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.

Efficiently Inefficient: How Smart Money Invests and Market Prices Are Determined


Lasse Heje Pedersen - 2015
    Leading financial economist Lasse Heje Pedersen combines the latest research with real-world examples and interviews with top hedge fund managers to show how certain trading strategies make money--and why they sometimes don't.Pedersen views markets as neither perfectly efficient nor completely inefficient. Rather, they are inefficient enough that money managers can be compensated for their costs through the profits of their trading strategies and efficient enough that the profits after costs do not encourage additional active investing. Understanding how to trade in this efficiently inefficient market provides a new, engaging way to learn finance. Pedersen analyzes how the market price of stocks and bonds can differ from the model price, leading to new perspectives on the relationship between trading results and finance theory. He explores several different areas in depth--fundamental tools for investment management, equity strategies, macro strategies, and arbitrage strategies--and he looks at such diverse topics as portfolio choice, risk management, equity valuation, and yield curve logic. The book's strategies are illuminated further by interviews with leading hedge fund managers: Lee Ainslie, Cliff Asness, Jim Chanos, Ken Griffin, David Harding, John Paulson, Myron Scholes, and George Soros.Efficiently Inefficient effectively demonstrates how financial markets really work.Free problem sets are available online at http: //www.lhpedersen.com

Stock Trading: Tips for Trading Stocks - From Stock Trading For Beginners To Stock Trading Strategies (Stock Trading Systems Book 1)


Carl Robertts - 2014
    They follow a tested and proven set of rules which help them trade effectively. This stock trading book contains many time-tested stock trading tips/rules/guidelines gathered from numerous successful traders from all over the world. One of the most effective ways to become successful in any endeavor is to “model” yourself after those who are already successful. The tips/rules/guidelines will not only help to get you on the right path to successful stock trading, but help to keep you on the right path. These useful tips are arranged based on a variety of stock trading topics for your quick and easy reference. This book was designed as a collection of trading tips as a brief introduction to stock trading for beginners. If you are an experienced and successful trader then you are already putting into practice the information found inside this book. If you are new to trading stock, however, there are tips/rules/guidelines to help you in a number of different areas. If you are interested in more in-depth coverage of stock trading, please check out my other more advanced books in my Stock Trading Systems series. Create A Simple StockTrading Plan - As the old saying goes, "if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail". Included are some basic guidelines to help you quickly and easily create a basic stock trading plan. Stock Investing and Stock Day Trading - Whether you are interested in longer-term investing or shorter-term trading there are plenty of timely, useful trading tips for you. Stock Trading Strategies - Learn the basics of stock trading strategies and why they are critical to your trading success. Stock Trading Basics - This section of the stock trading guide contains a wide variety of solid trading tips and serves as an excellent reference. Stock Trading Myths - Some of the things you will hear about stock trading are just plain nonsense. Learn about some common stock market myths that may already be costing you money. Money Management - Learn the power of money management. Money management is the one key ingredient that can multiply your profits without multiplying your risk level. Stock Trading Discipline - Learn the importance of trading discipline and why it is absolutely essential for your success. Inside you will also find tips/rules/guidelines ranging from tips on getting started in stock trading to tips on such important topics as stock trading strategies, day trading stock, and much, much more. You Can Read this book on your PC, Mac, Kindle device, Tablet, and even your SmartPhone! Download this Kindle book and start to improve your stock trading today!

SEO - The Sassy Way to Ranking #1 in Google - when you have NO CLUE!: A Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization (Beginner Internet Marketing Series Book 6)


Gundi Gabrielle - 2017
     If you don't know what "SEO" stands for or what a "backlink" is, this book will get you up to speed in a quick 1 hour read and show you some basic steps to optimize your site and blog posts. There are no advanced ninja tricks here, but simply the meat and potato basics of what SEO is and how you can best use it without spending a fortune Have you ever wondered how websites end up on page 1 in Google - and…. why your site isn’t there? Does it just “happen”? Is it luck? Do you need to know someone at Google? Or…… are there actual techniques that can help you get to #1? The good news is: there are! The Art of Ranking in Google is called SEO and people who do it well, make a LOT of money! Why? Because the higher you rank, the more people will visit your site = potential customers -> the more money you can make. SEO is a form of internet marketing, just like Google or Facebook Ads, yet a lot more effective and stable once set up - and in the long run, far less expensive! For blogging purposes, SEO is next to Kindle Publishing the most effective strategy to grow an audience long term - and also, to market affiliate products (=monetize your site). And you need to start from Day 1. - This is the one technique you cannot put off for later! This book will take you as a complete novice and take you step by step through: What SEO is all about? The main techniques and strategies to start ranking in Google and how even as a total beginner you can start employing them from day 1. The pitfalls and dangers along the way (Google Penalties) How to structure your Posts for optimal ranking chances How to structure your overall Site for optimal Google recognition Basic - but effective Backlinking strategies Social Media Implementation Most of all - this book will help you understand what it’s really all about and why it is so important to employ SEO techniques from day 1! This is the one technique you cannot put off till later and while you might feel overwhelmed in the beginning with all the new things to learn, this book will make it painless and easy to get started with minimal time input. Go back to the TOP to purchase - see your there….;-

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.

Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance


Andrei Shleifer - 2000
    It states that securities prices in financial markets must equal fundamental values, either because all investors are rational or because arbitrage eliminates pricing anomalies. This bookdescribes an alternative approach to the study of financial markets: behavioral finance. This approach starts with an observation that the assumptions of investor rationality and perfect arbitrage are overwhelmingly contradicted by both psychological and institutional evidence. In actualfinancial markets, less than fully rational investors trade against arbitrageurs whose resources are limited by risk aversion, short horizons, and agency problems. The book presents models of such markets. These models explain the available financial data more accurately than the efficient marketshypothesis, and generate new predictions about security prices. By summarizing and expanding the research in behavioral finance, the book builds a new theoretical and empirical foundation for the economic analysis of real-world markets.

Titans of Real Estate: 7 Key Lessons from Real Estate Billionaires


Erez Cohen - 2019
    Whether through luck or fortune, he was assigned a position with the real estate group. He was handed a book that soon birthed his love affair with real estate that continues to this day. Erez left the investment banking firm and applied to Wharton Business School where he became a Teacher and Research Assistant to his mentor, Dr. Linneman. During that time, he met, talked, and heard stories from distinguished real estate titans, such as Stephen Ross, Barry Sternlicht, Sam Zell, Steven Roth, etc. This informative time placed him in a unique position to collect knowledge from many of these titans.Surrounded by so many titans, Erez's curiosity grew and can be distilled into three critical questions: 1. What inspires these titans to work so hard and reach such extraordinary levels of success?2. What are the main elements and traits inside of them that propel them to be so grandoise?3. How have thse individuals, which most of the time had less resources and talent, succeeded on a much bigger scale than so many of their competitiors?Through these questions, Erez interviewed the most successful real estate titans around the world; to take their combined knowledge and delve it for commonalities - to dig dig and find the core pieces of knowledge that drove each of these titans to the top of their chosen fields.In Real Estate Titans, Erez will reveal the seven key lessons he learned from his journey of discover - key lessons that revealed themselves both through these interviews and his time working with multiple mentors and magnates in his careers.

Storyselling for Financial Advisors: How Top Producers Sell


Scott West - 2000
    The authors explain the process of making these intuitive connections, then translate their findings into understandable and practical strategies that any financial professional can use. They present actual stories, including many by Warren Buffet, one of the greatest ""storysellers"" of all time. These actual stories can help financial pros tap into the ""gut reaction"" of different types of clients. the book also includes special topics on communicating to women, the 50+ market, and the affluent.

Entrepreneurship: Theory/Process/Practice [With CDROM]


Donald F. Kuratko - 1994
    Using exercises and case presentations, you can apply your own ideas and develop useful analytical skills. Cases found throughout the text present the venture creations or managerial ideas confronted by real-world companies.

Real Estate Note Investing: Using Mortgage Notes to Passively and Massively Increase Your Income


Dave Van Horn - 2018
    Whether it's through mortgages, student loans, or credit card debt, nearly all of us (especially real estate investors!) are in the note business. The trouble is, most people are on the other side of it: writing checks to note owners rather than cashing checks as note owners. Understanding how to utilize basic note and financing concepts explained in this book will help real estate investors like you to:Borrow smarter by making debt your friend. Raise money for your investments easier by understanding and appealing to private investors. Squeeze more profits out of the deals you're already doing by utilizing creative offers and multiple financing strategies. Scale your investing through a passive investment vehicle that is backed by hard real estate without the tenants, termites, or toilets. Use note investing to pay for expenses like student loans and life insurance, or simply to provide additional cash flow for you into retirement. Become the bank and begin to use every form of leverage you have available! Not another cookie-cutter "how to" book, Dave instead takes readers on a journey with him as he looks back over lessons learned across three decades of real estate investing, and the path that led him to his success today in the note industry. He teaches by example, illustrates with real-life stories, and gives a 30,000 ft. view of the note space, introducing readers to a new way of investing.So whether you're a wholesaler, rehabber, landlord, or even turnkey investor, reading this book will help you turn your focus to the "other side" of real estate. For both new and experienced investors alike, no matter where you are in the real estate business, the strategies in this book can help you build sustainable wealth today and for years to come.

Forex Trading: The Basics Explained in Simple Terms (Bonus System incl. videos) (Forex, Forex for Beginners, Make Money Online, Currency Trading, Foreign ... Trading Strategies, Day Trading Book 1)


Jim Brown - 2015
     His knowledge of currency trading extends over a 14 year period and has evolved from the old fashioned manual charting when he first started in 2002, to trading on multiple screens and entering the arena of automated trading. During this time, he has developed and shared many trading systems for free, and assisted many new traders through various blogs and forum participation. This book is for those of you who are just starting to consider trading Forex but don’t know where to start, given the abundance of information on the internet. It is a good first book to read, to gain an understanding of the very basics. As an added Bonus, Jim offers one of his Trading Systems, as well as the indicators without any further on-costs. You can check out his YouTube vids and chat with him on Facebook - he's an approachable guy who is passionate about trading. Here Is an outline of what is included:   What is Forex? Advantages of Trading Forex When the Forex market is open Forex pairs Where we trade Forex Choosing a Broker Important information for US based traders Lot size and equivalent pip value Information on risk News and fundamental analysis Technical analysis Risk-reward ratio Types of orders How many pips is enough Trading psychology Day trading or longer term trading? Keeping a journal or diary Jim's other books MT4 High Probability Forex Trading Method Trading Forex with Divergence on MT4 These two use the same Method, however Jim expands on the use of divergence. What people are saying... I was a bit skeptical prior to ordering this as it is only 72 pages in length. However the author covered concepts and principles in very direct and easy to understand manner. I have read other authors that would have no doubt used three times the verbiage and none of the clarity possessed by Jim Brown. All in all I am very pleased with my purchase. - Darrell R Allen Buy "Forex for Dummies" or something similar for a detailed background of Forex, then buy this book. It is well written and to the point. I recently paid $40 for a system which did not do much but generate daily emails promoting many more expensive systems. Jim's free system is easy to implement and follow, and it works. Also, there is no upselling. I felt that he wants people to succeed. I also bought his other book, which includes another free system.

The Ultimate Guide to OKRs: How Objectives and Key-Results can help your company build a culture of excellence and achievement.


Francisco S. Homem De Mello - 2016
    OKRs translate a company's vision and strategy into a coherent set of performance measures. The three layers of organization: Dreams, OKRs, and To dos, offer a balance between long-term goals and short-term planning, between outcomes that are desired by the organization and actual performance KPIs that drive these outcomes, between harder and softer performance measures. Francisco Mello, founder of Qulture.Rocks, the leading performance management software company, takes you through the history of using goals for management, from MBOs to OKRs, and presents OKRs with a constant focus on its key differences from older frameworks such as MBOs.

Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies


Laurence A. Connors - 1996
    This 245 page manual is considered by many to be one of the best books written on trading futures. Twenty-five years of combined trading experience is divulged as you will learn 20 of their best strategies. Among the methods you will be taught are: * Swing Trading - The backbone of Linda's success. Not only will you learn exactly how to swing trade, you will also learn specific advanced techniques never before made public! * News - Among the strategies revealed is an intra-day news strategy they use to exploit the herd when the 8:30am economic reports are released. This strategy will be especially appreciated by bond traders and currency traders. * Pattern Recognition - You will learn some of the best short-term set-up patterns available. Larry and Linda will also teach you how they combine these patterns with other strategies to identify explosive moves. * ADX - In our opinion, ADX is one of the most powerful and misunderstood indicators available to traders. Now, for the first time, they reveal a handful of short-term trading strategies they use in conjunction with this terrific indicator. * Volatility - You will learn how to identify markets that are about to explode and how to trade these exciting situations. * Also, included are chapters on trading volatility, trading Crabel, trading the smart money index, trading gap reversals, a special chapter on professional money management, and many other trading strategies!

Tesla, Elon Musk and the EV Revolution: An in-depth analysis of what’s in store for the company, the man, and the industry by a value investor and newly-minted Tesla owner


Vitaliy Katsenelson - 2020
    

The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio: Warren Buffett Stock Picks: Why and When He Is Investing in Them


Mary Buffett - 2011
    Even some of the most amazing businesses—those with a durable competitive advantage—are trading at prices and price-to-earnings ratios that offer investors serious long-term moneymaking opportunities. Pessimism about the banking situation in Europe and unemployment in America have created the perfect storm to bring stock prices down and present value-oriented investors some great possibilities. In Warren Buffett’s world, as stock prices decrease, the prospects for investment increase. Putting a number on those prospects tells Warren whether or not the stock is an attractive buy. The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio explains how to do just that—how to value companies and conservatively estimate the kind of future return that an investment is offering at its current market price. Mary Buffett and David Clark look at stocks in Warren’s portfolio as the basis for their analysis. After a brief history of Warren’s investment strategy, Buffett and Clark explain how to interpret a company’s per-share earnings and per-share book-value histories to quickly identify which companies have a durable competitive advantage and to project the compounding annual rate of return that an investment offers. The authors provide case studies and evaluations of seventeen companies in Warren Buffett’s portfolio. The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio is a valuable companion to the other books in Buffett and Clark’s successful series—Buffettology, The Buffettology Workbook, The New Buffettology, The Tao of Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements, Warren Buffett’s Management Secrets, and Warren Buffett and the Art of Stock Arbitrage