More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite


Sebastian Mallaby - 2010
    Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of twenty-first ­century capitalism. Ken Griffin of Citadel started out trading convertible bonds from his dorm room at Harvard. Julian Robertson staffed his hedge fund with college athletes half his age, then he flew them to various retreats in the Rockies and raced them up the mountains. Paul Tudor Jones posed for a magazine photograph next to a killer shark and happily declared that a 1929-style crash would be "total rock-and-roll" for him. Michael Steinhardt was capable of reducing underlings to sobs. "All I want to do is kill myself," one said. "Can I watch?" Steinhardt responded. Finance professors have long argued that beating the market is impossible, and yet drawing on insights from physics, economics, and psychology, these titans have cracked the market's mysteries and gone on to earn fortunes. Their innovation has transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism. More than just a history, More Money Than God is a window on tomorrow's financial system. Hedge funds have been left for dead after past financial panics: After the stock market rout of the early 1970s, after the bond market bloodbath of 1994, after the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998, and yet again after the dot-com crash in 2000. Each time, hedge funds have proved to be survivors, and it would be wrong to bet against them now. Banks such as CitiGroup, brokers such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, home lenders such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, insurers such as AIG, and money market funds run by giants such as Fidelity-all have failed or been bailed out. But the hedge fund industry has survived the test of 2008 far better than its rivals. The future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.

The Art of Value Investing: How the World's Best Investors Beat the Market


John Heins - 2013
    What market inefficiencies will I try to exploit? How will I generate ideas? What will be my geographic focus? What analytical edge will I hope to have? What valuation methodologies will I use? What time horizon will I typically employ? How many stocks will I own? How specifically will I decide to buy or sell? Will I hedge, and how? How will I keep my emotions from getting the best of me?Authors Tilson and Heins have delegated the task of providing answers to such questions to the experts: the market-beating money managers to whom they’ve had unparalleled access as the co-founders of leading investment newsletter Value Investor Insight. That includes such hedgefund superstars as Julian Robertson, Seth Klarman, Leon Cooperman, David Einhorn, Bill Ackman and Joel Greenblatt, as well as mutual-fund luminaries including Marty Whitman, Mason Hawkins, Jean-Marie Eveillard, Bill Nygren and Bruce Berkowitz.Who should read The Art of Value Investing? It is as vital a resource for the just-starting-out investor as for the sophisticated professional one. The former will find a comprehensive guidebook for defining a sound investment strategy from A-to-Z; the latter will find all aspects of his or her existing strategy challenged or reconfirmed by the provocative thinking of their most-successful peers. It also is a must-read for any investor – institutional or individual – charged with choosing the best managers for the money they are allocating to equities. Choosing the right managers requires knowing all the right questions to ask as well as the answers worthy of respect and attention – both of which are delivered in The Art of Value Investing.

There's Always Something to Do: The Peter Cundill Investment Approach


Christopher Risso-gill - 2011
    In a seamlessly assembled narrative drawn from interviews, speeches, and exclusive access to the daily journal Cundill kept for forty-five years, Christopher Risso-Gill outlines Cundill's investment approach and provides accounts of his investments and the analytical process that led to their selection. A book for everyday investors as much as professional investors and investment gurus, There's Always Something to Do offers a compelling perspective on global financial markets and on how we can avoid their worst pitfalls and grow our hard-earned capital.

The Little Book of Value Investing


Christopher H. Browne - 2006
    Now, with The Little Book of Value Investing, Christopher Browne shows you how to use this wealth-building strategy to successfully buy bargain stocks around the world.

The Little Book of Valuation: How to Value a Company, Pick a Stock and Profit


Aswath Damodaran - 2011
    In The Little Book of Valuation, expert Aswath Damodaran explains the techniques in language that any investors can understand, so you can make better investment decisions when reviewing stock research reports and engaging in independent efforts to value and pick stocks.Page by page, Damodaran distills the fundamentals of valuation, without glossing over or ignoring key concepts, and develops models that you can easily understand and use. Along the way, he covers various valuation approaches from intrinsic or discounted cash flow valuation and multiples or relative valuation to some elements of real option valuation.Includes case studies and examples that will help build your valuation skills Written by Aswath Damodaran, one of today's most respected valuation experts Includes an accompanying iPhone application (iVal) that makes the lessons of the book immediately useable Written with the individual investor in mind, this reliable guide will not only help you value a company quickly, but will also help you make sense of valuations done by others or found in comprehensive equity research reports.

Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett: Twenty Cases


Yefei Lu - 2016
    But how did they know they were making the right investments? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and how can others replicate their approach?A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffett's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an experienced investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1958 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies like See's Candies, the Washington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. Accessing partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work well for all investors in companies big and small, domestic and global. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be the breadth of his expertise.

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need: Expanded and Updated Throughout


Andrew Tobias - 1978
    Now this indispensable book has been fully revised and updated-covering all the new tax laws-and reorganized with a new user-friendly design. Concise, witty, and truly understandable, Andrew Tobias shows you how to use your money to your best advantage-no matter how much or how little you have.o How to spend smarter-and save $1,000 or moreo When to invest in stocks, and howo The ins and outs of investing on the Interneto Tax strategies, from tuition to retiremento Whom-if anyone-you can trust to manage your moneyand much, much more How to spend smarter--and save $1,000 or moreWhen to invest in stocks, and howThe ins and outs of investing on the InternetTax strategies, from tuition to retirementThe basics of life insuranceWho--if anyone--you can trust to manage your moneyThe inside skinny on annuities, real estate, and Social Security and much, much more

Global Asset Allocation: A Survey of the World's Top Asset Allocation Strategies


Mebane T. Faber - 2015
    We look at the impact inflation has on our money. We then start to examine how diversification through combining assets, in this case a simple stock and bond mix, works to mitigate the extreme drawdowns of risky asset classes. But we go beyond a limited stock/bond portfolio to consider a more global allocation that also takes into account real assets. We track 13 assets and their returns since 1973, with particular attention to a number of well-known portfolios, like Ray Dalio’s All Weather portfolio, the Endowment portfolio, Warren Buffett’s suggestion, and others. And what we find is that, with a few notable exceptions, many of the allocations have similar exposures. And yet, while we are all busy paying close attention to our portfolio’s particular allocation of assets, the greatest impact on our portfolios may be something we fail to notice altogether...

How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad


William J. O'Neil - 1988
    It offers guidance for those who want to make smart investments - even if they've never owned stocks before. This updated edition includes new concepts, improved chart graphics and new research tools. Key issues include: making money reading the daily financial pages; picking the best industry groups in the market; reading charts to improve stock selection and timing; reducing losses and mistakes; and turning a profit from reading and analyzing the news.

The Davis Dynasty: Fifty Years of Successful Investing on Wall Street


John Rothchild - 2001
    With a novelist's wit and eye for telling detail, Rothchild chronicles the financial escapades of this eccentric, pioneering clan, providing a vivid portrait of fifty years of Wall Street history along the way. Rothchild shadows the Davis family's holdings through two lengthy bull markets, two savage and seven mild bear markets, one crash, and twenty-five corrections and, in the process, reveals the strategies behind the family's uncanny ability to consistently beat the markets. The Davis Dynasty begins in 1947, the year Shelby Davis quit his job as a state bureaucrat and, armed with $50,000 of his wife's money, took the plunge into stock investing. By the time he died in 1994, he had multiplied his wife's original stake 8,000 times! The story continues with his son, Shelby, who established one of the most successful funds of the past thirty years. The final characters in this enthralling family saga are grandsons Chris and Andrew. Both surrendered to the Davis family passion for investing and both went on to earn reputations as investment luminaries in their own right. John Rothchild (Miami Beach, FL) co-wrote the blockbusters One Up on Wall Street, Beating the Street, and Learn to Earn with Peter Lynch. He is the author of Survive and Profit in Ferocious Markets (Wiley: 0-471-34882-1), A Fool and His Money (Wiley: 0-471-25138-0), and Going for Broke. He has written for Harper's, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and other leading magazines and he has appeared on the Today Show, the Nightly Business Report, and CNBC.

Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook


Anthony Robbins - 2017
    There have been 30 such corrections in the past 30 years, yet there's never been an action plan for how not only to survive, but thrive through each change in the stock market. Building upon the principles in Money: Master the Game, Robbins offers the reader specific steps they can implement to protect their investments while maximizing their wealth. It's a detailed guide designed for investors, articulated in the common-sense, practical manner that the millions of loyal Robbins fans and students have come to expect and rely upon. Few have navigated the turbulence of the stock market as adeptly and successfully as Tony Robbins. His proven, consistent success over decades makes him singularly qualified to help investors (both seasoned and first-timers alike) preserve and add to their investments.

Creative Cash Flow Reporting: Uncovering Sustainable Financial Performance


Charles W. Mulford - 2005
    It identifies the common steps used to yield misleading cash flow amounts, demonstrates how to adjust the cash flow statement for more effective analysis, and how to use adjusted operating cash flow to uncover earnings that have been misreported using aggressive or fraudulent accounting practices. Charles W. Mulford, PhD, CPA (Atlanta, GA), is the coauthor of three books, including the bestselling The Financial Numbers Game: Identifying Creative Accounting Practices. Eugene E. Comiskey, PhD, CPA, CMA (Atlanta, GA), is the coauthor of the bestselling The Financial Numbers Game: Identifying Creative Accounting Practices.

Quantitative Value: A Practitioner's Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors


Wesley R. Gray - 2012
    Where they align is in their belief that the market is beatable. This book seeks to take the best aspects of value investing and quantitative investing as disciplines and apply them to a completely unique approach to stock selection. Such an approach has several advantages over pure value or pure quantitative investing. This new investing strategy framed by the book is known as quantitative value, a superior, market-beating method to investing in stocks.Quantitative Value provides practical insights into an investment strategy that links the fundamental value investing philosophy of Warren Buffett with the quantitative value approach of Ed Thorp. It skillfully combines the best of Buffett and Ed Thorp--weaving their investment philosophies into a winning, market-beating investment strategy.First book to outline quantitative value strategies as they are practiced by actual market practitioners of the discipline Melds the probabilities and statistics used by quants such as Ed Thorp with the fundamental approaches to value investing as practiced by Warren Buffett and other leading value investors A companion Website contains supplementary material that allows you to learn in a hands-on fashion long after closing the book If you're looking to make the most of your time in today's markets, look no further than Quantitative Value.

Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors


Allen C. Benello - 2016
    Sharing the insights of these top value investors, expert authors Allen Benello, Michael van Biema, and Tobias Carlisle unveil the strategies that make concentrated value investing incredibly profitable, while at the same time showing how to mitigate risk over time. Highlighting the history and approaches of four top value investors, the authors tell the fascinating story of the investors who dare to tread where few others have, and the wildly-successful track records that have resulted. Turning the notion of diversification on its head, concentrated value investors pick a small group of undervalued stocks and hold onto them through even the lean years. The approach has been championed by Warren Buffett, the best known value investor of our time, but a small group of lesser-known investors has also used this approach to achieve outstanding returns. Discover the success of Lou Simpson, a former GEICO investment manager and eventual successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Read about Kristian Siem, described as "Norway's Warren Buffett," and the success he has had at Siem Industries Concentrated Investing will quickly have you re-thinking the conventional wisdom related to diversification and learning from the top concentrated value investors the world has never heard of.

Quality Investing: Owning the Best Companies for the Long Term


Lawrence A. Cunningham - 2016
    People make judgments about it every day. Yet articulating a clear definition of quality is challenging.The best companies often appear to be characterized by an ineffable something, much like that of people who seem graced by a lucky gene. Think about those of your peers who seem a lot like you but somehow always catch a break. They are not obviously smarter, smoother, richer, or better-looking than you, yet they are admitted to their university of choice, get their dream job, and earn considerable wealth. Try to discern what they have that you don't, and you are stumped. Chalk it up to fate or plain dumb luck.Businesses can be similar. For reasons that are not always evident, some end up doing the right things with better results than average. They may not appear to be savvier acquirers, more adept marketers, or bolder pioneers, yet they integrate new businesses better, launch products more successfully, and open new markets with fewer mishaps. Perhaps through some combination of vision, scale, or business philosophy, these companies uncannily come out ahead.In our view, three characteristics indicate quality. These are strong, predictable cash generation; sustainably high returns on capital; and attractive growth opportunities. "Investing is a continuous process of learning, and it will be a rare investor who does not glean substantive lessons from the notable AKO story of quality investing." - Stephen Blyth, President and CEO, Harvard Management Company, Professor of the Practice of Statistics, Harvard University