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.

The Buy Side: A Wall Street Trader's Tale of Spectacular Excess


Turney Duff - 2013
    After trying – and failing – to land a job as a journalist, he secured a trainee position at Morgan Stanley and got his first feel for the pecking order that exists in the trading pits.  Those on the “buy side,” the traders who make large bets on whether a stock will rise or fall, are the “alphas” and those on the “sell side,” the brokers who handle their business, are eager to please. How eager to please was brought home stunningly to Turney in 1999 when he arrived at the Galleon Group, a colossal hedge-fund management firm run by secretive founder Raj Rajaratnam.  Finally in a position to trade on his own, Turney was encouraged to socialize with the sell side and siphon from his new broker friends as much information as possible.  Soon he was not just vacuuming up valuable tips but also being lured into a variety of hedonistic pursuits.  Naïve enough to believe he could keep up the lifestyle without paying a price, he managed to keep an eye on his buy-and-sell charts and, meanwhile, pondered the strange goings on at Galleon, where tens of millions were being made each week in sometimes mysterious ways.  At his next positions, at Argus Partners and J.L. Berkowitz, Turney climbed to even higher heights – and, as it turned out, plummeted to even lower depths – as, by day, he solidified his reputation one of the Street’s most powerful healthcare traders, and by night, he blazed a path through the city’s nightclubs, showing off his social genius and voraciously inhaling any drug that would fill the void he felt inside. A mesmerizingly immersive journey through Wall Street’s first millennial decade, and a poignant self portrait by a young man who surely would have destroyed himself were it not for his decision to walk away from a seven-figure annual income, The Buy Side is one of the best coming-of-age-on-the-Street books ever written.

Oil 101


Morgan Patrick Downey - 2009
    OIL 101 is a straightforward guide to oil and an essential read for anyone coming to grips with where oil prices, the economy and society are headed.In OIL 101, Downey provides the facts one needs to understand oil, from its history and chemistry, to refining, finished products, storage, transportation, alternatives, and how prices are determined every day in global wholesale oil markets and how those markets are connected to prices at the pump.

The Little Book of Sideways Markets: How to Make Money in Markets That Go Nowhere


Vitaliy N. Katsenelson - 2010
    Katsenelson gives a lucid explanation of today's markets with sound advice about how to make money while avoiding the traps that the market sets for exuberant bulls and frightened bears alike." -- Thomas G. Donlan, Barron's "A thoroughly enjoyable read. Provides a clear framework for equity investing in today's 'sideways' and volatile markets useful to everyone. Clear thinking and clear writing are not often paired - well done!" -- Dick Weil, CEO, Janus Capital Group"The bible for how to invest in the most tumultuous financial market environment since the Great Depression. A true guidebook for how to build wealth prudently." -- David Rosenberg, Chief Economist & Strategist, Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc."A wonderful, grounded read for new and seasoned investors alike, Katsenelson explains in plain English why volatility and sideways markets are a stock picker's best friend." -- The Motley Fool, www.Fool.comPraise for Active Value Investing"This book reads like a conversation with Vitaliy: deep, insightful, inquisitive, and civilized." -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan"Thoroughly enjoyable . . for the thoughtful and often entertaining way in which it is delivered. . . Katsenelson takes his reader step by step into the mind of the value investor by relating, in a fictional addendum to Fiddler on the Roof, the story of Tevye's purchase of Golde, the cow. He also describes his own big-time gambling evening (he was willing to lose a maximum of $40) and that of a half-drunken, rowdy fellow blackjack player to stress the importance of process. He then moves on to the fundamental principles of active value investing. What differentiates this book from so many others on value investing is that it describes, sometimes through the use of case studies, the thinking of a value investor. Not just his models or his metrics but his assessments. Katsenelson is an empiricist who weighs facts, looks for contraindications, and makes decisions. He makes value investing come alive. This may be a little book, but it's packed with insights for both novices and experienced investors. And it is a delight to read." --Seeking Alpha

Stock Investing for Canadians for Dummies


Andrew Dagys - 2003
    Understand the essentials of stock investing, how to get started, and how to pick winners.

Winning


Jack Welch - 2005
    Loaded with candid personal anecdotes, hard-hitting advice, and invaluable dos and don’ts, Jack explains his theory of business, by laying out the four most important principles that form the foundation of his success.Chapters include: How to Get Promoted, How to Think about Strategy, How to Write a Budget that Works, How to Work for a Jerk, How Find Work-Life Balance and How Start Something New. Enlivened by quotes from business leaders that Welch interviewed especially for the book, it’s a tour de force that reflects Welch’s mastery of execution, excellence and leadership.

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.

Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side


Howard Marks - 2018
    Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result. If you study past cycles, understand their origins and remain alert for the next one, you will become keenly attuned to the investment environment as it changes. You’ll be aware and prepared while others get blindsided by unexpected events or fall victim to emotions like fear and greed. By following Marks’s insights — drawn in part from his iconic memos over the years to Oaktree’s clients — you can master these recurring patterns to have the opportunity to improve your results.

The Go-Getter (a Story That Tells You How to Be One)


Peter B. Kyne - 1920
    He was a war veteran and amputee who will not be refused what he wants. Peck not only fights to find employment but continually proves himself more than competent at the many difficult test that are throw his way in the course of his early days with the Ricks Lumber Company...

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 Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated


Helaine Olen - 2016
    They’re wrong. When University of Chicago professor Harold Pollack interviewed Helaine Olen, an award-winning financial journalist and the author of the bestselling Pound Foolish, he made an off­-hand suggestion: everything you need to know about managing your money could fit on an index card. To prove his point, he grabbed a 4" x 6" card, scribbled down a list of rules, and posted a picture of the card online. The post went viral. Now Pollack teams up with Olen to explain why the ten simple rules of the index card outperform more complicated financial strategies. Inside is an easy-to-follow action plan that works in good times and bad, giving you the tools, knowledge, and confidence to seize control of your financial life.

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron


Bethany McLean - 2003
    And thirty years later, if you're going to read only one book on Watergate, that's still the one. Today, Enron is the biggest business story of our time, and Fortune senior writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind are the new Woodward and Bernstein.Remarkably, it was just two years ago that Enron was thought to epitomize a great New Economy company, with its skyrocketing profits and share price. But that was before Fortune published an article by McLean that asked a seemingly innocent question: How exactly does Enron make money? From that point on, Enron's house of cards began to crumble. Now, McLean and Elkind have investigated much deeper, to offer the definitive book about the Enron scandal and the fascinating people behind it.Meticulously researched and character driven, Smartest Guys in the Room takes the reader deep into Enron's past—and behind the closed doors of private meetings. Drawing on a wide range of unique sources, the book follows Enron's rise from obscurity to the top of the business world to its disastrous demise. It reveals as never before major characters such as Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow, as well as lesser known players like Cliff Baxter and Rebecca Mark. Smartest Guys in the Room is a story of greed, arrogance, and deceit—a microcosm of all that is wrong with American business today. Above all, it's a fascinating human drama that will prove to be the authoritative account of the Enron scandal.

Guide to Analysing Companies


Bob Vause - 1998
    * How do you tell how well run a company is and how well it is doing? * Which ratios and benchmarks should you use to assess performance? * What can be done to massage company results? * How do you recognise danger signs on the corporate horizon? * How do you compare companies operating in different sectors or even different countries? completely updated and revised fourth edition of this clear and comprehensive guide aimed at anyone who wants to * make sense and practical use of a company's annual report * measure a business against its competitors * judge the creditworthiness of a customer or client * assess the investment potential of a company * put a value on a company.

How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In


James C. Collins - 2009
    Collins' research project—more than four years in duration—uncovered five step-wise stages of decline:Stage 1: Hubris Born of SuccessStage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of MoreStage 3: Denial of Risk and PerilStage 4: Grasping for SalvationStage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or DeathBy understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom.Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover.Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover—in some cases, coming back even stronger—even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4.Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World


Alan Greenspan - 2007
    What would have once meant a crippling shock to the system was absorbed astonishingly quickly, partly due to the efforts of the then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan. The post 9/11 global economy is a new and turbulent system - vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even twenty years ago. The Age of Turbulence is an incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good or ill, channelled through Greenspan's own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure.