Books 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[helios]

1st Book Title: How to make Money in Stocks
2nd Book Title: The Successful Investor
Author: William J O'Neil

- Will be hibernating with these 2 books in-hand, and collecting Peter Lynch books thro' courier. Damn hard to get P.Lynch books on the shelves!

- Can't find the 1999 version: It's Not What Stocks You Buy, It's When You Sell That Counts. Author: Donald L. Cassidy.

If our Super SurferZ has the above (by hook or by crook); let me know!

arigatÓ desu.

[winston]

- Can't find the 1999 version: It's Not What Stocks You Buy, It's When You Sell That Counts. Author: Donald L. Cassidy.

Hi San,

I have the above book and would recommend anyone to read it.

Recalled that ishak did post a summary of it before.

If I have not mistaken, I have copied that summary from ishak and posted it into the Traders Thread.

Take care,
Winston

[millionairemind]

Just finished a book called Harmonic Wealth by James Arthur Ray. You may remember him from the book The Secret.

He split the book into five sections - Financial, Relational, Mental, Physical and Spiritual.

In each section, he adds the "law of attraction" and "quantum physics" terms like we are all energy... and that all that we want in our life is 99.9999 percent energy or light... He talks extensively about raising your vibrational energy to match the "future pull" of yourself.

The "future pull" is yourself in your future. What you will be, how you will behave, your financial wealth, your spiritual endeavours, your relationship with people etc..

Of course, this has to be matched by action... Thinking about it all the time but with no action accompanying the thoughts is basically hullucination

When I was reading this book, I get a sense of Deja-vu... cos' the sections that the book was divided up was almost the same as the book Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins, written close to 15 year ago.

If you haven't read Awaken The Giant Within, I highly recommend it... 5 stars out of 5

Harmonic Wealth is certainly a worthwhile read. Probably rated 3.5 stars out of 5

[ishak]

Blue Ocean Strategy
How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Key Message
• Most corporate strategies grew from military models featuring direct confrontations.
• When businesses directly compete, the battlefield becomes over-crowded so all participants suffer from reduced market share, growth and profits.
• The blue ocean strategy builds new businesses where none existed, giving innovative entries clear sailing.
• These businesses, such as cell phones and biotechnology, barely existed 30 years ago.
• Blue ocean industries are more profitable than fields with head-to-head competitors.
• Offer your customers a blue ocean "value innovation," that is, tangible product advancements accompanied by demonstrable savings.
• Wear a life jacket: the six steps of blue ocean implementation each carry a risk.
• The six steps are: "Reconstruct market boundaries;" "Focus on the big picture;" "Reach beyond existing demand;" "Get the strategic sequence right;" “Overcome key organizational hurdles” and “Build execution into strategy.”
• Use a "strategy canvas" to chart the competition and exploit their shortcomings.
• Developing a blue ocean strategy requires all hands on deck.

[ishak]

What Works on Wall Street
A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time
by James O'Shaughnessey

Key Message
• Small capitalization strategies owe their superior returns to microcap stocks with market capitalization below $25 million. These stocks are too small for any investor to buy.
• Buying stocks with low PERs is most profitable when you stick to larger, better known counters.
• Price-to-Sales ratio is the best value ratio to use for buying market-beating stocks.
• Last year's biggest losers are the worst stocks to buy this year.
• Last year's earnings gains alone are worthless in determining what the stock will do this year.
• Using several factors dramatically improves investment performance.
• You can beat the S&P 500 by four times if you concentrate on large, well-known counters with high dividend yields.
• Relative strength is the only growth variable that consistently beats the market.
• Buying the most popular counters with the highest PERs is one of the worst approaches.
• Risk is one of the most important elements to consider in a strategy.
• Combining growth and value strategies is the best way to improve your investment performance.

[helios]

Blue Ocean Strategy
How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant
by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

• The blue ocean strategy builds new businesses where none existed, giving innovative entries clear sailing.
• These businesses, such as cell phones and biotechnology, barely existed 30 years ago.
• Blue ocean industries are more profitable than fields with head-to-head competitors.
• Offer your customers a blue ocean "value innovation," that is, tangible product advancements accompanied by demonstrable savings.
• Developing a blue ocean strategy requires all hands on deck.

Interestingly, the book has illustrated this Fitness Brand, Curves International; and you might want to know that the Brand is coming to Singapore by this end year with an established flagship outlet ... it was the same guy who got the master franchise for asia-pacific.

(for your information, Curves was featured in FLA'07 show last year in Singapore).

Out of curiousity - last month, i asked for the Franchise Agreement as one of my friends was toying this fitness gym idea ... a ballpark figure, $30K was stated ...

actually, i got the pdf.Book from CIF5000, many thanks to him.

[ishak]

Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation
Beat The Market By Going Against The Crowd
by David N. Dreman

Key Message
• Rule 1: Do not use market-timing or technical analysis. These techniques can only cost you money.
• Rule 2: Respect the difficulty of working with a mass of information. Few of us can use it successfully. In-depth information does not translate into in-depth profits.
• Rule 3: Don't make an investment decision based on correlations. All correlations in the market, whether real or illusory, will shift and soon disappear.
• Rule 4: Tread carefully with current investment methods. Our limitations in processing complex information correctly prevent their successful use by most of us.
• Rule 5: There are no highly predictable industries in which you can count on analysts' forecasts. Relying on these estimates will lead to trouble.
• Rule 6: Analysts' forecasts are usually optimistic. Make the appropriate downward adjustment to your earnings estimate.
• Rule 7: Most current security analysis requires a precision in analysts' estimates that is impossible to provide. Avoid methods that demand this level of accuracy.
• Rule 8: It is impossible, in a dynamic economy with consistently changing political, economic, industrial, and competitive conditions, to use the past to estimate the future.
• Rule 9: Be realistic about the downside of an investment, recognizing our human tendency to be both overly optimistic and overly confident. Expect the worst to be much more severe than your original projection.
• Rule 10: Take advantage of the high rate of analyst forecast error by simply investing in out-of-favor stocks.
• Rule 11: Positive and negative surprises affect the "best" and "worst" stocks in a diametrically opposite manner.
• Rule 12:

• Surprises, as a group, improve the performance of out-of-favor stocks, while impairing the performance of favorites.

• Positive surprises result in major appreciation for out-of-favor stocks, while having minimum impact on favorites.

• Negative surprises result in major drops in the price of favorites, while having virtually no impact on out-of-favor stocks.

• The effect of earnings surprises continues for an extended period of time.

• Rule 13: Favored stocks underperform the market, while out-of-favor companies outperform the market, but the reappraisal often happens slowly, even glacially.
• Rule 14: Buy solid companies currently out of market favor, as measured by their low price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow or priceto-book value ratios, or by their high yields.
• Rule 15: Don't speculate on high priced concept stocks to make above-average returns. The blue-chip stocks that widows and orphans traditionally choose are equally valuable for the more aggressive businessman or -woman.
• Rule 16: Avoid unnecessary trading. The costs can significantly lower your returns over time. Low price-to-value strategies provide well above market returns for years, and are an excellent means of eliminating excessive transaction costs.
• Rule 17: Buy only contrarian stocks because of their superior performance characteristics.
• Rule 18: Invest equally in 20 to 30 stocks, diversified among 15 or more industries (if your assets are of sufficient size).
• Rule 19: Buy medium- or large sized stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange, or only the larger companies on NASDAQ or the American Stock Exchange.
• Rule 20: Buy the least expensive stocks within an industry, as determined by the four contrarian strategies, regardless of how high or low the general price of the industry group.
• Rule 21: Sell a stock when its PER (or other contrarian indicator) approaches that of the overall market, regardless of how favorable prospects may appear. Replace it with another contrarian stock.
• Rule 22: Look beyond obvious similarities between a current investment situation and one that appears equivalent in the past. Consider other important factors that may result in a markedly different outcome.
• Rule 23: Don't be influenced by the short-term record of a money manager, broker, analyst, or adviser, no matter how impressive; don't accept easy cursory economic or investment news without significant substantiation.
• Rule 24: Don't rely on the "case rate". Take into account the "base rate" - the prior probabilities of profit or loss.
• Rule 25: Don't be seduced by recent rates of return for individual stocks or the market when they deviate sharply from past norms (the "case rate"). Long-term returns of stocks (the "base rate") are far more likely to be established again. If returns are particularly high or low, they are likely to be abnormal.
• Rule 26: Don't expect the strategy you adopt will prove a quick success in the market, give it a reasonable time to work out.
• Rule 27: The push toward an average rate of return is a fundamental principle of competitive markets.
• Rule 28: It is far safer to project a continuation of the psychological reactions of investors than it is to project the visibility of the companies themselves.
• Rule 29: Political and financial crises lead investors to sell stocks. This is precisely the wrong reaction. Buy during a panic, don't sell.
• Rule 30: In a crisis, carefully analyze the reasons put forward to support lower stock prices - more often than not they will disintegrate under scrutiny.
• Rule 31:

• Diversify extensively. No matter how cheap a group of stocks looks, you never know for sure that you aren't getting a clinker.

• Use the value lifelines as explained. In a crisis, these criteria get dramatically better as prices plummet, markedly improving your chances of a big score.

• Rule 32: Volatility is not risk. Avoid investment advice based on volatility.
• Rule 33: Small-cap investing: Buy companies that are strong financially (normally no more than 60% debt in the capital structure for a manufacturing firm).
• Rule 34: Small-cap investing: Buy companies with increasing and well-protected dividends that also provide above-market yield.
• Rule 35: Small-cap investing: Pick companies with above-average earnings growth rates.
• Rule 36: Small-cap investing: Diversify widely, particularly in small companies, because these issues have far less liquidity. A good portfolio should contain about twice as many stocks as an equivalent large-cap one.
• Rule 37: Small-cap investing: Be patient. Nothing works every year, but when smaller caps click, returns are often tremendous.
• Rule 38: Small company trading (e.g. NASDAQ): Don't trade thin issues with large spreads unless you are almost certain you have a big winner.
• Rule 39: When making a trade in small, illiquid stocks, consider not only commissions, but also the bid/ask spread to see how large your total cost will be.
• Rule 40: Avoid the small, fast-track mutual funds. The track often ends at the bottom of a cliff.
• Rule 41: A given in markets is that perceptions change rapidly.

[kennynah]

Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee

[ishak]

Crunch Point
The 21 Secrets to Succeeding When it Matters Most
by Brian Tracy

Key Message
• In this book, Brian Tracy presents 21 techniques for overcoming setbacks inherent in our lives and jobs. These give you the motivation, techniques and confidence to solve problems quickly, decisively and effectively.
• 1. Stay calm
• 2. Be confident in your abilities
• 3. Dare to go forward
• 4. Get the facts
• 5. Take control
• 6. Cut your losses
• 7. Manage the crisis
• 8. Communicate constantly
• 9. Identify your constraints
• 10. Unleash your creativity
• 11. Focus on the key result areas
• 12. Concentrate on priorities
• 13. Counterattack!
• 14. Generate cash flow
• 15. Care for your customers
• 16. Close more sales
• 17. Keep things simple
• 18. Conserve your energy
• 19. Make your connection
• 20. Character is king
• 21. Resolve to persist until you succeed

[ishak]

If Success is a Game, These are the Rules
Ten Rules for a Fulfilling Life
by Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.D.

Key Message
• Rule 1: Each Person Has Their Own Definition Of Success
• Rule 2: Wanting Success Is the First Step Towards Attaining It
• Rule 3: Self-Trust Is Essential
• Rule 4: Goals are the Stepping-Stones on Your Path
• Rule 5: Your Actions Affect Your Outcomes
• Rule 6: Opportunities will be Presented
• Rule 7: Each Setback Provides Valuable Lessons
• Rule 8: Managing Your Resources Maximizes Your Efforts
• Rule 9: Every Level of Success Brings New Challenges
• Rule 10: Success is the Process that Never Ends