to expect from Solin, implementing this plan is as simple as one, two, three: open an account with a discount broker; determine the appropriate asset allocation using the simple questionnaire in the book or online; input pre-determined ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) and the allocations for the level of the investor's individual risk profile.This is the only book that provides the information and practical guidance that readers need to achieve the very best results with the minimum risk,on their own.

Winning the Loser's Game: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing


Charles D. Ellis - 1998
    This book relies on data and historical facts. It argues that successful investors avoid short-term traps to concentrate on long-term strategies that allow time, compounding, and the natural ebbs and flows of the markets to work.

13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown


Simon Johnson - 2010
    Anchored by six megabanks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—which together control assets amounting, astonishingly, to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, these financial institutions (now more emphatically “too big to fail”) continue to hold the global economy hostage, threatening yet another financial meltdown with their excessive risk-taking and toxic “business as usual” practices. How did this come to be—and what is to be done? These are the central concerns of 13 Bankers, a brilliant, historically informed account of our troubled political economy. In 13 Bankers, Simon Johnson—one of the most prominent and frequently cited economists in America (former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT, and author of the controversial “The Quiet Coup” in The Atlantic)—and James Kwak give a wide-ranging, meticulous, and bracing account of recent U.S. financial history within the context of previous showdowns between American democracy and Big Finance: from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson, from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They convincingly show why our future is imperiled by the ideology of finance (finance is good, unregulated finance is better, unfettered finance run amok is best) and by Wall Street’s political control of government policy pertaining to it. As the authors insist, the choice that America faces is stark: whether Washington will accede to the vested interests of an unbridled financial sector that runs up profits in good years and dumps its losses on taxpayers in lean years, or reform through stringent regulation the banking system as first and foremost an engine of economic growth. To restore health and balance to our economy, Johnson and Kwak make a radical yet feasible and focused proposal: reconfigure the megabanks to be “small enough to fail.” Lucid, authoritative, crucial for its timeliness, 13 Bankers is certain to be one of the most discussed and debated books of 2010.

The Investment Checklist: The Art of In-Depth Research


Michael Shearn - 2011
    When you base your purchase decisions on isolated facts and don't take the time to thoroughly understand the businesses you are buying, stock-price swings and third-party opinion can lead to costly investment mistakes. Your decision making at this point becomes dangerous because it is dominated by emotions. The Investment Checklist has been designed to help you develop an in-depth research process, from generating and researching investment ideas to assessing the quality of a business and its management team.The purpose of The Investment Checklist is to help you implement a principled investing strategy through a series of checklists. In it, a thorough and comprehensive research process is made simpler through the use of straightforward checklists that will allow you to identify quality investment opportunities. Each chapter contains detailed demonstrations of how and where to find the information necessary to answer fundamental questions about investment opportunities. Real-world examples of how investment managers and CEOs apply these universal principles are also included and help bring the concepts to life. These checklists will help you consider a fuller range of possibilities in your investment strategy, enhance your ability to value your investments by giving you a holistic view of the business and each of its moving parts, identify the risks you are taking, and much more.Offers valuable insights into one of the most important aspects of successful investing, in-depth research Written in an accessible style that allows aspiring investors to easily understand and apply the concepts covered Discusses how to think through your investment decisions more carefully With The Investment Checklist, you'll quickly be able to ascertain how well you understand your investments by the questions you are able to answer, or not answer, without making the costly mistakes that usually hinder other investors.

Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors


Allen C. Benello - 2016
    Sharing the insights of these top value investors, expert authors Allen Benello, Michael van Biema, and Tobias Carlisle unveil the strategies that make concentrated value investing incredibly profitable, while at the same time showing how to mitigate risk over time. Highlighting the history and approaches of four top value investors, the authors tell the fascinating story of the investors who dare to tread where few others have, and the wildly-successful track records that have resulted. Turning the notion of diversification on its head, concentrated value investors pick a small group of undervalued stocks and hold onto them through even the lean years. The approach has been championed by Warren Buffett, the best known value investor of our time, but a small group of lesser-known investors has also used this approach to achieve outstanding returns. Discover the success of Lou Simpson, a former GEICO investment manager and eventual successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Read about Kristian Siem, described as "Norway's Warren Buffett," and the success he has had at Siem Industries Concentrated Investing will quickly have you re-thinking the conventional wisdom related to diversification and learning from the top concentrated value investors the world has never heard of.

Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!


Phil Town - 2006
    As a guy who barely made a living as a river guide, I considered the whole process pretty impenetrable, and I was convinced that to do it right you had to make it a full-time job. Me, I was more interested in having full-time fun.So I was tempted to do what you’re probably doing right now: letting some mutual fund manager worry about growing your nest egg. Let me tell you why that decision could one day make you absolutely miserable. The fact is, because of natural market cycles, the mutual fund industry is likely to soon be facing twenty years of flat returns. That means that if you’ve got your nest egg tucked away in funds—especially the type found in most 401ks—your egg won’t get much bigger than it is now. Translation: Get ready for a retirement filled with lots of cold cuts, plenty of quality TV-watching time, and a place to live that’s too small to accommodate your visiting kids.In this book I’ll show you how I turned $1,000 into $1 million in only five years, and then proceeded to make many millions more. I came to investing as a person who wasn’t great at math, possessed zero extra cash, and wanted a life—not an extra three hours of work to do every day.Fortunately, I was introduced to The Rule.Rule #1, as famed investor Warren Buffett will tell you, is don’t lose money. Through an intriguing process that I’ll clarify in this book, not losing money results in making more money than you ever imagined. What it comes down to is buying shares of companies only when the numbers—and the intangibles—are on your side. If that sounds too good to be true, it’s because the mind-set I’ll be introducing you to leads not to bets but to certainties. Believe me, if there were anything genius-level about this, I’d still be a river guide collecting unemployment much of the year.Part of the secret is thinking of yourself as a business owner rather than a stock investor. Part is taking advantage of today’s new Internet tools, which drastically reduce the “homework factor.” (We’re talking a few minutes, tops.) Part is knowing the only five numbers that really count in valuing a potential investment. And part—maybe the most important part—is using the risk-free Rule #1 approach to consistently pay a mere 50 cents to buy a dollar’s worth of a business.What I won’t waste your time with is fluff: a lot of vague parables reminding you of what you already know and leaving you exactly where you started. This is the real deal, folks: a start-to-finish, one-baby-step-at-a-time approach that will allow you to retire ten years sooner than you planned, with more creature comforts than you ever imagined.Also available as a Random House AudioBook and eBook.

The Battle for Investment Survival


Gerald M. Loeb - 1911
    It is the very first Wall Street book I ever read. After reading 1,200 additional finance books, The Battle for Investment Survival's principles and concepts are still valid for consistent success." -Victor Sperandeo Author of Trader Vic on Commodities In The Battle for Investment Survival, the turf is Wall Street, the goal is to preserve your capital at all costs, and to win is to "make a killing without being killed." This memorable classic, originally written in 1935, offers a fresh perspective on investing from times past. The Battle for Investment Survival treats investors to a straightforward account of how to profit-and how to avoid profit loss-in what Loeb would describe as the constant tug-of-war between rising and falling markets.

The Wealthy Barber Returns


David Chilton - 2011
    While you're at it, learn a thing or two about your personal motivation and how to point it in the right direction. And laugh your socks off, too! I thoroughly enjoyed this book!"Gail Vaz-Oxlade, TV Host of Til Debt Do Us Part and Financial Author"The Task Force on Financial Literacy can stop dithering. All it has to do is distribute Dave Chilton's long-awaited The Wealthy Barber Returns."Jonathan Chevreau National Post Columnist and Author of Findependence"Very funny. Very smart. This fast-paced journey through the world of personal finance will help a lot of people. I loved it!" Amanda Lang, CBC Senior Business Correspondent"A simple plan for a better financial future: Read this book. It's down to earth, fun to read and wise to all the mistakes people make in managing money."Rob Carrick, Personal Finance Columnist, The Globe and Mail

Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett: Twenty Cases


Yefei Lu - 2016
    But how did they know they were making the right investments? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and how can others replicate their approach?A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffett's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an experienced investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1958 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies like See's Candies, the Washington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. Accessing partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work well for all investors in companies big and small, domestic and global. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be the breadth of his expertise.

The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy


Mervyn A. King - 2016
    We all sense that, but Mervyn King knows it firsthand; his ten years at the helm of the Bank of England, including at the height of the financial crisis, revealed profound truths about the mechanisms of our capitalist society. In The End of Alchemy he offers us an essential work about the history and future of money and banking, the keys to modern finance.The Industrial Revolution built the foundation of our modern capitalist age. Yet the flowering of technological innovations during that dynamic period relied on the widespread adoption of two much older ideas: the creation of paper money and the invention of banks that issued credit. We take these systems for granted today, yet at their core both ideas were revolutionary and almost magical. Common paper became as precious as gold, and risky long-term loans were transformed into safe short-term bank deposits. As King argues, this is financial alchemy—the creation of extraordinary financial powers that defy reality and common sense. Faith in these powers has led to huge benefits; the liquidity they create has fueled economic growth for two centuries now. However, they have also produced an unending string of economic disasters, from hyperinflations to banking collapses to the recent global recession and current stagnation.How do we reconcile the potent strengths of these ideas with their inherent weaknesses? King draws on his unique experience to present fresh interpretations of these economic forces and to point the way forward for the global economy. His bold solutions cut through current overstuffed and needlessly complex legislation to provide a clear path to durable prosperity and the end of overreliance on the alchemy of our financial ancestors.

How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street: Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn


Allan S. Roth - 2009
    Page by page, you'll learnhow to create a portfolio with the widest diversification andlowest costs; one that can move up your financial freedom by adecade and dramatically increase your spending rate duringretirement. And all this can be accomplished by using some commonsense techniques.Along the way, Kevin and his dad discuss fresh, new approachesto investing, and detail some tried-and-true, but lesser knownapproaches. They also take the time to debunk the financial mythsand legends that many of us accept as true, and show you what itreally takes to build long-term wealth with less risk.Discusses how to design a portfolio composed of a few basicbuilding blocks that can be "tweaked" to fit your personalneedsAddresses how you can reengineer your portfolio in order tostop needlessly paying taxesReveals how you can increase returns, regardless of whichdirection the market goes, by picking the "low-hanging fruit" weall have in our portfoliosWith just a little time and a little work, you can become abetter investor. With this book as your guide, you'll discover howa simpler approach to today's markets can put you on the path tofinancial independence.

Investing in REITs: Real Estate Investment Trusts


Ralph L. Block - 1998
    Drawing on more than thirty years of successful investing experience with REITs, Ralph L. Block has created the ultimate REIT guide. This third edition, fully updated, explains the ins and outs of this attractive asset class in an uncomplicated style that makes it easy for novice and professional investors, as well as financial planners and investment advisers, to find what they need to know. This new edition offers the following:How to spot blue-chip REITs and control investment risk How REITs compare with other investments How to build a diversified REIT portfolio, directly or with REIT mutual funds Understanding the risk-and-reward dynamics of commercial real estate Important new developments and strategies in the REIT industry

The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich


David Bach - 2003
    Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.What makes The Automatic Millionaire unique:You don’t need a budgetYou don’t need willpowerYou don’t need to make a lot of money You don’t need to be that interested in moneyYou can set up the plan in an hourDavid Bach gives you a totally realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know, including phone numbers and websites, so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home. This one little book has the power to secure your financial future. Do it once--the rest is automatic!

The Art and Science of Technical Analysis: Market Structure, Price Action, and Trading Strategies


Adam H. Grimes - 2012
    The book explores why randomness prevails in markets most, but not all, of the time and how technical analysis can be used to capture statistically validated patterns in certain types of market conditions. The belief of the book is that buying and selling pressure causes patterns in prices, but that these technical patterns are only effective in the presence of true buying/selling imbalance.The Art and Science of Technical Analysis is supported by extensive statistical analysis of the markets, which will debunk some tools and patterns such as Fibonacci analysis, and endorse other tools and trade setups. In addition, this reliable resource discusses trader psychology and trader learning curves based on the author's extensive experience as a trader and trainer of traders.Offers serious traders a way to think about market problems, understand their own performance, and help find a more productive path forward Includes extensive research to validate specific money-making patterns and strategies Written by an experienced market practitioner who has trained and worked with many top traders Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Art and Science of Technical Analysis will give you a realistic sense of how markets behave, when and how technical analysis works, and what it really takes to trade successfully.

The Little Book of Safe Money: How to Conquer Killer Markets, Con Artists, and Yourself


Jason Zweig - 2009
    The topics covered include everything from investing behavior-why our minds come with their own set of biases that often prove harmful-to the use of financial advisors. But this timely book goes one step further than the rest by questioning an investor's true appetite for risk.The Little Book of Safe Money also contradicts many of the myths that whirl around Wall Street with chapters like Why Ultra-ETFs Are Mega-Dangerous and Hedge-Fund Hooey. Writing in the classic Little Book style, author Jason Zweig peels away layer after layer of buzz words, emotion, and myths to reveal what's really going on in today's financial markets.Outlines strategies for satisfying our ever-changing investment appetites while focusing on a long-term financial plan Author Jason Zweig is a trusted voice in the financial community and his straightforward style resonates with investors Offers practical guidance, tools, and tips for surviving and thriving in a down market If you're serious about succeeding in today's turbulent markets, then The Little Book of Safe Money is what you should be reading.