Books 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby ishak » Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:51 am

Streetsmart Guide to Valuing a Stock - The Savvy Investor’s Key to Beating the Market
By Gary Gray, Patrick J. Cusatis, and J. Randall Woolridge

Key Message
• Fundamental analysis starts with the assumption that a stock has a true or intrinsic value to which its price is anchored. Price may diverge from this value in the short run, but over time, price and intrinsic value will converge.
• Technical analysts chart historic stock price movements, volume of trading activity, and the price/volume aspects of related equity and debt markets to predict or anticipate the stock buying behavior of other market participants.
• Modern Portfolio Theory is the belief that stock prices always reflect intrinsic value, and that any type of fundamental or technical analysis is already embedded in the stock price. It advocates picking a risk level that investors can live with and diversify holdings among a portfolio of stocks.
• 10 Principles of Finance
    Principle 1: Higher Returns Require Taking More Risk Return versus Risk
    Principle 2: Efficient Capital Markets Are Tough to Beat
    Principle 3: Rational Investors Are Risk Averse
    Principle 4: Supply and Demand Drive Stock Prices in the Short Run
    Principle 5: When Analyzing Returns, Simple Averages Are Never Simple
    Principle 6: Transaction Costs, Taxes, and Inflation Are Your Enemies
    Principle 7: Time and the Value of Money Are Closely Related
    Principle 8: Asset Allocation Is a Very Important Decision
    Principle 9: Asset Diversification Will Reduce Risk
    Principle 10: An Asset Pricing Model Should Be Used to Value Investments
• No valuation is timeless. A company’s intrinsic value changes as its prospects, product mix, competitive position, and product market adjust to new technologies, consumer needs, capital demands, and market psychology.
• The value of a financial investment equals the present value of its expected future cash flows, discounted for the risk and timing of those cash flows.
• Your investment decision should be based solely on price versus value. The DCF (Discounted Cash Flow) approach empowers you with the information that you need to buy and sell carefully.

The book also introduces its website http://www.valuepro.net, which is worth a visit (at least for fun).
Testing results:
Intrinsic Stock Value for C: 0
Intrinsic Stock Value for FRE: 0
Intrinsic Stock Value for FNM: 0
Intrinsic Stock Value for WM: 0
Intrinsic Stock Value for LEH: 10.87
Intrinsic Stock Value for GS: 377.77
Intrinsic Stock Value for V: 2854.26
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
- Albert Einstein
User avatar
ishak
Boss' Left Hand Person
 
Posts: 891
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:37 pm
Location: Portfolio updated 20080929

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby kennynah » Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:06 am

Image

Image
Options Strategies & Discussions .(Trading Discipline : The Science of Constantly Acting on Knowledge Consistently - kennynah).Investment Strategies & Ideas

Image..................................................................<A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control-Proverbs 29:11>.................................................................Image
User avatar
kennynah
Lord of the Lew Lian
 
Posts: 16005
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 2:00 am
Location: everywhere.. and nowhere..

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby la papillion » Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:44 am

Haha, K, you read marvel for investments ah?

My favourite superhero is BATMAN. You know why? Cos his superpowers is his MONEY! :)

Image
An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return - Benjamin Graham
User avatar
la papillion
Boss' Left Hand Person
 
Posts: 599
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 2:10 pm

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby kennynah » Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:57 pm

lapap : that;s a nice pic of the dark knight.. "marvel" comics = non-investment books...
Options Strategies & Discussions .(Trading Discipline : The Science of Constantly Acting on Knowledge Consistently - kennynah).Investment Strategies & Ideas

Image..................................................................<A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control-Proverbs 29:11>.................................................................Image
User avatar
kennynah
Lord of the Lew Lian
 
Posts: 16005
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 2:00 am
Location: everywhere.. and nowhere..

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby millionairemind » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:34 am

It has been a quiet week in the market. I picked up the book Trend Following by Mike Covel and re-read it for the 2nd time.

The book talks about Trend Following, what it is and what it isn't. It profiles great traders like Ed Seykota, John Henry and Richard Dennis and of course, the legendary JL.

It profiles the major trend following events like - Barings Bank collapse, STock Mkt bubbles, LTCM collaspe. We know who lost in those games but have you ever asked.. who won???? The trend followers who were on the other side of the market won when those "geniuses" at LTCM were losing money left right and center.

Trend followers don't create trends and don't end trends. They merely follow them and they are usually slightly late to the start and get out only after the trend tops and started its break downs. They only follow one rule - Price/Volume action.

The book covers drawdowns by trend followers and have their month to month data on how much money they are making year in and year out.

I highly recommend this book to ppe. who don't really understand what Trend Following is all about and only thinks FA is the only way to win in the market.
"If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he has been wrong" - Bernard Baruch

Disclaimer - The author may at times own some of the stocks mentioned in this forum. All discussions are NOT to be construed as buy/sell recommendations. Readers are advised to do their own research and analysis.
User avatar
millionairemind
Big Boss
 
Posts: 8183
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 am
Location: The Matrix

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby kennynah » Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:17 pm

those who are keen to better understand options...

author : lenny jordan
title : options (plain and simple) >> not so simple as the title suggests
Options Strategies & Discussions .(Trading Discipline : The Science of Constantly Acting on Knowledge Consistently - kennynah).Investment Strategies & Ideas

Image..................................................................<A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control-Proverbs 29:11>.................................................................Image
User avatar
kennynah
Lord of the Lew Lian
 
Posts: 16005
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 2:00 am
Location: everywhere.. and nowhere..

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby winston » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:12 pm

Highly Recommended:-

I have stopped reading books for the past 6 months. An incident yesterday, motivated me to start reading again.
Actually, I've bought this book a long time ago but did not have the motivation to read it:-

Angel Watch - Goosebumps, Signs, Dreams and Other Divine Nudges (Paperback)
by Catherine Lanigan (Author)


Product Description

With the overwhelming success of television shows like Touched by an Angel and Beyond Chance, it's clear that millions of people are seeking reassurance that miracles are possible. For anyone seeking this spiritual connection, or those who are interested in other unexplainable phenomenon, Angel Watch offers a compelling and inspirational read.

A provoking and uplifting collection of real-life miracles, Lanigan's latest book reveals how unexplained synchronicity brings positive changes into people's lives.

Angel Watch provides validation for those wondering if they are walking on their intended path, and a sense that everyone is an integral part of an interconnected universe.

About the Author
Catherine Lanigan is the author of The Evolving Woman, Wings of Destiny, and the screenplay adaptations of the bestsellers Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile and Tender Malice. She has appeared on numerous radio shows and is a well-known inspirational speaker at women's conferences and national events.


=======================================================
Another review :-
By Michael E. Tymn

As the author is a best-selling novelist, it is understandable that some people, like the previous reviewer, are not sure where to draw the line between fact and fiction. One might suspect that Lanigan, being a talented fiction writer, knows how to embellish simple, everyday experiences and turn them into entertaining stories. This was my initial reaction after reading the first few of the 53 short stories in this book.

But story by story, Lanigan builds credibility and emerges as a sincere, spiritually-evolved woman. "Some of you may feel they are just too strange or bizarre to be believed," she writes in the Introduction. "The incidents happened exactly as portrayed here. Your interpretation of the event might vary from mine, but the facts of the occurrence are precise."

All 53 stories involve the author, members of her family, or close friends. They include near-death experiences, deathbed visions, past-life regressions, clairvoyance, clairaudience, faith healing, ESP, precognitive dreams, apparations, and automatic writing.

The skeptic or the fundamentalist will scoff at most or many of them, perhaps calling some of them mere coincidences, but anyone with an open mind, especially those who have become familiar with the operations of other dimensions of reality, will understand and appreciate these stories. The story of her father's NDE and deathbed visions is especially interesting, intriguing and inspiring.

As Lanigan mentions, most of us are too busy "running helter-skelter" in our everyday activities, too busy just surviving, to take note of the magic or divine influences in our lives. The purpose of the book, she says, is "to lift the blinders from our eyes and reveal the divine ballet performed between humans and angels."

This is not really an angel book, per se. It is one woman's observations relative to psychic phenomena. It may not be for the person who has his or her "blinders" strapped on tightly, but those who have shed their blinders will find it entertaining and validating, while those who have their blinder on only loosely might find it an "eye-opener."
It's all about "how much you made when you were right" & "how little you lost when you were wrong"
User avatar
winston
Billionaire Boss
 
Posts: 118534
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 9:28 am

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby millionairemind » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:51 pm

Just finished reading a book called - A Pocketful of Wisdom: Life lessons of 21st Century Achievers by Chris Taylor.

Journalist Chris Taylor posed one simple question to the most brilliant achievers in the country: If you could give only one piece of advice to the next generation, what would it be? From Nobel Prize winners to Olympic gold medalists, from senators to CEOs, each contributor gives a glimpse of the ultimate philosophy that guides his or her life.

This book is split into sections - Key Goals, Key Relationships, Key Values, Key Adversities, Key Attitudes, Key Career Strategies, Key Insights and Key Experiences.

Each page is filled with insights from different high achievers.

I have always enjoyed reading books about ppe. who have "done it" and to learn from them cos I found out very early that I know too little. I found that this is the best way for time compression. Learn from their mistakes and how they achieve it, be it in trading, career, family, relationships. We all got only one life time. Time is the only commodity that once gone cannot be earned again. The only way we can get several life times worth of experiences is to live other ppe's life experiences and learn from them.

This book is available from the NLB.

Currently reading Zig Ziglar's Life Lifters and going to start on When Market Collides when it is due for collection at my local library.

Cheers,
mm ;)
"If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he has been wrong" - Bernard Baruch

Disclaimer - The author may at times own some of the stocks mentioned in this forum. All discussions are NOT to be construed as buy/sell recommendations. Readers are advised to do their own research and analysis.
User avatar
millionairemind
Big Boss
 
Posts: 8183
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 am
Location: The Matrix

Re: Investment & Non-Investment Books

Postby millionairemind » Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:22 pm

Just got this from dol. I have not read this book yet but it is on my reading list for this year.

Book Review
Soros Explains The Credit Crisis
Michael Maiello, 05.27.08, 1:07 PM ET

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 And What It Means by George Soros ($23, Public Affairs, 2008).

With his near real-time critique of the credit crisis, George Soros has saved financial historians a lot of work. If he's right, the summer of 2007 and all of 2008 will be the topic of many an academic paper, much like how Ben Bernanke made a career out of studying the Great Depression. Soros sees this as a monumental time. It's not just a bursting housing bubble, he says. It's the end of a quarter-century of credit-driven economic expansion. We're in a whole new world.

Up until August 2007, Soros had mostly farmed out management of his hedge fund to outsiders so that he could devote his time to philanthropy, philosophy and politics. The first troubles in subprime spurred Soros back into the markets. This time his goal wasn't so much to find the next billion-dollar trade but to preserve the wealth of his foundations.

This market has been so tough that it's vexed even Soros. His book offers a broad trading diary from January 2008 through the end of March, when The New Paradigm went to the printer. Soros' investment plan was to "short U.S. and European stocks, U.S. 10-year government bonds and the U.S. dollar; long Chinese, Indian and Gulf States stocks and non-U.S. currencies."

On March 10, he noted that commodities were stronger than he thought they'd be, that the Federal Reserve acted more aggressively than he'd anticipated and that the Indian and Chinese stock markets, not quite decoupled from the U.S. economy, took major hits. On March 16, he observed that "The panic is palpable," and bought into ailing Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC - news - people ), expecting some return on a Federal Reserve brokered auction of the company. He got burned admitting that, "We forgot to take into account that Bear is disliked by the establishment, and the Fed would use the occasion to deal with a moral hazard by punishing shareholders."

For those who might be confused by Soros' analysis there, Bill Miller, manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust explains: "Bear had been very aggressive in seizing the capital of Askin Capital in 1994 and precipitating its failure. In 1998 it opted out of rescuing Long Term Capital Management. That's the kind of thing where, if you're Merrill, Citigroup or the Fed, you remember." Miller also bought shares in Bear, for the same reasons Soros did.

The trading diary ends with Soros losing money. While he wishes he could have reached a more triumphant ending, he notes that the result "may be more appropriate for the purposes of the book."

Indeed, it is. While Soros is investing actively again, he's really using the market as a laboratory where he can test his philosophical ideas, especially the notion of reflexivity--that no market participant can ever have perfect knowledge because their beliefs, and the beliefs of others, effect and distort the markets. Because investors tend to herd--they buy things that are going up and sell things that are going down--markets are constantly beset by bubbles. Irrationality reigns supreme.

Soros was once a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, who spent most of his time studying science. Popper came to the conclusion that all scientific statements must be falsifiable and that no scientific theory is ever absolutely true. They are just able to withstand people's attempts to prove them wrong. So long as a theory isn't falsified, it's as good as true. But we're 100% certain about nothing.

The turmoils we see in the markets reflect the turmoils of human thought. The implications of this go far beyond investing. It means that market fundamentalism, the idea that markets are always self-correcting and don't need regulation, is just wrong. Markets are flawed because they reflect human delusions of certainty. Banks make money by issuing loans. If they want to make more money, they need to issue more loans. Absent regulation to stop them, the banks will issue new loans in new ways. They rationalize the risk away by building models based on past experience. The risk models say that the loans are safe. The flaw? All of these new loans fuel an unprecedented housing bubble that the risk models, which are backward looking, can't account for. All of these new loans also create new levels of debt, also unprecedented in history. So the risk models, once again, miss them.

It's time, says Soros, to bring back some of the regulations that were put in place after the Great Depression and then eroded in the decades that followed. Leverage and credit creation, he says, need to be reigned in. Regulators need to start looking to control asset bubbles as they manage the economy for the more usual goals of full employment and price stability.

Soros sees a new economy, indeed a new world order emerging. If the U.S. leaves its fate to the whims of flawed markets, it will lose much of its worldwide influence. Without the dollar as the reserve currency of first choice, the U.S. really has nothing but military supremacy in order to defend its position in the world, and even that, says Soros, has been undermined by the debacle in Iraq.

Soros' message for citizens, investors, politicians and regulators is to approach this new economy and new political order with humility. Be flexible and never dogmatic. Strive to find truth while realizing it's unattainable. It's false certainty that trips us up, in both investing and life.
"If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he has been wrong" - Bernard Baruch

Disclaimer - The author may at times own some of the stocks mentioned in this forum. All discussions are NOT to be construed as buy/sell recommendations. Readers are advised to do their own research and analysis.
User avatar
millionairemind
Big Boss
 
Posts: 8183
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 am
Location: The Matrix

Re: Books

Postby millionairemind » Thu Sep 04, 2008 12:56 pm

Just finished reading the book - Zig Ziglar's Life Lifters: Moments of Inspiration for Living Life Better

Some of you may remember him for his book Over The Top/See You At The Top. I first know about him from his book See You At The Top 15 yrs ago.

The book is divided into 56 subsections, each with short up-lifting stories that ends with a +ve message at the end. From the book, one can get a sense that Zig is a very staunch Christian and places alot of family ties and helping ppe.

This is certainly a decent read for inspiring shorts essays so as to feed the mind with good stuff ;)

A summary at the back of the book

For over thirty years, Zig Ziglar has been in the business of encouragement. This beloved author and speaker has shared his wisdom, his sorrows, his humor, and his faith with millions who are the better for it. Zig continues his life's mission with a new book designed to encourage and build hope, whatever your life circumstances are. This book offers vignettes on various topics such as attitude, love, inspiration, relationships, goal setting, and motivation that will help you become "excited about your country, your family, and your future" and will provide you a lift in your attitude and enjoyment of life.


Currently starting on the following books with relish ;)
1. Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen
2. When Markets Collide by Mohamed El-Erian
3. BaZi by Joey Yap

Will let you know what I find out :)
Last edited by millionairemind on Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he has been wrong" - Bernard Baruch

Disclaimer - The author may at times own some of the stocks mentioned in this forum. All discussions are NOT to be construed as buy/sell recommendations. Readers are advised to do their own research and analysis.
User avatar
millionairemind
Big Boss
 
Posts: 8183
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 8:50 am
Location: The Matrix

PreviousNext

Return to Archives

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 17 guests