The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution


Gregory Zuckerman - 2019
    No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars.Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world.As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit.The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing


Taylor Larimore - 2006
    The book offers sound, practical advice, no matter what your age or net worth. Bottomline, become a Boglehead and prosper! Originally just the chat-line ruminations of Boglehead founder Taylor Larimore, and Morningstar forum leading cohorts Mel Lindauer and Michael LeBoeuf, their trusted advice has been brewed and distilled into an easy-to-use, need-to-know, no frills guide to building up your own financial well-being - so you can worry less and profit more from the investments you make. Invest like a Boglehead, and let their grassroots investment wisdom guide you down the path of long-term wealth creation and happiness, without all the worries and fuss of stock pickers and day traders. If you face a financial crisis or problem, or simply want to know what is prudent to do with the money you save, the Bogleheads will have the answers you need to help you gain your financial footing and keep it.

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.

Investing Between the Lines: How to Make Smarter Decisions by Decoding CEO Communications


L.J. Rittenhouse - 2012
    You don't need special access to "insider" information or a degree in accounting to figure it out. In fact, the secret is right in front of you--in black and white--in the words of every shareholder letter, annual report, and corporate correspondence you receive.Investing Between the Lines shows you how to:Decipher the "FOG" of confusing company communicationsDecode the real meaning behind corporate jargon and platitudesSeparate the facts from the fluff in annual reports and quarterly earnings callsSafeguard your money by investing in companies that steward investor capitalToo often, corporate executives and investment professionals are expected to deliver short-term results. As a result, they are compelled to turn to accounting techniques and unclear language to meet these expectations.In Investing Between the Lines, L.J. Rittenhouse lays out her time-tested approach for recognizing at-risk businesses before trouble hits. This is the same method she used to predict the collapse of Enron and the fall of Lehman.From comparing the statements of Ford, GM, and Toyota to revealing why FedEx and Wells Fargo have been so successful, Investing Between the Lines shows that Rittenhouse's system is one of the most powerful tools a corporate leader or investor can have. Once you learn the clues to decode CEO communications, you will be able to invest between the lines--to figure out exactly what a company's CEO is or isn't telling you.Whether you're a professional investor, a new shareholder, or a CEO who wants to improve how your company communicates, Investing Between the Lines is one of the best investments you'll ever make.Praise for Investing Between the Lines"Rittenhouse is still on the side of the angels."--WARREN BUFFETT, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway"Tremendous! Investing Between the Lines is destined to become a classic in showing how candor is the language of trust and how trust is the basis on which companies ultimately succeed."--STEPHEN M. R. COVEY, author of the New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Speed of Trust, and coauthor of Smart Trust"Before investing only by the numbers, read Investing Between the Lines. In it, L.J. Rittenhouse makes a compelling case that CEOs' words matter too."--JAMES HESKETT, Baker Foundation Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School, and author of The Culture Cycle"An intriguing read that gets to the heart of the 21st-century leadership challenge--the need for leaders to candidly build and earn the trust of their stakeholders in an enduring way."--DOUGLAS R. CONANT, Former President, CEO, and Director of Campbell Soup Company and New York Times bestselling author of TouchPoints"This book is the Rosetta Stone for investors and the high-water mark for CEOs."--DAVID CHILDERS, CEO of Compli, Inc., and Director, Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics"L.J. Rittenhouse reports on over a decade of research analyzing executive communications and finds leadership clues that reveal the true values of a corporate culture which, in turn, determine performance." --LOUISE M. MORMAN, Executive Director, Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute, Miami University

King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone


David Carey - 2010
    . . or a New Positive Force Helping to Drive the Economy . . .   The untold story of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone, the financier and his financial powerhouse that avoided the self-destructive tendencies of Wall Street. David Carey and John Morris show how Blackstone (and other private equity firms) transformed themselves from gamblers, hostile-takeover artists, and ‘barbarians at the gate’ into disciplined, risk-conscious investors. The financial establishment—banks and investment bankers such as Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley—were the cowboys, recklessly assuming risks, leveraging up to astronomical levels and driving the economy to the brink of disaster. Blackstone is now ready to break out once again since it is sitting on billions of dollars that can be invested at a time when the market is starved for capital.  The story of a financial revolution—the greatest untold success story on Wall Street: Not only have Blackstone and a small coterie of competitors wrested control of corporations around the globe, but they have emerged as a major force on Wall Street, challenging the likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for dominance. Great human interest story: How Blackstone went from two guys and a secretary to being one of Wall Street’s most powerful institutions, far outgrowing its much older rival KKR; and how Steve Schwarzman, with a pay packet one year of $398 million and $684 million from the Blackstone IPO, came to epitomize the spectacular new financial fortunes amassed in the 2000s. Controversial: Analyzes the controversies surrounding Blackstone and whether it and other private equity firms suck the lifeblood out of companies to enrich themselves—or whether they are a force that helps make the companies they own stronger and thereby better competitors. The story by two insiders with access: Insightful and hard-hitting, filled with never-before-revealed details about the workings of a heretofore secretive company that was the personal fiefdom of Schwarzman and Peter Peterson. Forward-looking: How Blackstone and private equity will drive the economy and provide a model for how financing will work.

The 12% Solution


David Alan Carter - 2017
    A strategy that’s not pie-in-the-sky and not just a bunch of theory, but rather a systematic plan that is backed up with real numbers showing it clearly beating the S&P 500 over time. A trading strategy that’s understandable, repeatable, that works and works simply.Anyone can do this. In simple-to-understand language, you’ll discover---- The six ETFs that power the strategy, and why.-- The simple technique for identifying which of those ETFs to buy, and which to sell. And most importantly, when.-- How $5,000 can end up $1,000,000 in your retirement portfolio.-- How to protect your portfolio during market downturns with a simple cash trigger.-- In short, how to earn an average of 12% annually in the stock market with minimal trading, less volatility, and less risk.Beat "The Street" in just 20 minutes.If you have 20 minutes a month and a computer, you can turn any investment amount into a steadily growing compounding machine that will make you the envy of Mad Money’s Jim Cramer and 99% of all mutual fund managers.Make just 2-4 trades one day a month. The strategy tells you what ETFs to buy and what to sell. That’s it. Then turn off the computer and go live your life.

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market


Joel Greenblatt - 2007
    In The Little Book that Beats the Market--a New York Times bestseller with 300,000 copies in print--Greenblatt explained how investors can outperform the popular market averages by simply and systematically applying a formula that seeks out good businesses when they are available at bargain prices. Now, with a new Introduction and Afterword for 2010, The Little Book that Still Beats the Market updates and expands upon the research findings from the original book. Included are data and analysis covering the recent financial crisis and model performance through the end of 2009. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author's time-tested formula that makes buying above average companies at below average prices automatic. Though the formula has been extensively tested and is a breakthrough in the academic and professional world, Greenblatt explains it using 6th grade math, plain language and humor. He shows how to use his method to beat both the market and professional managers by a wide margin. You'll also learn why success eludes almost all individual and professional investors, and why the formula will continue to work even after everyone "knows" it. While the formula may be simple, understanding why the formula works is the true key to success for investors. The book will take readers on a step-by-step journey so that they can learn the principles of value investing in a way that will provide them with a long term strategy that they can understand and stick with through both good and bad periods for the stock market.As the Wall Street Journal stated about the original edition, "Mr. Greenblatt...says his goal was to provide advice that, while sophisticated, could be understood and followed by his five children, ages 6 to 15. They are in luck. His 'Little Book' is one of the best, clearest guides to value investing out there."

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.

Business Adventures


John Brooks - 1969
    What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety. These notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.Stories about Wall Street are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance. John Brooks’s insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save the British pound, one gets the sense that history really does repeat itself.

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco


Bryan Burrough - 1989
    An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date twenty years after the famed deal. The Los Angeles Times calls Barbarians at the Gate, “Superlative.” The Chicago Tribune raves, “It’s hard to imagine a better story...and it’s hard to imagine a better account.” And in an era of spectacular business crashes and federal bailouts, it still stands as a valuable cautionary tale that must be heeded.

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk


Peter L. Bernstein - 1996
    Peter Bernstein has written a comprehensive history of man's efforts to understand risk and probability, beginning with early gamblers in ancient Greece, continuing through the 17th-century French mathematicians Pascal and Fermat and up to modern chaos theory. Along the way he demonstrates that understanding risk underlies everything from game theory to bridge-building to winemaking.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life


Alice Schroeder - 2008
    The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”Although the media track him constantly, Buffett himself has never told his full life story. His reality is private, especially by celebrity standards. Indeed, while the homespun persona that the public sees is true as far as it goes, it goes only so far. Warren Buffett is an array of paradoxes. He set out to prove that nice guys can finish first. Over the years he treated his investors as partners, acted as their steward, and championed honesty as an investor, CEO, board member, essayist, and speaker. At the same time he became the world’s richest man, all from the modest Omaha headquarters of his company Berkshire Hathaway. None of this fits the term “simple.”When Alice Schroeder met Warren Buffett she was an insurance industry analyst and a gifted writer known for her keen perception and business acumen. Her writings on finance impressed him, and as she came to know him she realized that while much had been written on the subject of his investing style, no one had moved beyond that to explore his larger philosophy, which is bound up in a complex personality and the details of his life. Out of this came his decision to cooperate with her on the book about himself that he would never write.Never before has Buffett spent countless hours responding to a writer’s questions, talking, giving complete access to his wife, children, friends, and business associates—opening his files, recalling his childhood. It was an act of courage, as The Snowball makes immensely clear. Being human, his own life, like most lives, has been a mix of strengths and frailties. Yet notable though his wealth may be, Buffett’s legacy will not be his ranking on the scorecard of wealth; it will be his principles and ideas that have enriched people’s lives. This book tells you why Warren Buffett is the most fascinating American success story of our time.

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success


William N. Thorndike Jr. - 2012
    Others might point to the qualities of today’s so-called celebrity CEOs—charisma, virtuoso communication skills, and a confident management style. But what really matters when you run an organization? What is the hallmark of exceptional CEO performance? Quite simply, it is the returns for the shareholders of that company over the long term.In this refreshing, counterintuitive book, author Will Thorndike brings to bear the analytical wisdom of a successful career in investing, closely evaluating the performance of companies and their leaders. You will meet eight individualistic CEOs whose firms’ average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty—in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. You may not know all their names, but you will recognize their companies: General Cinema, Ralston Purina, The Washington Post Company, Berkshire Hathaway, General Dynamics, Capital Cities Broadcasting, TCI, and Teledyne. In The Outsiders, you’ll learn the traits and methods—striking for their consistency and relentless rationality—that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance.Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these "outsiders” shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company’s long-term value.Drawing on years of research and experience, Thorndike tells eye-opening stories, extracting lessons and revealing a compelling alternative model for anyone interested in leading a company or investing in one—and reaping extraordinary returns.

All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis


Bethany McLean - 2010
    Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers?According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, the real answer is all of the above-and more. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. And the full story, in all of its complexity and detail, is like the legend of the blind men and the elephant. Almost everyone has missed the big picture. Almost no one has put all the pieces together.All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature.Among the devils you'll meet in vivid detail:• Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, who dreamed of spreading homeownership to the masses, only to succumb to the peer pressure-and the outsized profits-of the sleaziest subprime lending.• Roland Arnall, a respected philanthropist and diplomat, who made his fortune building Ameriquest, a subprime lending empire that relied on blatantly deceptive lending practices.• Hank Greenberg, who built AIG into a Rube Goldberg contraption with an undeserved triple-A rating, and who ran it so tightly that he was the only one who knew where all the bodies were buried.• Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, aloof and suspicious, who suffered from "Goldman envy" and drove a proud old firm into the ground by promoting cronies and pushing out his smartest lieutenants.• Lloyd Blankfein, who helped turn Goldman Sachs from a culture that famously put clients first to one that made clients secondary to its own bottom line.• Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, who (like his predecessors) bullied regulators into submission and let his firm drift away from its original, noble mission.• Brian Clarkson of Moody's, who aggressively pushed to increase his rating agency's market share and stock price, at the cost of its integrity.• Alan Greenspan, the legendary maestro of the Federal Reserve, who ignored the evidence of a growing housing bubble and turned a blind eye to the lending practices that ultimately brought down Wall Street-and inflicted enormous pain on the country.Just as McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was hailed as the best Enron book on a crowded shelf, so will All the Devils Are Here be remembered for finally making sense of the meltdown and its consequences.

Supermoney (Investment Classics)


George Goodman - 1972
    Darst, author of The Art of Asset Allocation Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist, Morgan Stanley Individual Investor Group -Nobody has written about the craft of money management with more insight, humor, and understanding than Adam Smith. Over the years, he has consistently separated wisdom from whimsy, brilliance from bluster, and character from chicanery.--Byron R. Wien, coauthor of Soros on Soros Chief Investment Strategist, Pequot Capital ManagementSupermoney may be even more relevant today than when it was first published nearly twenty-five years ago. Written in the bright and funny style that became Adam Smith's trademark, this book gives a view inside institutions, professionals, and the nature of markets that has rarely been shown before or since. -Adam Smith- was the first to introduce an obscure fund manager in Omaha, Nebraska, named Warren Buffett. In this new edition, Smith provides a fresh perspective in an updated Preface that contextualizes the applicability of the markets of the 1960s and 1970s to today's markets. Things change, but sometimes the more they change, the more they stay the same.