Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger


Peter Bevelin - 2003
    His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twainfrom Albert Einstein to Richard Feynmanfrom 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking. Bevelin tackles such eternal questions as: Why do we behave like we do? What do we want out of life? What interferes with our goals? Read and study this wonderful multidisciplinary exploration of wisdom. It may change the way you think and act in business and in life.

Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street


Fred Schwed Jr. - 1940
    . . . What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively clean language-the lunacy at the heart of the investment business. -- From the Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of Liar's Poker . . . one of the funniest books ever written about Wall Street. -- Jane Bryant Quinn, The Washington PostHow great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. -- Michael BloombergIt's amazing how well Schwed's book is holding up after fifty-five years. About the only thing that's changed on Wall Street is that computers have replaced pencils and graph paper. Otherwise, the basics are the same. The investor's need to believe somebody is matched by the financial advisor's need to make a nice living. If one of them has to be disappointed, it's bound to be the former. -- John Rothchild, Author, A Fool and His Money, Financial Columnist, Time magazineHumorous and entertaining, this book exposes the folly and hypocrisy of Wall Street. The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers. Full of wise contrarian advice and offering a true look at the world of investing, in which brokers get rich while their customers go broke, this book continues to open the eyes of investors to the reality of Wall Street.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets


Benoît B. Mandelbrot - 1997
    Mandelbrot, one of the century's most influential mathematicians, is world-famous for making mathematical sense of a fact everybody knows but that geometers from Euclid on down had never assimilated: Clouds are not round, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not smooth. To these classic lines we can now add another example: Markets are not the safe bet your broker may claim. In his first book for a general audience, Mandelbrot, with co-author Richard L. Hudson, shows how the dominant way of thinking about the behavior of markets-a set of mathematical assumptions a century old and still learned by every MBA and financier in the world-simply does not work. As he did for the physical world in his classic The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Mandelbrot here uses fractal geometry to propose a new, more accurate way of describing market behavior. The complex gyrations of IBM's stock price and the dollar-euro exchange rate can now be reduced to straightforward formulae that yield a far better model of how risky they are. With his fractal tools, Mandelbrot has gotten to the bottom of how financial markets really work, and in doing so, he describes the volatile, dangerous (and strangely beautiful) properties that financial experts have never before accounted for. The result is no less than the foundation for a new science of finance.

Investing Demystified: How to Invest Without Speculation and Sleepless Nights


Lars Kroijer - 2013
    By showing you how to build a simple and rational portfolio and tailor it to your specific needs, "Investing Demystified "will help you generate superior returns.With his straightforward and jargon-free advice, Lars Kroijer simplies the often complex world of finance and tells you everything you need to know and everything that you don t need to worry about in order to make the most from your investments.In "Investing Demystified "you will: Discover the mix of stocks, bonds and cash needed for a top performing portfolio Learn why the most broadly diversi_ ed and simplest portfolio makes the most sense Understand the right level of risk for you and how this affects your investments Find out why a low cost approach will yield bene_ ts whilst leaving you with a higher quality portfolio Understand the implications of tax and liquidity"

Value Investing And Behavioral Finance: Insights Into Indian Stock Market Realities


Parag Parikh - 2009
    Rational and successful investing is all about restraining and channelizing these emotions and understanding behavioral finance, not market sentiments, crowd behavior or company performances. At a time when market upheavals are eroding investors' confidence, dooming life's earnings and corporate fortunes, and whipping up mass hysteria-Value Investing and Behavioral Finance comes as an antidote to investor anxiety and a guide to sane and safe investment decisions. Using investing trends in Indian capital markets over the last three decades, it shows how collective behavioral biases affect investment decisions, returns and market vagaries. As a corrective, it spells out long-term value and contrarian investing strategies based on the principles of behavioral finance. Further, it advises on how to spot investment opportunities and pitfalls in commodity stocks, growth stocks, PSUs, IPOs, sectors and index stocks. It also alerts the reader to a 'bubble' or crisis situation, and ways to identify and insure against it.

Your Money: The Missing Manual


J.D. Roth - 2010
    But how do you deal with expenses, debt, taxes, and retirement without getting overwhelmed? This book points the way. It's filled with the kind of practical guidance and sound insights that makes J.D. Roth's GetRichSlowly.org a critically acclaimed source of personal-finance advice.You won't find any get-rich-quick schemes here, just sensible advice for getting the most from your money. Even if you have perfect credit and no debt, you'll learn ways to make your rosy financial situation even better.Get the info you need to make sensible decisions on saving, spending, and investingLearn the best ways to set and achieve financial goalsSet up a realistic budget framework and learn how to track expensesDiscover proven methods to help you eliminate debtUnderstand how to use credit wiselyWin big by making smart decisions on your home and other big-ticket itemsLearn how to get the most from your investments by avoiding rash decisionsDecide how -- and how much -- to save for retirement

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves


Andrew Ross Sorkin - 2009
    From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world’s economy. “We’ve got to get some foam down on the runway!” a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world’s financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were “too big to fail,” it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.

The Little Book of Main Street Money: 21 Simple Truths That Help Real People Make Real Money


Jonathan Clements - 2009
    Clements, the hugely popular "Wall Street Journal" personal-finance columnist, offers 21 easy-to-follow rules and commonsense investing tips that can help readers secure their financial future.

Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor


Tren Griffin - 2015
    His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom"--a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management--allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.Munger's system has steered his investments for forty years and has guided generations of successful investors. This book presents the essential steps of Munger's investing strategy, condensed here for the first time from interviews, speeches, writings, and shareholder letters, and paired with commentary from fund managers, value investors, and business-case historians. Derived from Ben Graham's value-investing system, Munger's approach is straightforward enough that ordinary investors can apply it to their portfolios. This book is not simply about investing. It is about cultivating mental models for your whole life, but especially for your investments.

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine


Mike Michalowicz - 2014
    The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that:- Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances.- A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line.- Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth.With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of.

Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption


Ben Mezrich - 2019
    While nursing their wounds in Ibiza, they accidentally run into an eccentric character who tells them about a brand-new idea: cryptocurrency. Immersing themselves in what is then an obscure and sometimes sinister world, they begin to realize “crypto” is, in their own words, "either the next big thing or total bulls--t." There’s nothing left to do but make a bet.From the Silk Road to the halls of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bitcoin Billionaires will take us on a wild and surprising ride while illuminating a tantalizing economic future. On November 26, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. Here’s the story of how they got there—as only Ben Mezrich could tell it.

Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management


Alexander Elder - 1993
    Trading for a Living helps you master all of those three areas: * How to become a cool, calm, and collected trader * How to profit from reading the behavior of the market crowd * How to use a computer to find good trades * How to develop a powerful trading system * How to find the trades with the best odds of success * How to find entry and exit points, set stops, and take profits Trading for a Living helps you discipline your Mind, shows you the Methods for trading the markets, and shows you how to manage Money in your trading accounts so that no string of losses can kick you out of the game. To help you profit even more from the ideas in Trading for a Living, look for the companion volume--Study Guide for Trading for a Living. It asks over 200 multiple-choice questions, with answers and 11 rating scales for sharpening your trading skills. For example: Question Markets rise when * there are more buyers than sellers * buyers are more aggressive than sellers * sellers are afraid and demand a premium * more shares or contracts are bought than sold* I and II * II and III * II and IV * III and IV Answer B. II and III. Every change in price reflects what happens in the battle between bulls and bears. Markets rise when bulls feel more strongly than bears. They rally when buyers are confident and sellers demand a premium for participating in the game that is going against them. There is a buyer and a seller behind every transaction. The number of stocks or futures bought and sold is equal by definition.

Bull's Eye Investing: Targeting Real Returns in a Smoke and Mirrors Market


John Mauldin - 2004
    Now is the time to learn to target where the market is going to be, not where it has been, so you can invest successfully. Financial expert John Mauldin makes a powerful, almost irrefutable case regarding the future direction of the markets. He then details a new approach to investing that will allow you to adjust to the new reality of investing. You'll consider options beyond traditional stock portfolios as you learn to choose between the stable and secure investments that will enable you to profit in turbulent markets. Buy your copy of this must-read investment roadmap today.

Running Money: Hedge Fund Honchos, Monster Markets and My Hunt for the Big Score


Andy Kessler - 2004
    To run a successful hedge fund you must have an investing edge -- that special insight that allows you to reap greater returns for your clients and yourself.A quick study, Kessler gets an education in investing from some fascinating and quirky personalities. Eventually he works out his own insight into the world economy, a powerful lens that reveals to him hidden value in seemingly negative trends. Focussing on margin surplus, Kessler comes to see that current American economy, at the apex of the information revolution, is not so different from the British economy at the height of the industrial revolution. Drawing out the parallels he develops a powerful investing tool which he shares with readers. Contrarian and confident, Kessler made a fortune applying his ideas to his hedge fund. Which only proves that they may not be as crazy as they sound.

The Psychology of Investing


John R. Nofsinger - 2001