Rational Expectations: Asset Allocation for Investing Adults (Investing for Adults Book 4)
William J. Bernstein - 2014
Continuing the theme of the Investing for Adults series, this full-length finance title is not for beginners, but rather assumes a fair degree of quantitative ability and finance knowledge. If you think you can time the market or pick stocks and mutual fund managers, or even if you think that you can formulate an optimally efficient mean-variance asset allocation with a black box, then learn some basic finance and come back in a few years.On the other hand, if you know your way around risk premiums and standard deviations and know who Irving Fisher and Benjamin Graham were, and if you want to sharpen your asset class skills, you’ve come to the right place.
How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market
Nicolas Darvas - 1960
Hungarian by birth, Nicolas Darvas trained as an economist at the University of Budapest. Reluctant to remain in Hungary until either the Nazis or the Soviets took over, he fled at the age of 23 with a forged exit visa and fifty pounds sterling to stave off hunger in Istanbul, Turkey. During his off hours as a dancer, he read some 200 books on the market and the great speculators, spending as much as eight hours a day studying.Darvas ploughed his money into a couple of stocks that had been hitting their 52-week high. He was utterly surprised that the stocks continued to rise and subsequently sold them to make a large profit. His main source of stock selection was Barron's Magazine. At the age of 39, after accumulating his fortune, Darvas documented his techniques in the book, How I Made 2,000,000 in the Stock Market. The book describes his unique "Box System", which he used to buy and sell stocks. Darvas' book remains a classic stock market text to this day.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Charles Mackay - 1841
This Harriman House edition includes Charles Mackay's account of the three infamous financial manias - John Law's Mississipi Scheme, the South Sea Bubble, and Tulipomania.Between the three of them, these historic episodes confirm that greed and fear have always been the driving forces of financial markets, and, furthermore, that being sensible and clever is no defence against the mesmeric allure of a popular craze with the wind behind it.In writing the history of the great financial manias, Charles Mackay proved himself a master chronicler of social as well as financial history. Blessed with a cast of characters that covered all the vices, gifted a passage of events which was inevitably heading for disaster, and with the benefit of hindsight, he produced a record that is at once a riveting thriller and absorbing historical document. A century and a half later, it is as vibrant and lurid as the day it was written.For modern-day investors, still reeling from the dotcom crash, the moral of the popular manias scarcely needs spelling out. When the next stock market bubble comes along, as it surely will, you are advised to recall the plight of some of the unfortunates on these pages, and avoid getting dragged under the wheels of the careering bandwagon yourself.
How to Trade in Stocks
Jesse Livermore - 1940
Written shortly before his death in 1940, How to Trade Stocks offered traders their first account of that famously tight-lipped operator's trading system. Written in Livermore's inimitable, no-nonsense style, it interweaves fascinating autobiographical and historical details with step-by-step guidance on: Reading market and stock behaviors Analyzing leading sectors Market timing Money management Emotional control In this new edition of that classic, trader and top Livermore expert Richard Smitten sheds new light on Jesse Livermore's philosophy and methods. Drawing on Livermore's private papers and interviews with his family, Smitten provides priceless insights into the Livermore trading formula, along with tips on how to combine it with contemporary charting techniques. Also included is the Livermore Market Key, the first and still one of the most accurate methods of tracking and recording market patterns Jesse Livermore is a stock market legend who made and lost four stock market fortunes in 40 years. Livermore's revolutionary timing techniques, money management systems, and high-momentum approach to trading are as valid today as they were three-quarters of a century ago. Richard Smitten teaches the “Jesse Livermore Trading System" and is developing "Trade Like Jesse Livermore" software. His other books include How to Trade Like Jesse Livermore and a number of novels About The Author: Jesse Livermore is a stock market legend who made and lost four stock market fortunes in 40 years. Livermore's revolutionary timing techniques, money management systems, and high-momentum approach to trading are as valid today as they were three-quarters of a century ago. Richard Smitten teaches the “Jesse Livermore Trading System" and is developing "Trade Like Jesse Livermore" software. His other books include How to Trade Li
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom and Bust
John Coates - 2012
In a series of startling experiments, Canadian scientist Dr. John Coates identified a feedback loop between testosterone and success that dramatically lowers the fear of risk in men, especially young men; he has vividly dubbed the moment when traders transform into exuberant high flyers "the hour between dog and wolf." Similarly, intense failure leads to a rise in levels of cortisol, which dramatically lowers the appetite for risk. His book expands on his seminal research to offer lessons from the exploding new field studying the biology of risk. Coates's conclusions shed light on all types of high-pressure decision-making, from the sports field to the battlefield, and leaves us with a powerful recognition: to handle risk isn't a matter of mind over body, it's a matter of mind and body working together. We all have it in us to be transformed from dog to wolf; the only question is whether we can understand the causes and the consequences.
Jim Cramer's Get Rich Carefully
James J. Cramer - 2013
In our recovering economy, this is the plan you need to make big money without taking big risks.Drawing on his unparalleled knowledge of the stock market and on the mistakes and successes he's made on the way to his own fortune, Cramer explains—in plain English—why you can get rich in a prudent, methodical way, as long as you start now. In his own inimitable style, Cramer lays it on the line, no waffling, no on-the-one-hand-or-the-other hedging, just the straight stuff you need to accumulate wealth. This is a book of wisdom as well as specifics. Cramer names names, highlights individual and sector plays, and identifies the best long-term investing themes—and shows you how to develop the disciplines you need to exploit them. The personal finance book of the year, Get Rich Carefully is the invaluable guide to turning your savings into real, lasting wealth in a practical, and yes—because this is, after all, a book by Jim Cramer—highly readable and entertaining way.
MODERN VALUE INVESTING: 25 Tools to Invest With a Margin of Safety in Today's Financial Environment
Sven Carlin - 2018
One way of doing that is through investing education. The book is my attempt to help with the development of a strong investing mindset and skillset to help you make better investment decisions. There is a gap in the value investing world. Benjamin Graham published The Intelligent Investor in 1949 with several subsequent editions up to 1972, while Seth Klarman published Margin of Safety in 1991. With more than 50 years since Graham published his masterpiece and almost 30 since Klarman's, there was the need for a contemporary book to account for all the changes in the financial environment we live in.Modern Value Investing book does exactly that, in 4 parts.Part 1 discusses the most important psychological traits a successful investor should have. Part 2 describes 25 tools that help with investment analysis.Part 3 applies those tools on an example. Part 4 is food for investing thought as it discusses modern approaches to investing. Approaches range from an all-weather portfolio strategy to hyperbolic discounting and others you can take advantage of when the time is right.
The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
Scott Patterson - 2010
They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who’d studied theoretical mathematics at Princeton and now managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT…when he wasn’t playing his keyboard for morning commuters on the New York subway. With him was Ken Griffin, who as an undergraduate trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room had outsmarted the Wall Street pros and made money in one of the worst bear markets of all time. Now he was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group, one of the most powerful money machines on earth. There too were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR, a man as famous for his computer-smashing rages as for his brilliance, and Boaz Weinstein, chess life-master and king of the credit default swap, who while juggling $30 billion worth of positions for Deutsche Bank found time for frequent visits to Las Vegas with the famed MIT card-counting team. On that night in 2006, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz --technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers-- had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino. The quants believed that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry held the key to reaping riches from the financial markets. And they helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized that night, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster. Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize – and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast. Had their years of success been dumb luck, fool’s gold, a good run that could come to an end on any given day? What if The Truth they sought -- the secret of the markets -- wasn’t knowable? Worse, what if there wasn’t any Truth? In The Quants, Scott Patterson tells the story not just of these men, but of Jim Simons, the reclusive founder of the most successful hedge fund in history; Aaron Brown, the quant who used his math skills to humiliate Wall Street’s old guard at their trademark game of Liar’s Poker, and years later found himself with a front-row seat to the rapid emergence of mortgage-backed securities; and gadflies and dissenters such as Paul Wilmott, Nassim Taleb, and Benoit Mandelbrot. With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris…and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future.
Stocks on the Move: Beating the Market with Hedge Fund Momentum Strategies
Andreas Clenow - 2015
Yet almost all mutual funds consistently fail. Hedge fund manager Andreas F. Clenow takes you behind the scenes to show you why this is the case and how anyone can beat the mutual funds. Momentum investing has been one of very few ways of consistently beating the markets. This book offers you a unique back stage pass, guiding you through how established hedge funds achieve their results. The stock markets are widely misunderstood. Buying and selling stocks seems so simple. We all know what stocks are and what the companies produce. We’re told that stocks always go up in the long run and that everyone should be in the stock markets. Oversimplifications like that can end up costing you. In the long run, the major stock indexes show a performance of five to six percent per year. For that return, you will have to bear occasional losses of over half your capital and be forced to wait many years to recover your money. Yes, in the long run stocks do go up. But the story isn’t that simple. Stocks on the Move outlines a rational way to invest in the markets for the long term. It will walk you through the problems of the stock markets and how to address them. It will explain how to achieve twice the return of the stock markets at considerably lower risk. All rules and all details will be explained in this book, allowing anyone to replicate the strategies and research. Andreas F. Clenow is the chief investment officer and partner of ACIES Asset Management, based in Zurich, Switzerland. Starting out as a successful IT entrepreneur in the 90s boom, he enjoyed a stellar career as global head of equity and commodity quant modeling for Reuters before leaving for the hedge fund world. Having founded and managed multiple hedge funds, Mr. Clenow is now overseeing asset management and trading across all asset classes. He is the author of best-selling and critically acclaimed book Following the Trend and can be reached via his popular website www.FollowingTheTrend.com.
Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques: A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Investment Techniques of the Far East
Steve Nison - 1991
These colorful and exciting techniques are hot on the lips of leading analysts and traders worldwide.
Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor
John C. Bogle - 1999
Buffett Praise for Common Sense on Mutual Funds "Invoking both Thomas Paine and Benjamin Graham, Jack Bogle outlines a supremely logical plan not only to better investors' returns, but to improve the whole fund industry. This isn't just the best book yet by Bogle, it may well be the best book ever on mutual funds." -DON PHILLIPS, President & CEO, Morningstar, Inc. "Buffett cannot teach you or me how to become a Warren Buffett. Bogle's reasoned precepts can enable a few million of us savers to become in twenty years the envy of our suburban neighbors-while at the same time we have slept well in these eventful times."-PAUL A. SAMUELSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics "After a lifetime of picking stocks, I have to admit that Bogle's arguments in favor of the index fund have me thinking of joining him rather than trying to beat him. Bogle's wisdom and his commonsense way of explaining things make this book indispensable reading for anyone trying to figure out how to invest in this crazy stock market."-JAMES J. CRAMER, Money Manager and Senior Columnist for TheStreet.com "Written in his characteristic forthright and visionary style, Bogle penetrates the myths and jargon to shed a powerful light on the central issues that confront every investor, no matter what their level of experience or sophistication." -MARTIN L. LEIBOWITZ, Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, TIAA-CREF "Jack Bogle is one of the great pioneer/visionaries of the investment business. In this book, he shares his knowledge, experience, and judgment to enable us to become better investors. The final philosophical chapters provide insights that may help some of us become better people." -BYRON R. WIEN, Chief U.S. Investment Strategist Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
Winning the Game of Stocks!
Adam Khoo - 2013
However, we live in an economic era when making money is no longer as easy as investing in good stocks and mutual funds and watching them appreciate over time. Today’s volatile and interconnected financial system means that the stocks you own can come crashing down today and climb even higher tomorrow due to developments in Europe and the Middle East. Yet, investing in the stock market still provides one of the best returns for your savings and the only way through which an average income earner can hope to become financially free. This is why it is important for you to become a savvy investor who knows how to achieve consistent profits —even in an uncertain global economy.In this book, you are going to learn to…• Invest in Winning Stocks That Generate High Double-Digit Returns• Identify Market Uptrends and Downtrends Accurately• Hedge and Protect Your Portfolio from Market Crashes• Short Sell and Profit in a Down-trending Market• Manage Your Risks and Maximize Your Returns• Develop the Psychology of a Disciplined Investor• Build a Winning Portfolio That Suits Your Investment Goals• Build a Passive Income Stream from Real Estate Investment Trusts• Build a Multi-Million Dollar Net Worth on an Average Income
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.
Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Classic Edition
David Dreman - 1980
His techniques have spawned countless imitators, most of whom pay lip service to the buzzword "contrarian," but few can match his performance. His Kemper-Dreman High Return Fund has been the leader since its inception in 1988 -- the number one equity-income fund among all 208 ranked by Lipper Analytical Services, Inc. Dreman is also one of a handful of money managers whose clients have beaten the runaway market over the past five, ten, and fifteen years. Now, as the longest bull market in the history of the stock market winds down, there is increasing volatility and a great deal of uncertainty. This is the climate that tests the mettle of the pros, the worries of the average investor, and the success of David Dreman's brilliant new strategies for the next millennium. Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation shows investors how to outperform professional money managers and profit from potential Wall Street panics -- all in Dreman's trademark style, which The New York Times calls "witty and clear as a silver bell." Dreman reveals a proven, systematic, and safe way to beat the market by buying stocks of good companies when they are currently out of favor. At the heart of his book is a fundamental psychological insight: investors overreact. Dreman demonstrates how investors consistently overvalue the so-called "best" stocks and undervalue the so-called "worst" stocks, and how earnings and other surprises affect the best and worst stocks in opposite ways. Since surprises are a way of life in the market, Dreman shows you how to profit from these surprises with his ingenious new techniques, most of which have been developed in the nineties. You'll learn: Why contrarian stocks offer extra protection in bear markets, as well as delivering superior returns when the bull roars.Why a high dividend yield is just as important for the aggressive investor as it is for "widows and orphans."Why owning Treasury bills and government bonds -- the "safest investments" for centuries -- is like being fully margined at the top of the 1929 market.Why Initial Public Offerings are a guaranteed loser's game.Why you should avoid Nasdaq ("the market of the next hundred years") like the plague.Why crisis, panic, and even market downturns are the contrarian investor's best friend.Why the chances of hitting a home run using the Street's best research are worse than being the big winner in the New York State Lottery. Based on cutting-edge research and irrefutable statistics, David Dreman's revolutionary techniques will benefit professionals and laymen alike.
The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns
Mohnish Pabrai - 2007
Written with the intelligent individual investor in mind, this comprehensive guide distills the Dhandho capital allocation framework of the business savvy Patels from India and presents how they can be applied successfully to the stock market. The Dhandho method expands on the groundbreaking principles of value investing expounded by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. Readers will be introduced to important value investing concepts such as Heads, I win! Tails, I don't lose that much!, Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets, Abhimanyu's dilemma, and a detailed treatise on using the Kelly Formula to invest in undervalued stocks. Using a light, entertaining style, Pabrai lays out the Dhandho framework in an easy-to-use format. Any investor who adopts the framework is bound to improve on results and soundly beat the markets and most professionals.