. . the noblest and the most infamous in the world, the finest and most vulgar on earth.” The characterization of finance as deceitful, infamous, and vulgar still rings true today – particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But, what happened to the fairest, noblest, and finest profession that de la Vega saw?  De la Vega hit on an essential truth that has been forgotten: finance can be just as principled, life-affirming, and worthy as it can be fraught with questionable practices.  Today, finance is shrouded in mystery for outsiders, while many insiders are uneasy with the disrepute of their profession.  How can finance become more accessible and also recover its nobility? Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai, in his “last lecture” to the graduating Harvard MBA class of 2015, took up the cause of restoring humanity to finance. With incisive wit and irony, his lecture drew upon a rich knowledge of literature, film, history, and philosophy to explain the inner workings of finance in a manner that has never been seen before. This book captures Desai’s lucid exploration of the ideas of finance as seen through the unusual prism of the humanities. Through this novel, creative approach, Desai shows that outsiders can access the underlying ideas easily and insiders can reacquaint themselves with the core humanity of their profession. The mix of finance and the humanities creates unusual pairings: Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope are guides to risk management; Jeff Koons becomes an advocate of leverage; and Mel Brooks’s The Producers teaches us about fiduciary responsibility. In Desai’s vision, the principles of finance also provide answers to critical questions in our lives. Among many surprising parallels, bankruptcy teaches us how to react to failure, the lessons of mergers apply to marriages, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model demonstrates the true value of relationships. THE WISDOM OF FINANCE is a wholly unique book, offering a refreshing new perspective on one of the world’s most complex and misunderstood professions.

    Matt’s book shows you how to do that. It may be the missing link you’ve been looking for.” —William J. O’Neil, Investor’s Business Daily Founder and Chairman “Getting Started takes the guesswork out of investing. Anyone can use these routines and checklists to become a successful investor.” —Amy Smith, How to Make Money in Stocks—Success Stories Through both bull and bear markets, Investor’s Business Daily’s CAN SLIM® Investment System has consistently been the #1 growth strategy, according to the American Association of Individual Investors. How to Make Money in Stocks—Getting Started shows you how to put the CAN SLIM System to work for you. Using an easy-to-follow game plan designed for busy people, you’ll discover: 2 simple rules to protect your money 3 critical factors to consider before you buy Buying & Selling Checklists to help you capture – and keep – solid gains Easy-to-follow routines How to spot—and deal with—major changes in market direction Action Steps and online videos to quickly start using what you learn Getting Started is the latest addition to the bestselling How to Make Money in Stocks series launched by CAN SLIM creator and Investor’s Business Daily founder William J. O’Neil. Millions of investors have used O’Neil’s strategy to build financial peace of mind. Now it’s your turn! So whether you’re new to the stock market and a little nervous about jumping in—or if you’ve been investing for awhile, but aren’t yet achieving the kind of results you want—How to Make Money in Stocks—Getting Started gives you a clear, step-by-step path to investing success.

    Today, Munger is one of America’s most successful investors, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Warren Buffett’s business partner for almost forty years. Buffett says “Berkshire has been built to Charlie’s blueprint. My role has been that of general contractor.” Munger is an intelligent, opinionated businessman whose ideas can teach professional and amateur investors how to be successful in finance and life. Like The Tao of Warren Buffett and The Tao of Te Ching, The Tao of Charlie Munger is a compendium of pithy quotes including, “Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant” and “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.” This collection, culled from interviews, speeches, and questions and answers at the Berkshire Hathaway and Wesco annual meetings, offers insights into Munger’s amazing financial success and life philosophies. Described by Business Insider as “sharp in his wit and investing wisdom,” Charlie Munger’s investment tips, business philosophy, and rules for living are as unique as his life story, intelligent as he clearly is, and as successful as he has been.

    history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the "Wall Street Journal" and "New York Times," and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.* Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging and human drama* Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street's best-known investors* Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models, and a blind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Street careening toward disasterConfidence Game is a real world "Emperor's New Clothes," a tale of widespread delusion, and one dissenting voice in the era leading up to the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

    The dust had yet to settle on the global financial crisis in 2009 when an unlikely Wharton grad was setting in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Billion Dollar Whale will become a classic, harrowing parable about the financial world in the twenty-first century.

    From central banks to brokerages to multinationals, institutional investors are flocking to a new generation of exotic and complex options contracts and derivatives. But the promise of ever larger profits also creates the potential for catastrophic trading losses. Now more than ever, the key to trading derivatives lies in implementing preventive risk management techniques that plan for and avoid these appalling downturns. Unlike other books that offer risk management for corporate treasurers, Dynamic Hedging targets the real-world needs of professional traders and money managers. Written by a leading options trader and derivatives risk advisor to global banks and exchanges, this book provides a practical, real-world methodology for monitoring and managing all the risks associated with portfolio management. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the founder of Empirica Capital LLC, a hedge fund operator, and a fellow at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. He has held a variety of senior derivative trading positions in New York and London and worked as an independent floor trader in Chicago. Dr. Taleb was inducted in February 2001 in the Derivatives Strategy Hall of Fame. He received an MBA from the Wharton School and a Ph.D. from University Paris-Dauphine.

    Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions.Why? What is finance for? John Kay, with wide practical and academic experience in the world of finance, understands the operation of the financial sector better than most. He believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but good banks and effective asset managers are not what he sees.In a dazzling and revelatory tour of the financial world as it has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 crisis, Kay does not flinch in his criticism: we do need some of the things that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs do, but we do not need Citigroup and Goldman to do them. And many of the things done by Citigroup and Goldman do not need to be done at all. The finance sector needs to be reminded of its primary purpose: to manage other people's money for the benefit of businesses and households. It is an aberration when the some of the finest mathematical and scientific minds are tasked with devising algorithms for the sole purpose of exploiting the weakness of other algorithms for computerized trading in securities. To travel further down that road leads to ruin.

    Material covered includes the difference between stocks and businesses, what constitutes a good business, when to buy and sell stocks, and how to value individual stocks. The book also includes a chapter covering four case studies as well as a supplemental chapter on the pros and cons of real estate versus stock market investing.

    A comprehensive account of the stock market over the last 25 years, it tells you what to watch out for while investing. It also looks at policies that the government needs to revise if the country is to harness domestic capital more effectively. This is a must-read for all interested in the financial health of the country as well as those who want to know about the sensational events that led up to the far more sterile stock-market operations of the present day.

    For them, it was the ticker tape, for us it is the trading screen. The results are the same and can be for you too.You can be lucky tooI make no bones about the fact I believe I was lucky in starting my own trading journey using volume. To me it just made sense. The logic was inescapable. And for me, the most powerful reason is very simple. Volume is a rare commodity in trading - a leading indicator. The second and only other leading indicator is price. Everything else is lagged. It's a simple problemAs traders, investors or speculators, all we are trying to do is to forecast where the market is heading next. Is there any better way than to use the only two leading indicators we have at our disposal, namely volume and price?And such a powerful solutionIn isolation, each tells us very little. After all, volume is just that, no more no less. A price is a price. However, combine these two forces together, and the result is a powerful analytical approach to forecasting market direction with confidence.What you will discoverThis book will teach you all you need to know from first principles. So whether you're a day trader or longer-term investor in any market, instrument or timeframe, this book is the perfect platform to set you on the road to success and join those iconic traders of the past. All you need to succeed is a chart with volume and price...simple.

    His instructions were simple. There was only one rule. They could only invest in their ten best ideas to make money.It seemed like a foolproof plan to make a lot of money. What could possibly go wrong? These were some of the greatest minds at work in the markets today - from top European hedge fund managers to Wall Street legends.But most of the investors' great ideas actually lost money. Shockingly, a toss of a coin would have been a better method of choosing whether or not to invest in a stock.Nevertheless, despite being wrong most of the time, many of these investors still ended up making a lot of money.How could they be wrong most of the time and still be profitable? The answer lay in their hidden habits of execution, which until now have only been guessed at from the outside world.This book lays bare those secret habits for the first time, explaining them with real-life data, case studies and stories taken from Freeman-Shor's unique position of managing these investors on a day-to-day basis.A riveting read for investors of every level, this book shows you exactly what to do and what not to do when your big idea is losing or winning - and demonstrates conclusively why the most important thing about investing is always the art of execution.

    A starter kit to becoming a millionaire - isn't it time you became wealthy? This explosive and controversial openly challenges the most basic and fundamental tenets of personal investing.

    In Investing In One Lesson, investment guru Mark Skousen clearly and convincingly reveals the reasons for the seemingly perverse, unpredictable nature of the stock market. Drawing upon his decades of experience as an investment advisor, writer, and professor, Dr. Skousen explains in one spirited, easy-to-follow lesson why stock prices fluctuate with such apparent irrationality. Lifting back the veil of perplexity and confusion that surrounds the workings of the stock market, Dr. Skousen explains:*Why good news for the economy is often bad news for the stock market*Why stocks of old, established companies in shrinking industries tend to be a better investment than shares in rapidly growing firms in cutting-edge fields*Why stock prices can suddenly skyrocket or collapse--regardless of market fundamentals*Why initial public offerings often enrich insiders at the expense of the majority of investors*How Wall Street is like a giant casino--and how it isn'tThe perfect investment primer, Investing In One Lesson provides an introduction to everything from day trading to contrary investing to chart-based techniques. Dr. Skousen's book concludes with a comprehensive but simple investment strategy to maximize your returns without having to dedicate countless hours to researching the market. Dr. Skousen packs his book with entertaining personal and professional anecdotes illustrating his central point--that the business of investing is not the same as investing in a business. He offers investors a wide-ranging but accessible course on investing history, psychology, and strategy--all in one lesson.

    The financial market is a complex system, but that doesn't mean it requires a complex strategy; in fact, this false premise is the driving force behind many investors' market "mistakes." Information is important, but understanding and perspective are the keys to better decision-making. This book describes the proper way to view the markets and your portfolio, and show you the simple strategies that make investing more profitable, less confusing, and less time-consuming. Without the burden of short-term performance benchmarks, individual investors have the advantage of focusing on the long view, and the freedom to construct the kind of portfolio that will serve their investment goals best. This book proves how complex strategies essentially waste these advantages, and provides an alternative game plan for those ready to simplify. Complexity is often used as a mechanism for talking investors into unnecessary purchases, when all most need is a deeper understanding of conventional options. This book explains which issues you actually should pay attention to, and which ones are simply used for an illusion of intelligence and control. Keep up with—or beat—professional money managers Exploit stock market volatility to your utmost advantage Learn where advisors and consultants fit into smart strategy Build a portfolio that makes sense for your particular situation You don't have to outsmart the market if you can simply outperform it. Cut through the confusion and noise and focus on what actually matters. A Wealth of Common Sense clears the air, and gives you the insight you need to become a smarter, more successful investor.

    The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan focuses on the art of investing and gives you the information you need to create a strategy that is tailor-made for your particular situation.Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors, this book offers the vital information needed for developing and implementing an overall strategic financial plan. In this essential resource, Swedroe outlines the basics in asset allocation and other investment planning concepts.Addresses how you can design an investment policy statement and an individual asset allocation plan Examines how to maintain your portfolio's risk profile in the most cost-effective and tax-efficient manner Offers insights on integrating risk management and estate planning issues into your plan The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan offers a handy tool to help you make more informed and prudent decisions that will go a long way to ensure a secure financial future.