Deep Value Investing: Finding bargain shares with big potential


Jeroen Bos - 2013
    Written by an investor with a long and remarkable track record, it shares for the first time the ins and outs of finding high-potential undervalued stocks before anyone else.Deep value investing means finding companies that are genuine bargains that can pay back phenomenally over the long term. They are firms so cheap that even if they were to close tomorrow their assets would pay you out at a profit. But if they can turn things around, the rewards will be many times greater ...These were the favourite shares of Benjamin Graham, author of 'The Intelligent Investor'. Inspired by Graham's classic and with a long history of discovering these great value stocks - sometimes known as 'bargain issues' or 'netnets' - author and investor Jeroen Bos reveals:- how to use only publicly available information to discover these shares and filter the gold from the dross- everything he did when analysing, purchasing, monitoring and selling more than ten recent successful deep value investments- the complete philosophy behind deep value investing, and the ins and outs of this strategy in practice- what can go wrong and how to minimise the chances of it happening to you.Deep value investing has a better track record than almost any other approach to the market. Even better, it doesn't require minute and technical knowledge of a company, nor is it fixated on earnings or often-unreliable future projections.It's all about the balance sheet and patience. This makes it the perfect investing approach for those who want to see phenomenal stock market returns without wasting time or commission costs.

A Zebra in Lion Country: The Dean of Small Cap Stocks Explains How to Invest in Small Rapidly Growin


Ralph Wanger - 1997
     When "USA Today" asked a group of prominent professional portfolio managers whom they would choose to manage their personal wealth, the person most often cited was Ralph Wanger (Warren Buffett came in second). Hailed by both "Newsweek" and "U.S. News & World Report" as the "dean" of small-cap investing, Ralph Wanger explains the principles of investing in small, rapidly growing companies whose stocks will yield well-above-average returns. Investors are like zebras in lion country: They must settle for meager pickings by sticking in the middle of the herd, or seek richer rewards at the outer edge, where hungry lions lurk. Wanger shows investors -- whether they are investing in mutual funds or buying stocks on their own -- how to achieve the right balance of safety and risk to survive and prosper in the investment jungle. Destined to become a classic in the field of investing, "A Zebra in Lion Country" is as entertaining as it is instructive.

F Wall Street: Joe Ponzio's No-Nonsense Approach to Value Investing For the Rest of Us


Joel Ponzio - 2009
    They should capitalize on it—and give a middle finger to those brokers wasting their time (and money) buying and selling, viewing investing as just buying stocks and not taking ownership of a company.In this book, Joe Ponzio gives an "f-you" to Wall Street and teaches you how to become a sharp value investor who uses economic downturns to your advantage. By buying into companies you believe in—but that may be selling for less than their intrinsic value, like high-end retailers in a weak market and discount retailers in a strong one—you will profit from their long-term performance. It's the perfect guide for anyone fed up with Wall Street's bull.

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.

The Rise of Carry: The Dangerous Consequences of Volatility Suppression and the New Financial Order of Decaying Growth and Recurring Crisis


Tim Lee - 2019
    But none has revealed just how significant a role it plays in the global economy--until now.A groundbreaking book sure to leave its mark in the canon of investing literature, The Rise of Carry explains how carry trading has virtually shaped the global economic picture--one of decaying economic growth, recurring crises, wealth disparity, and, in too many places, social and political upheaval. The authors explain how carry trades work--particularly in the currency and stock markets--and provide a compelling case for how carry trades have come to dominate the entire global business cycle. They provide thorough analyses of critical but often overlooked topics and issues, including:-The active role stock prices play in causing recessions--as opposed to the common belief that recessions cause price crashes-The real driving force behind financial asset prices-The ways that carry, volatility selling, leverage, liquidity, and profitability affect the business cycle-How positive returns to carry over time are related to market volatility--and how central bank policies have supercharged these returnsSimply put, carry trading is now the primary determinant of the global business cycle--a pattern of long, steady but unspectacular expansions punctuated by catastrophic crises.The Rise of Carry provides foundational knowledge and expert insights you need to protect yourself from what have come to be common market upheavals--as well as the next major crisis.

Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street


Fred Schwed Jr. - 1940
    . . . What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively clean language-the lunacy at the heart of the investment business. -- From the Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of Liar's Poker . . . one of the funniest books ever written about Wall Street. -- Jane Bryant Quinn, The Washington PostHow great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. -- Michael BloombergIt's amazing how well Schwed's book is holding up after fifty-five years. About the only thing that's changed on Wall Street is that computers have replaced pencils and graph paper. Otherwise, the basics are the same. The investor's need to believe somebody is matched by the financial advisor's need to make a nice living. If one of them has to be disappointed, it's bound to be the former. -- John Rothchild, Author, A Fool and His Money, Financial Columnist, Time magazineHumorous and entertaining, this book exposes the folly and hypocrisy of Wall Street. The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers. Full of wise contrarian advice and offering a true look at the world of investing, in which brokers get rich while their customers go broke, this book continues to open the eyes of investors to the reality of Wall Street.

Dead Companies Walking: How A Hedge Fund Manager Finds Opportunity in Unexpected Places


Scott Fearon - 2015
    He has earned millions of dollars for his hedge fund over the last thirty years shorting the stocks of businesses he believed were on their way to bankruptcy. In Dead Companies Walking, Fearon describes his methods for spotting these doomed businesses, and how they can be extremely profitable investments. In his experience, corporate managers routinely commit six common mistakes that can derail even the most promising companies: they learn from only the recent past; they rely too heavily on a formula for success; they misunderstand their target customers; they fall victim to the magical storytelling of a mania; they fail to adapt to tectonic shifts in their industry; and they are physically or emotionally removed from their companies' operations. Fearon has interviewed thousands of executives across America, many of whom, unknowingly, were headed toward bankruptcy – from the Texas oil barons of the 80s to the tech wunderkinds of the late 90s to the flush real estate developers of the mid-2000s. Here, he explores recent examples like JC Penney, Herbalife and Blockbuster Entertainment to help investors better predict the next booms and busts—and come out on top.

Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad)


Danielle Town - 2018
    The daughter of a successful investor and bestselling financial author of Rule #1, Phil Town, she spent most of her adult life avoiding investing—until she realized that her time-consuming career as lawyer was making her feel anything but in control of her life or her money. Determined to regain her freedom, vote for her values with her money, and deal with her fear of the unpredictable stock market, she turned to her father, Phil, to help her take charge of her life and her future through Warren Buffett-style value investing. Over the course of a year, Danielle went from avoiding everything to do with the financial industrial complex to knowing exactly how and when to invest in wonderful companies.In Invested, Danielle shows you how to do the same: how to take command of your own life and finances by choosing companies with missions that match your values, using the same gold standard strategies that have catapulted Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger to the top of the Forbes 400. Avoiding complex math and obsolete financial models, she turns her father’s investing knowledge into twelve easy-to understand lessons.In each chapter, Danielle examines the investment strategies she mastered as her increasing know-how deepens the trust between her and her father. Throughout, she streamlines the process of making wise financial decisions and shows you just how easy—and profitable—investing can be.Capturing a warm, charming, and down-to-earth give and take between a headstrong daughter and her mostly patient dad, Invested makes the complex world of investing simple, straightforward, and approachable, and will help you formulate your own investment plan—and foster the confidence to put it into action.

Gurus of Chaos: Modern India's Money Masters


Saurabh Mukherjea - 2014
    The Indian stock market is many things to many people. Some are drawn to its thrill and promise but, more often than not, they fail to recognize the risk that accompanies the reward of a great ride. For many, the market and its workings defy logic and mastery. However, within the universe of market watchers in India, there is a small group that has managed to build a fine set of navigation tools and develop a unique perspective and approach towards the market. They have created and institutionalized investment strategies based on their experiences and philosophies. Saurabh Mukherjea delves into the minds of seven such individuals asking them to elaborate on the tools they use and how these work. He traces their journey from being novices to successful long-term investors. Using their insights and his own experience of working in the market for nearly a decade, Mukherjea provides an essential and indispensable framework for operating in the Indian stock market.The interviews with prominent fund managers in the book are:Sanjoy BhattacharyaAlroy LoboAkash PrakashSankaran NarenSashi ReddyB.N. ManjunathOne who prefers to remain anonymous

Accounting for Value


Stephen H. Penman - 2010
    The book's novel approach shows that valuation and accounting are much the same: valuation is actually a matter of accounting for value.Laying aside many of the tools of modern finance--the cost-of-capital, the CAPM, and discounted cash flow analysis--Stephen Penman returns to the common-sense principles that have long guided fundamental investing: price is what you pay but value is what you get; the risk in investing is the risk of paying too much; anchor on what you know rather than speculation; and beware of paying too much for speculative growth. Penman puts these ideas in touch with the quantification supplied by accounting, producing practical tools for the intelligent investor.Accounting for value provides protection from paying too much for a stock and clues the investor in to the likely return from buying growth. Strikingly, the analysis finesses the need to calculate a "cost-of-capital," which often frustrates the application of modern valuation techniques. Accounting for value recasts "value" versus "growth" investing and explains such curiosities as why earnings-to-price and book-to-price ratios predict stock returns. By the end of the book, Penman has the intelligent investor thinking like an intelligent accountant, better equipped to handle the bubbles and crashes of our time. For accounting regulators, Penman also prescribes a formula for intelligent accounting reform, engaging with such controversial issues as fair value accounting.

The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich


David Bach - 2003
    Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.What makes The Automatic Millionaire unique:You don’t need a budgetYou don’t need willpowerYou don’t need to make a lot of money You don’t need to be that interested in moneyYou can set up the plan in an hourDavid Bach gives you a totally realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know, including phone numbers and websites, so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home. This one little book has the power to secure your financial future. Do it once--the rest is automatic!

Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor


Tren Griffin - 2015
    His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom"--a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management--allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.Munger's system has steered his investments for forty years and has guided generations of successful investors. This book presents the essential steps of Munger's investing strategy, condensed here for the first time from interviews, speeches, writings, and shareholder letters, and paired with commentary from fund managers, value investors, and business-case historians. Derived from Ben Graham's value-investing system, Munger's approach is straightforward enough that ordinary investors can apply it to their portfolios. This book is not simply about investing. It is about cultivating mental models for your whole life, but especially for your investments.

Your Money and Your Brain


Jason Zweig - 2007
    In Your Money and Your Brain, Jason Zweig explains why smart people make stupid financial decisions -- and what they can do to avoid these mistakes. Zweig, a veteran financial journalist, draws on the latest research in neuroeconomics, a fascinating new discipline that combines psychology, neuroscience, and economics to better understand financial decision making. He shows why we often misunderstand risk and why we tend to be overconfident about our investment decisions. Your Money and Your Brain offers some radical new insights into investing and shows investors how to take control of the battlefield between reason and emotion. Your Money and Your Brain is as entertaining as it is enlightening. In the course of his research, Zweig visited leading neuroscience laboratories and subjected himself to numerous experiments. He blends anecdotes from these experiences with stories about investing mistakes, including confessions of stupidity from some highly successful people. Then he draws lessons and offers original practical steps that investors can take to make wiser decisions. Anyone who has ever looked back on a financial decision and said, "How could I have been so stupid?" will benefit from reading this book.

The Bank Investor's Handbook


Nathan Tobik - 2017
    Perhaps you thought of grocery stores or something sexy like internet retailing, but chances are you didn’t think of banking. Yet, most likely you interact with a bank every time you’re paid and when you pay your bills. Banks facilitate the flow of money through the economy and even if you don’t interact with a bank daily, the businesses you deal with on a daily basis do. For all the interaction people have with banks, few understand how they work or why they work. Even fewer understand why they should consider including bank stocks in their investment portfolio. There are a lot of misconceptions about banks, including understanding what they are and what they do. For many people the word “bank” evokes images of receiving a toaster upon opening an account, or thoughts of security related to the storing of precious items in a safety deposit box. Others might go further and tap their inner Michael Moore and talk about how banks are greedy and evil. It’s our belief that banks aren’t just places to store idle savings (on which you receive virtually nothing in interest) or to cash checks, but that they should be an integral part of an investor’s portfolio. The goal of this book is to provide you with a foundation and framework with which you can both begin to understand banks, but also learn the basic tools used to analyze banks as investments.

More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places


Michael J. Mauboussin - 2006
    Michael Mauboussin, one of Wall Street's most creative and influential minds offers provocative new ways of thinking about the stock market, investing, and how we make decisions.