Book Description

Practical, expert coverage of investment pricing methods for financial professionals

This book on investment pricing methods offers accounting and financial practitioners and academics a solid understanding of the techniques and methods investment analysts use to price common financial investment instruments, such as commercial mortgages, private placement-bonds, mortgage-backed securities, private and public equities, derivatives, and joint ventures. Clarification of important terminology and an overview of fundamental concepts are provided for less experienced professionals, while in-depth and up-to-date discussion of technical matters offers experienced professionals expert dissection of more complex material. This authoritative and reliable guide features:

• PowerPoint™ presentation for teaching purposes available online at www.wiley.com/go/investmentpricing
• In-depth and up-to-date pricing models
• Verbal and formula explanations for all mathematical equations
• Tips on reviewing investment prices for accuracy or flaws
• Investment type characteristics such as contractual provisions, cash flows, and risks for applying Statement 133 hedge effectiveness guidelines
• Basic building blocks of investment pricing methodologies including present value methodologies used for pricing and evaluating common investment types
• Coverage of complex issues including term structure of interest rates, determinants of bond yields and stock risk premiums, estimation of free cash flows for valuing a business entity, and more

Reviews (2)

Extremely Valuable . . . .
This book explains and illustrates (with real world examples) how to estimate the value of financial instruments that are traded on listed securitues exchanges, as well as some that are not actively traded. The book provides valuable demonstrations of how wide range practical sources of information can be used to compute prices for commercial mortgages, private-placement bonds, mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, joint ventures, and other financial instruments. Casabona and Traficanti also provide 340 slides that expedite learning...

A Primary Resource
A useful guide for both the accounting and financial professionals who must tackle valuation on a regular basis. Casabona and Traficanti explain the basics of pricing various types of fixed income securities, equity securities, and the whole gamut of derivatives. I was particularly impressed by the fact that Casabona and Traficanti do not limit themselves to publicly traded instruments; instead, they consider both the public and the nonpublic (i.e., private) markets for securities. The book is well thought out, well organized, and easy to follow . . . I can easily see it becoming a primary resource for the accounting profession and for Boards of Directors of both issuing institutions and of the investment companies that represent the target investment market for many of the instruments discussed. ... Read more

Book Description

TBD ... Read more

Reviews (13)

No secrets
I borrowed this book from a friend because I couldn't believe the inflamatory title.Well no surprise, nothing new.If you're investing in this day and age and you don't want to pay attention to the activity in your brokerage account or you don't feel like you have the intelligence to understand the market, pay a management fee, get a discretionary account, and have the broker direct the investing.As a regular investor, I'm responsible for the decisions I make and the stocks I purchase. I think it is insulting and highly unethical to sue just because you lost money in the market. Don't bother with the book.

Insight & Assistance for the Beleaguered & Bewildered
Most investors in the stock market lack the sophistication to really understand what their broker is doing�or not doing�with their hard-earned money. If brokers are not well- trained in how to serve their clients and/or they�re more focused on lining their pockets rather than their clients� pockets, investors can lose their shirts�and then some. When their world crashes around them, these troubled people go to professionals like Daniel Solin.

During this painful time, investors learn what they should have known long before. Sometimes they can recoup some of their losses, sometimes not. Understanding the playing field before suiting up means a considerably better chance at winning the game (or at least playing well). Solin teaches readers�in page after high content page�what brokers do to damage their clients. Unconditional trust in your broker may not be the wisest move. The potential for fraud is rampant. You�ll learn about churning, frontrunning, unauthorized trading, and a host of other malpractices that create risks beyond the market itself for the unwitting investor.

Solinis a trial attorney with over three decades of experience. He has recovered millions of dollars for investors who have been mistreated by brokers�even those employed by well-known and respected brokerage firms. He doesn�t always win, so readers should not get the idea that Solin is some sort of guardian angel. The good, the bad, and the ugly are presented in stories and case studies, with the outcomes explained. Reading this book will help you protect yourself. An educated buyer is a wiser and safer buyer.

The book is almost a page-turner, but not quite. It wasn�t written to be a fun read. You�ll probably want to do some highlighting, some page-turning, and some note-taking. As a result of using this book as an educational tool, you�ll be better equipped to ask questions, to insist on certain information, to protect yourself just a bit better than the average guy or gal with money in the market.

A glossary, index, and solid explanations of risks and arbitration make this book a valuable resource.

Retail Investors...IF you think you have a claim...
...you should read this book. If not, Dan Solin's book, DOES YOUR BROKER OWE YOU MONEY? is an excellent primer for those wanting to understand the 'inside skinny' of the brokerage business, responsibilities of brokers, alternatives to aggreived investors and possibilities for recovery if damaged.

I've been in the litigation consulting game (as a consulting and testifying expert) for close to a decade now, primarily in securities, and can say that Solin's book is the first book I've run across bringing all the pieces together in a cogent manner. While other books are out there and new ones arriving daily, Solin's book stands out as the cream of this crop. {Solin, a plaintiff's attorney, has been in the game for 30+ years. There will be and are many who will think this is his personal soapbox to drum up more business. I fervently disagree. Solin presents a solid, fact-based picture of many of the misdeeds inflicted by unscrupulous brokers. There is very little fluff here.}

Solin walks the reader through most aspects of a relationship with a broker as well as identifying the "warning signs" within the relationship for any investor to observe. In the first chapter, "Your Broker Just Might Owe You Money," Solin describes the 'chatter' many brokers use to market themselves and pick off unsuspecting investors. He then goes on to describe areas of broker fraud and NYSE/NASD/SEC violations, which he details in later chapters.

If there is one chapter I would strongly suggest most retail investors read and reread, it is Chapter 4, "Unsuitability: What's a Good Investment Strategy for You?" By and large, most lawsuits I've consulted/testified in have allegations of unsuitable investments. Simplisticly, unsuitability can be defined as a broker's disregard for an investor's risk tolerance and investment objectives. This disregard is primarily manifested in recommendations from a broker to buy a stock considered outside the risk paramters and investment objectives. For instance, many retired individuals have an IRA or 401(K) account with a broker. In most cases, these accounts are very conservative and thus, have a risk profile of 'conservative' and investment objectives to match (i.e. 'safety of principal' and 'income' are the primary investment objectives). An unsuitability claim would arise if a broker induced/encouraged/suggested a stock considered outside these parameters, say, ones fitting the 'growth' profile or 'aggressive growth' profile. In any event, this practice, particularly during the "Bubble" was prevalent as many investors wanted to participate in the market boom and were easy prey to rougish brokers.

In later chapters, Solin describes the lawsuit process, which is actually an arbitration process. Significantly all investors, when signing their new account papers with a brokerage house, agree to binding arbitration to settle disputes as opposed to having their dispute heard state or federal court. The arbitration process is simpler, quicker (in most cases), and less formal...but don't be mistaken, it is still a lawsuit and the stress and high intensity is still omnipresent. Solin does an excellent job of describing the process beginning with contacting an attorney and ending with the arbitration panel's decision. Within these chapters, Solin describes those investors wishing to "go it alone," filing a suit without an attorney. Solin gives this a fair level of play, which I admire in an attorney however, he strongly suggests (and I stronlgy concur) that anyone seeking compensation under a securities lawsuit hire the best attorney one can find.

Finally, Solin provides an excellent glossary and bibliography, one that should be used for future reference.

After reading this book, I easily rate this book 5 stars for it's clear and concise explanation, one appealing to the leity and professionals alike. Several reviews of this book describe Solin as a "talking head" or the champion of those not wishing to take responsibility for their own actions. While there is credence in the fact that many investors, while losing their proverbial shirts, are solely responsible for their losses, there are many, many investors who have been duped and even defrauded by their brokers and brokerage houses (remember the 4/28/03 SEC settlement with the 10 large brokerage houses?). Contrary to these reviewers, I believe Solin gives fair play to those responsible for their own losses and those not responsible. In any event, in my practice, I have no interest in frivolous cases and reject cases lacking merit. Inasmuch as I didn't find Solin's book unconscionable, I don't believe it to be fodder for the attorney lobby.

A very good read.

Does Your Broker Owe You Money Hits Home
Dan Solin has provided a very nice primer with detail to the person who is wondering if they lost money due to the market or due to their broker.When the market meltdown began in March 2000, the bad habits and unrestrained greed of unprofessional brokers became as transparent as handi-wrap. The customers who were lured into unsuitable investments due to the way in which commissions were paid is exposed for what it is in this book.
Whether trying to recover losses for mutual funds or simple stock transactions, Dan Solin hits the mark and provides plenty of illumination on an otherwise private and hard to understand business. This is a must read for anyone who is beginning to invest or trying to determine how to recover monies lost in the meltdown.

A Vital Resource For Any Brokerage Client
The financial services industry, especially its retail brokerage arm, operates at a level of training, competency, and ethical imperative that would be unacceptable in any other profession.It is a sad fact that most retail brokers are completely ignorant of the basics of financial economics; it is as if the average doctor had never taken courses in basic anatomy, pathology, and pharmacology. At any one time, millions of clients are receiving advice that is profoundly misinformed, as well as a gross conflict of interest, and suffer accordingly.

Dan Solin has produced a valuable resource for anyone who have been damaged in this manner.It focuses largely on the arbitration process; it is the best description of its mechanics that I have seen. This book is a must for any retail brokerage customer. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Virtually everyone tuned into the stock market during the past few years is plugged into CNBC, and virtually everyone plugged into CNBC is familiar with Maria Bartiromo. Striking, articulate, and always at the center of the cable station's Wall Street action, Bartiromo has become a welcome source of fiscal authority through incisive but accessible daily TV appearances that stretch from the early morning Squawk Box to late afternoon's Market Wrap. Many viewers may think that her take on each day's events, and long-range perspective based upon them, are derived from years of academic study and exclusive inside tips. Not so, Bartiromo claims in Use the News. She says average investors can also separate the noise from the news and guide themselves to more profitable portfolios. In clear prose--like the direct language she employs on TV--Bartiromo shares the ideas and expertise of some of the Street's top executives, money managers, and analysts, explaining how the markets and financial-news machines really work and describing ways anyone can gather and assess useful data. "In this book, I'll expand on what I already do in my broadcasts: namely, level the playing field so that individual investors have the same information, understanding, and chances of success as the professionals," she writes. Fans, and even nonfans, should enjoy it. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (42)

Dry..
The book is interesting in a since that it was written by a person who has been exposed to some of the most prominent people/events. On the other hand, I believe that it has very little practical use.

Areal good book
I am from Brazil, and I never had watched her TV programs. I brought the book with curiosity, due the opposite opinions of the readers.
As indicated on the title, it ishow to separate noise from news. How many nuggets one can find reading tons of newspaper or hours watching TV, during a lifetime?
This is a usefull book. It should be carefully studied.How to separate nuggets and noise in this book is your first task. If you are able to do this; then you will SURELY make money in any economy!

Not as bad as some think
...I happen to think she is a very smart and charismatic woman, in addition to being strikingly beautiful.This book is aimed at investing novices...I was left pretty much clueless about investing.I relied on him to do all that.This book was a real help in those dark times.Bravo!

Some things never change
I could have just as easily borrowed from PT Barnum and made the subject line: "There's a sucker born every minute."

Anyone who's watched Maria in action on CNBC and who knows ANYTHING about making money in the markets has to realize she couldn't trade, speculate, or invest her way out of a paper bag on her own.

The fact that a book like this could be written; the fact that a book like this could sell; and, disturbingly, that such a vacuous treatment (but then why should it be any different than her "on-air" persona?) could garner so many favorable reviews speaks volumes re the gullibility of the "investing" public.

Oh well, I guess I should be glad--it provides yet more evidence that for all the modern technology and superficial sophistication in the financial world, the market game is likely to pretty much remain the same at the core.

If you want to be "dumb money" follow Maria and by all means STUDY this book.If you want to make money, you could probably do better by picking any number of other investing books almost at random.

Nothing to do with making money !!!
Unfortunately, the title of this book is not reflective of its contents. I do respect Maria as a reporter and a personable and good one, however when you choose such a title , readers are expecting concrete strategies to make money in this difficult market, which this book does not address. If you are fascinated by Maria's life story and the people she interacts with this may be a good read to fulfill your curiosity. If ,however you are interested in actual real life making money strategies try: "the Stcock Trader " by OZ and "Generate thousands in cash on your stocks without selling them " by Elias. Both contain actual real life examples. ... Read more

Book Description

Written by a former Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, Working the Street is the resource for readers hoping to build a successful career on Wall Street. It is not a "how-to" career book or a job guide. It doesn't tell the reader who to contact for a job or what classes to take to prepare for a career in banking, and it is not a book about the technical "nuts and bolts" of Wall Street. What this book does tell the reader is about some of the "ins and outs" of Wall Street;about how things really work in the banking world; about some of the speed bumps to watch out for and some of the "low hanging fruit" that is ripe for the picking, from getting in the door and developing positive habits, to getting a bonus and handling retirement. In order to really succeed, it is necessary to know as much as possible about how Wall Street really works. Working the Street goes a long way in providing exactly that.
... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great Insight and Advice
The author does a great job of giving you the lay of the land of the heart of the financial world. It is easy to read and understand and presents a very practical and useful picture of a Wall Street career. ... Read more

Book Description

"Renaissance Capital has an edge . . . they provide first-rate research."–Jay Ritter, Professor of Finance, University of Florida

EXPERT ADVICE FOR IPO SUCCESS

"The Rosetta Stone of individual investors trying to understand how IPOs fit into our free market capital system and how to profit from IPOs."––Mario Gabelli, Gabelli Asset Management

IPOs are here to stay and savvy investors need to incorporate them into their long-term investment strategy. According to expert authors Linda Killian, Kathleen Smith, and Bill Smith, founders of Renaissance Capital and the IPO+ Aftermarket Fund, IPO success lies in using the right strategies to choose the winners and avoid the losers. Features of IPOs for Everyone include:

• The authors‘ 12 secrets to choosing and investing in IPOs
• Inside knowledge of the IPO market
• IPO terminology and sources

Take advantage of the expertise in this invaluable book–and get in on the ground floor of today‘s most rewarding investment opportunities. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A Layman's View
I have an interest in IPO's because I have invested in a company involved in oil and gas exploration which is planning to issue one this year. ThusI read with interest "IPO's for Everyone"and was gratified to find this book useful and informative. The subject is covered thoroughly in a manner easily understandable by a layman such as myself. The topic is treated with scientific honesty and objectivity.

What a solid book on IPOs!
What a solid book on IPOs! I am an international investor trying to diversify my portfolio to include IPOs. Usually, I wait for analysts to come out with opinions on a new company. Now, after reading this book, I think I can do my own research using the prospectus and feel much more comfortable evaluating a company myself. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in doing his own research. This book is easy and fun to read, and the stories about past IPOs are really interesting.

First accessible IPO book
When the dot-com IPO phenomenon first got started I took an interest in how these companies raised money. But, I could not find a solid source to get started. There were not a lot of books on that specifically keyed in on the subject, and those that were out there were far too technical for me to understand. IPOs For Everyone is the first book that comes at IPOs from a perspective that a layman can understand. The authors do a good job peppering the book with anecdotes that illustrate what potential IPO investors should be on the look-out for. It's a highly entertaining read for novice or more seasoned investors interested in getting an insider's angle of how the IPO process works and how individuals can participate

Great IPO info
This is a surprisingly fun read and contains intersting true storeis about IPO winners and losers. I think individual investors will find is especially helpful because it gives easy to understand tips on how to invest in IPOs. The tips are easy to follow and are important in figuring out whether a comapny is worth investing in. Overall, I give it a high rating because it is entertaining, simple and helpful. After reading this book I feel more prepared to trade IPOs. ... Read more

Book Description

Insights on value investing from a Wall Street superbroker. From 1973 to 1997, the stock market averaged 9% return. Kenneth Lee's "Benchmark Investing" averaged 24%. Value investing may be a hot topic on Wall Street right now, but Lee has been making money with it for nearly a quarter-century. Troucning the Dow, Written in an easy-to-understand style, is packed with step-by-step instructions that show any investor how to be a winner. With returns that rival Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham, Kenneth Lee carves out his own spot in history with Trouncing the Dow. ... Read more

Reviews (45)

A Different Angle On Betting Dow Value
The 1990's have brought a striking popularity in books that promise outsize returns based on simple formulas. The most obvious example of the genre is the Dow Dogs strategy. Made popular by Michael O'Higgins and Jim O'Shaughnessy, among others, underperformance in recent years has done little to dampen investor enthusiasm.

Kenneth Lee's Trouncing The Dow offers a new twist on betting the undervalued Dow stocks theory. Employing a methodology he dubs benchmark investing, Lee seeks to establish price ranges using historical return on equity and price/book value figures. Once established these price ranges are used to establish concrete reference points the investor can use to consistently focus on undervalued stocks. The book has tables of the calculations from 1973-96, allowing those so inclined to compare current valuations with past Dow results under most market conditions. The process also forces the reader to dig into a company's fundamentals and get a feel for how it has been priced in the past.

The appeal here is obvious. A concise method for divining value on a select group of non-volatile stocks where information is readily available. (Lee suggests using The Value Line Investment Survey). The mechanical process eliminates emotion from the equation, allowing the reader to use history as a guide when uncertainty has gripped the market. The fact that Lee stresses low turnover, eschews market timing, and adheres to popular value tenets puts the ideas here on the same wavelength as studies produced recently in books by Jeremy Siegel and Jim O'Shaughnessy. Personally however, when I see strategies based on Dow stocks I tend to want to see computer studies based on similar stocks. I want to see large samples. They give the picture texture and background, they help point out any possible flaws or reasons for concern. Back testing has its limitations. Early on Lee states he originally developed the formula employing the Value Line universe on a computer. In fact, the current configuration of Value Line's electronic product makes Lee's process relatively easy to implement on a broad scale. To include summaries of the results of that data would have added considerable weight to his argument.

It seems to me that the real question here is whether anomalies pointed out here and popularized by O'Higgins and others will continue to outperform. Indeed, many of the ideas here overlap with popular titles of the last few years. Is the Wall Street establishment so short-term focused that long-term value plays based on simple rules offer an easy short cut? Though many would like to deny it, there is enough efficiency in the United States equity markets to make outperformance a relatively difficult task. Though the idea of "beating the experts" without complex strategies makes a cute media story, it continues to be a tall order.

In Trouncing The Dow, Lee makes the case it can be done. The book is a quick read and offers a formula that anyone can employ to make up his or her own mind.

Excellent, easy to read conservative investing strategy.
Kenneth Lee's new book, "Trouncing the Dow" is an easy to read, new, conservative investing strategy based on purchasing only those stocks that are trading below their downside target prices. I found this book to be refreshing and practical. Mr. Lee takes readers through his "Benchmark Investing Formula", a seven step process, to arrive at a stock's historical average return on equity for the past ten years. The idea is to purchase stocks trading near or below their past ten year average. In a market that many analysts and investors consider overvalued, Mr. Lee shows readers how to avoid the overvalued stocks and select stocks where the downside risk is low. Mr. Lee goes through his formula with detailed examples, talks about exceptions to the rules and gives a lot of historical data to support his strategy. Mr. Lee's stock picking strategy appears to be sound and logical and is supported by solid data. It's a conservative approach which should be appealing to long term investors trying to increase returns while minimizing risk. I highly recommend this book to serious investors.

A 2003 Review
The 10 most undervalued stocks selected by benchmark investing (as taught in my book) from the S&P 100 averaged 51.20 percent in 2003 versus 23.84 percent for the index itself. The top five picks performed even better, up an average 80.82 percent.

Obviously, 2003 was a good year for stocks. But had you used benchmark investing beginning in 2000 until the end of last year, and bought the 10 most undervalued stocks from the S&P 100 you would have enjoyed a compounded total average return of 8.71 percent. During the same period, the index lost an average of -7.69 percent a year. So, you might want to take a look at benchmark investing in this book.

P.S. I do NOT have any web sites on the net, so don't assume I'm involved with any of them.

A new prospective valuation method
After the seminal and refreshing work performed by Michael O'Higgins in BTD, a work that has been heavily capitalized upon by TMF in the following mania of the Explosive Nineties (where have all those Fools disappeared?), here's a book written more or less in the same vein, describing yet another strategy aimed at methodically (re-)cycling temporarily-out-of-favour (Dow) stocks that show a good (historical) chance of rallying (or just bouncing back) sometime in the future.

This new valuation method called Benchmark Investing provides a mathematical formula which looks back at and compounds 10 years (yes, 10 years) of historical data (book values, ROEs, average yearly lows and highs, as well as market-to-book ratios) in order to determine both a future upside (the upper benchmark) and a future downside target price (the lower benchmark) for a given stock. If the present market price of the stock moves close to (or even better, below) that calculated future downside target price, it is a buying signal, and one should only consider selling when it has reached anywhere near or above that calculated future upside target price. The upside and downside target prices should be recalculated regularly in order to reassess the opportunity of either buying, selling, or just holding on to a certain stock.

Contrarily to the various Dog strategies, this not-to-time-consuming approach allows, and sometimes even advocates, staying in cash, as long as no serious buying opportunity can be derived from your price target calculations. Similarly, I have not tested the method for the first quarter of 2003, but I guess a lot of stocks were probably priced well under their lower benchmark.

So, if not a complete "for-dummies-only" investment strategy, i.e. just buy a handful of high-yield low-priced stocks and roll them over at the end of each year, this is yet another attempt at devising a historically foolproof method for investing in Dow stocks, although it could well be used for other sound Blue Chips, if there is accessibility to reliable historical data.

Although this book was written in the commotion of the late nineties, it still offers a relatively sound approach to investing, based upon historical results and derived future prospects. What you'll personnally make out of this method will depend on your available time, your frame of mind and your eagerness to develop/use your own methods in the stock market. Ah yes, there is also a website, available for subscribers.

Good mechanical investing technique
Ken's book is a quick read and discloses a fairly simple mechanical stock valuation method that appears to have significantly outperformed the DJIA over the years. The in depth discussion of the history of each Dow stock is useful although somewhat boring to anyone but a real blue chip fanatic. There are two irritating limitations to the method in the book, namely there is no guidance on when to sell, i.e. when a stock becomes too overvalued and should be rotated into a new stock. The other flaw is that the 10-year average price/book is calculated incorrectly. However the method is the method and if it works, it works! Calculating the average P/B correctly merely has the effect of giving lower (more conservative) target buy prices for high growth stocks. Using this method as a screening tool for large cap value stocks is a useful investment tool to have, and keeping the above limitations in mind, the book is well worth having. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Sold Short is the story of Manuel Asensio, a successful but controversial securities broker whose claim to fame is aggressive short selling--a widely disparaged (and sometimes wildly profitable) investment technique that realizes success only if stocks decline in value. Since the larger financial community is overwhelmingly comprised of long sellers who profit when prices rise, the shorts' contrarian position is always at odds and usually portrayed as an unscrupulous, backdoor attack on all things good and holy. Asensio sees it quite differently, of course, and with the help of Jack Barth, he reveals how a young boy who barely escaped Cuba before the revolution could come to be viewed as the devil incarnate by corporate honchos and Wall Street analysts whose professional paths he has crossed. After explaining how his firm uncovered some of their "grossly overvalued" companies, and what happened when he bet against them in the market, Asensio details the process so interested readers can theoretically profit from similar moves. Some of the material here is much too technical to interest casual investors, and Asensio's philosophy will still be scorned by those who don't abide it. Fellow shorts and those interested in all the machinations of the market, though, should find it an absorbing and informative read. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Average Investing book
I have no problem with the theory of short-selling although many investors do. I'm not a big believer that shorts squeeze companies nearly as much as long investors like to claim so I hoped to learn from the source.

Frankly, I'm disappointed for two reasons. First of all, Mr. Asensio doesn't really give good examples of selling short stock as an investment strategy EXCEPT as it relates to small overly promoted fraudulent stocks. I had hoped to learn financial analysis of when a stock should be shorted. Instead, this book focuses only on overly hyped companies run by stock promoters. Fair enough. But the positions in these smaller companies would be much harder to short. In addition, Mr. Asensio may have the time to study the small stocks and uncover these unethical stocks, but it's really not pertinent to the average investor and therefore had minimal value to me.

My second problem with the book is the grandioise self-serving nature of the narrative. Ok, the writer is from Cuba, works his way into the investing business but never feels like he's part of the "club". So he sticks it in their ear by being a short seller. But there is always an explanation about the bad things said about him. And in the last chapter, he attempts to explain away the securities violations he has been charged with and agreed to pay.

This book starts ok but quickly gets very boring and has nothing of value for a person trying to learn about short-selling. I wouldn't recommend this book unless you have a specific interest in bogus stock promotions.

Open your eyes to the world of bad apples
This is an excellent book that you should know about the context of shorting and the risk you'll be exposed to when shorting a stock. I repect Mr. Asensio's attitude of doing continuous researches about the same companies that he believed would go down eventually, and keeping all these information public on the Internet that you can always read them for yourself after all these years. The books covers real cases of companies that he shorted and he made available to the public about the 'facts' he found. Granted the whole truth is not possibly disclosed fairly by all parties (short and long), the final results spoke for itself - many of the companies are already off the market. Mr. Asensio's thoughts on a couple technical companies that he recommended sold short hit many essential points from technical standpoints.

This is a book for you to get the background and environment you're dealing with in the stock market. After reading this book, you'll have more sense about getting away from longing bad apples and not hitting on potential hyped companies. The book is about stories of 'sold short', long can sure benefit from the book. Ethical or not doesn't matter, the important thing is that you can learn from the stories and make your long position more robust. All investors should have this books on the shelf and read at least a couple chapters.

Not What I Expected
My original hope when picking this book up from the library was to learn about shorting stocks. Unfortunately Manuel Asensio's book is written on a level where few people can even relate. Mr. Asensio speaks in a language that only very experienced stock shorters can even understand. Whereas some of Asensio's use of language is a bit colorful, he writes wildly about all these key names like his audience is completely familiar with unknown CEO's from unknown companies. Why not talk about some of the big time tech stocks that tanked in the early 2000's like Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and the late Enron? I actually stopped reading this book midway because of the incessant name dropping.

There are a few pages where Ansensio talks about stock shorting basics and how he started in the business. Maybe if Ansensio related to a wider audience, this book would hae a good reputation. Like this he merely talks how he uncovers terrible fraud and should be viewed as a champion of justice. Mr. Ansensio, you need a big time reality check.

Sold Short by Manuel P. Asensio
On website AsensioExposed.com you'll find what every investor needs to know about short-seller Manuel Asensio. But will never hear from him.Great reading!

Nothing about how to short a stock !
The whole book is about how "he" shorted stocks. Nothing about technical or even fundamental analysis.

As the other reader commented earlier, he would short a stock and then go "bad mouth" or "share his insights" on the website or in public paper.

Gained nothing about reading this book. Save your money for other books ! ... Read more

Book Description

This book was first published in 1962 with several printings through 1968. It was the first book written on the how, why and wherefore of chart analysis presented in clear and understandable terms. Jiler was the president of Trendline, a division of Standard and Poor's when he wrote this. 63 Charts. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Getting the basics
I have read some TA articles and books before.. but many of them were explaining what would happen when a particular pattern is formed and for me, it was like memorising those patterns. But this book aims to imbibe the basics onto you.. the author gives you the reasons for the expected results eg.. he explained the resistance concept by asking.. how often did you bought a stock, saw that drop down and eagerly waited for the stock to regain the price at which you bought it, so that you can sell the stock with no loss on your part !!I really thought that this was simple logical teaching..
The 200 dma behaviour explanations are great !
Highly recommended
NB:
Given the cost of this, its even more appealing to buy this book

Exhaustive on chart patterns, but ............
As a work in the year 1962, the author with his good writing skill and his lavish but clever use of charts and figures, deserves a salute from all who appreciate the power of TA.
However, though market psychology doesnt change, technology and the speed and means of information distribution do, leading to shorter business cycles and thus trends that confirmation of which through "visual only" chart patterns almost always come too late. The situation is even worse in that "traps" in trend following are so frequent in today's highly competitive market when power traders with the help of deteriatives fully exploit the stop loss orders of mass investors.

I dont mean to undermine the value of this book. I just wanna say that there are many alternatives that cover TA wider and deeper. This book can be a low cost reference book in chart patterns. It just cannot provide a compeat course on TA without the introduction of other tools like Fibonacci, Moving Average, MACD, Stochastics etc. Afterall, TA is just a tool for money making. There's no point not to take a more productive route to achieve the goal.

Survives the test of time
I can't believe this book was written over 40 years ago, even before the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan! I guess it only goes to show that technical analysis is valid and does work. Many of the patterns shown in today's books also appear in this book. Trends, moving averages, support and resistance, head and shoulders, double tops and bottoms were all known concepts back then. Candlestick charting wasn't known (in North America) back then and seems to be the only thing missing from the book.

This book is a great introduction to technical analysis, well written, and a very good value for the cost. The book is still being printed and read four decades later is proof that the concepts are valid and worth reading.

Good Education
If the current round of corporate accounting fraud hasn't awakened you up to the usefulness of charting, maybe this book will. After having tried a pure fundamental analysis approach in my investing for years, someone finally convinced me to look at charts, which I considered to be the same level as reading tea leaves -- au contraire. After spening the past two years studying technical analysis, I am happy to report that this is one of the better books on the subject, and inexpensive, too. This book, along with websites like TradingMarkets.com, will give you a fantastic basis in technical analysis.

Well worth the money!!
If you want a primer on technical analysis, this is a great way to start.Patterns in all markets repeat themselves, and watching these simple patterns can help to make you money or preserve capital that you have at work..You can buy thicker, more expensive books on T/A, but I find these simple well defined patterns much more valuable and easier to understand and apply. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

This is an important book
I trade equity options. I have read a lot of books about options. Basically, once you have read McMillan's book, none of the other option books have anything to add. Except this book.
This book shows some original thinking; it's not just the same old thing about bull spreads, etc. The book advocates more than just selling puts to get premium or to use as a method of buying stock at a discount. He explains how you can sell puts on solid companies and buy stock of other companies with the premium you brought in. He really got me thinking, and I have gone from his ideas to developing some of my own.
This book is well worth reading. Read it to get ideas on how to use puts for your own advantage. Learn something new.

Too Much Theory, Not Enough Real World!!
I picked this up ... at a book clearance sale, if you have to pay more pick another title. First of all the author says he sells puts (contracts agreeing to buy a stock or index at a set price until a specific date for which you receive a premium) to buy stocks in his investment account. There is not a single example in the book of a trade he executed this way. Instead he fills about 1/4 of the book with hypothetical computer runs assuming you had sold every LEAP contract over a multi year period. That is just a silly example for the individual investor. That is akin to comparing all of the insurance coverage written by Prudential with you writing a policy on your grandma.

Second he gives you numerous pages on how to calculate Volatility and Black-Scholes, etc. What is missed is that you want to be selling Puts and Calls when Volatility is High, and most option brokers do this calculation with a computer. As for Black-Sholes, the calculation is easy to find on the web, but any "advantage" that it may provide is used by insititutions who can rapidly scan the whole market and quickly correct any price imbalances. Unless you enjoy crunching financial formulas by hand, this section is filler at best.

Finally, his stock selection and risk control methods are questionable at best. Think Enron and realize that even "independent" reviewers like Morningstar and Value Line had it well rated up until the bitter end. If you dont already have a solid stock picking methodology, you should not start buy selling options. The notion that a reader should do anything other than sell an option that is 100% covered by CASH is the same as endorsing the methods that bankrupted many very large traders, banks and hedge-funds.

If you are looking for investment ideas Getting Started in Options may be a good place to START. Throw in Peter Lynch, Justin Mamis, and Andrew Tobias for good measure.

One idea explored throroughly
I saw this book in the book store, and spent some time there reading the first few chapters. I was so interested in his ideas, that I purchased the book. It's well-written and not at all dry, unlike some other investment books.

The author starts off by telling us how he had been able to amass a decent-sized portfolio over the years. He had a couple of hundred thousand dollars saved away, all invested in good long-term stock investments. He wished there was a way he could generate more income on-top of his already solid investments.

He started out by selling covered calls on some of his stock portfolio. That worked for a while, but he soon became frustrated that some of his best performing stocks were being called away, while he was left with a portfolio of poorly performing stocks. That is one of the down sides to covered call investing.

So he tried selling put options instead. Selling a put option is when you promise to purchase a stock at a specific price. In exchange for this promise you get paid a premium up front.

The author has found a lot of success picking solid companies, with sales and earnings growth, and selling put options one or two years out (LEAPs). Most of the LEAP puts he sells expires worthless, thus allowing him to keep the premium as profit, and sell some more long-term puts for more premium.

Most of the book deals with his back-testing data for this theory. He tests different quality stocks, different expiry dates, and different strikes. All in an effort to find the best overall results. In the end, some of his data suggests that selling long term puts at a strike price below the current price on the highest quality stocks has a 95% plus success rate.

If this type of theory interests you, I suggest getting this book and studying the theory and data for yourself.

The LEAPS Put as A Conservative Financial Derivative...
Jim Rogers, George Soros' former partner, onced admonished against the use of put writing, a financial instrument which brought him catastrophic losses early in his extraordinary career. Of course, LEAPS puts did not exist at the time Rogers was making use of them, and one wonders what he might think, or might have done, with Dennis Eisen's book, which makes a compelling case for LEAPS put writing.

This book is a singular, well conceived investment strategy lesson in several respects. It's rare that such a book can captivate an audience of beginning, intermediate and advanced investors, but I suspect investors of just about any caliber will find this worthwhile reading. That is to say, most readers will likely find something new here about calls and puts (both the regular option and LEAP flavors), although the author does well to stick more or less exclusively to LEAPS put writing. Also, the author uses historical runs to substantiate the tactics he's advising, which make his claims all the more informed and interesting.

Eisen addresses the key issues of rate of return, risk, and probability exceedingly well, and he contributes something altogether new to the field --probability tables, based on an issue's earnings growth and volatility. The author also addresses the proper allocation of margin, option taxation, and gives a decent explanation of option volatility. The book's essential and recurrent theme is that LEAPS puts tend to completely disregard an underlying issue's earnings growth potential.

The book's essential shortcoming is that its underlying option pricing formula, which accounts for stock dividends and American style options unlike the European-styled Black-Scholes model, is delineated for copy in the text as a BASIC program rather than as an EXCEL spreadsheet. Unless the reader is using BASIC, which seems unlikely to me, he or she will find the awaiting transcription task a substantial chore. And the volatility calculation Eisen suggests is based on a year's worth of an underlying issue's price data. The book might have included a macro spreadsheet for all of the requisite data and calculations, or the author might have made such a spreadsheet available for extra cost, which I --and I am sure many others-- would gladly pay.

What Barron's thought
BARRON'S, page MW 14

Leap Year Poaching profits with LEAP puts

By Michael Santoli

Yes, it's been a treacherous market the past week -- all year in fact -- full of choke lines and obscured quicksand pools to menace anyone who's strayed off the narrow path that leads to the few favored stocks. Yet even in such a trying environment, money is left unattended for the poaching in some corners of the market. In one, the sales pitch is this: "I'll pay you cash today and you can keep the money if, among a selection of high-quality stocks, no more than a few have fallen by 30% or more in a year or two."

In brief, that's the offer that certain disciplined sellers of long-term puts take up with relish. Dennis Eisen, a mathematician and consultant who has devised a system for selling LEAP puts with impressive success, is one such investor. LEAPs (short for Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities) are options that expire in January of each year and mature two or three years from the time of their listing. By selling LEAP puts, one is taking in a cash premium in hopes that the underlying stock won't fall below their strike price by expiration, in which case it's necessary to buy the stock at that level.

Eisen crafted his methods after running a huge simulation of the results of having continually sold puts on each of the 300 or so available LEAP stocks over the past decade. Encouraged by his data, he's been doing so for his own account for years with fine results and has written a new book, Using Options to Buy Stocks, that describes his approach.

Put selling has a partially justified reputation as a high-risk game, exposing the seller to unquantifiable losses should a stock plummet and force the seller to buy it at above-market rates. But by focusing on long-dated puts, restricting the activity to high-grade stocks and following certain risk-limiting rules, Eisen has found that his program acts as a nice profit enhancement to his straight stock portfolio. He says that only five times in over 1,000 trades in recent years has he had a stock "put" to him, a testament to the steady bull market and his discipline.

To locate the most solid companies, Eisen restricts his put sales to stocks with consensus "buy" ratings from research houses Zacks or S&P. One rule he advocates is to select a strike price equal to about two-thirds of a stock's current value, leaving a good deal of room for the shares to fall before the seller goes into the red.

There are logistical issues that put sellers must deal with. A broker has to be found who is comfortable with put-selling programs, margin requirements must be attended to closely and the investors should know all tax angles -- all concerns Eisen deals with carefully in his book.

He also is not promising unrealistically gaudy profits from his strategy. Eisen says he has a rather conservative, blue-chip stock portfolio and prefers to play the flashy technology stocks by selling puts against them as a source of funds to plow back into his core stocks. As a rule of thumb, he says his brand of LEAP put-selling can augment an expected 15% base return from his stocks by an additional 10% or so. ... Read more

Amazon.com

For the past eight years, the U.S. stock market has been on a bull run the likes of which few have ever seen, making and breaking records almost every quarter. And for the last four of those years, David and Tom Gardner's self-described market-crushing stock portfolios have made the market's own incredible performance pale by comparison. In their third book, The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers, the brothers reveal the methodology behind their stock-picking success, which is impressive. The Rule Breaker Portfolio (formerly known as the Fool Portfolio on their Web site) has risen some 650 percent since its inception in 1994, thanks to stocks such as America Online, McAfee, and Wal-Mart, while the Rule Maker Portfolio (formerly known as the Cash King Portfolio) has risen 440 percent on the backs of investments in Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and Intel. Fans of the Motley Fool, who with luck have prospered from the Gardners' timely advice, will no doubt love Rule Breakers, Rule Makers. The book is written in their usual humorous and self-congratulatory style--not only educational, but often aimed at making the pros on Wall Street wince, as they should. However, if you're new to the Motley Fool or to stock picking in general, you may do well by first considering one of their earlier books, You Have More Than You Think and The Motley Fool Investment Guide. ... Read more

Reviews (80)

FOOLISH investing is good investing!
I have been visiting the Motley Fool web site for about 2 yrs now and really like what I see! I began investing in mutual funds and thought I was doing pretty good until I read their first two books and found out I could do better investing for myself. I got out of my poor performing mutual funds and bought stocks through an online discount brokerage, which they advise for small investors such as myself. But before I bought my stocks I used their advise in researching the stocks before I bought them. Gardner brothers' best advice is to buy stock in good quality companies that are financially sound. Since I bought my first stocks I have been pleasantly surprised in the performance of my portfolio. This new book is a continuation of their philosophy in investing. Some of the techniques in evaluating a "Rule Breaking" company are definitley techniques that do not follow conventional Wisdom. But these stocks don't follow rules, they break them, and prove their FOOLISHNESS in stock price appreciation and long term value. I more enjoyed the "Rule Making" section of the book, it goes into great detail in evaluating a company for financial strength and dominance in its industry. I would give this book 4 1/2 stars (hey, there is always room for improvement). FOOL ON!

Entertaining and Stimulating
It seems as though the success of the Motley Fool is very much a product of the information age and the internet's foray into the stock market. It's index of funds "^MFF" has taken a nosedive over the last year or so, only coming up slightly within the last couple of months. But let us take a look at what can be learned from the printings of the two Fools: David and Tom Gardner.

For one some of the advice that they dish out can be a product of the time at which the book was written. A small portion of the book extols buying stocks when they are at their IPOs, a practice that brought investors considerable success before the advent of the dot-com debacle. Today such a practice would come under suspect just because of the lack of information most IPOs are able to offer given their nascent entrance into the business world. To be fair, the Gardners did spend a few sentences to preface their recommendations with the obvious heads up that one must do their due diligence before jumping into a stock head first.

The element of humor within the informative book serves to entertain and amuse, satisfying a promise they make from the get go. If you're a fan of Shakespeare or at least can read prose from that day in era (personally I found it difficult) then we may not get some of the quips that were intended for us. Overall it's a good read that echoes the teachings of the Sage of Omaha: buy and hold.

A Wonderful Collection of Well-Written, Poor Advice
One thing that the Gardner brothers do especially well is writing for the general public. I read my first Motley Fool book when I was ten and very little of it went over my head. Granted, I was a precocious little bugger, but David and Tom still do an excellent job of taking the abstractions of the investing world and bringing them down to earth. It doesn't take much skill to write an esoteric investment book full of jargon to make it seem intellectual. However, explaining the same issues in laymen's terms takes finesse, and I respect that.

Enough about the writing though. What matters most in an investment book is what it has to say, and unfortunately, that is where Rule Breakers, Rule Makers is most lacking. Reading this book in the midst of a recession, I couldn't help but laughing on several occasions because over and over again Rule Breakers, Rule Makers dates itself. Written at the height of the tech bubble, this book is full of overly optimistic advice that borders on lunatic at points. No one can be held accountable for what was said during the tech bubble, surely, because we were all talking crazy. However, the advice that could have been perfectly applicable at the time is far from useful or relevant now.

That's not to say that there aren't any nuggets of truth in Rule Breakers, Rule Makers, because there certainly are quite a few. However, much of the advice, particularly that involving Rule Breakers, is quite sketchy. The fact that they give high-risk investment advice in a book geared toward the average investor speaks poorly of it.

In summary, Rule Breakers, Rule Makers is a very readable book. It offers some sensible advice to its readers. However, most of its advice was only useful during the tech bubble. These days, this book has the dangerous power to encourage impressionable investors to engage in high-risk trading creating a world of problems for themselves. All in all, this book does have advice to offer, but you have to wade through a great deal of crud to get to it.

Will Be A Collector's Item Some Day
I recently saw this book on the bargain bin. This book was pure garbage, by two arrogant 20-somethings in clown suits. Basically they are saying valuations don't matter. Since they wrote the book, it has been prooven that their philosophy, approached over the long term, produces some great damaging losses. The book may be useful during the next bubble, which if history serves, will occur well after these clowns pass on to the big three-ring circus in the sky. To the dungeon with these two knaves.

Really bad advice by guys wearing clown hats....
This book is chock full of really bad investing advice. It's just another magic stock picking get-rich-quick strategy guide. The most disappoining aspect is the fact that they are so critical of other "Wise" men on Wall Street but push a similar active stock picking strategy of their own. They don't even run portfolios based on this strategy any more because it is so flawed!!

You'll also notice that these two fools (yes, that's a lower case "F" for all you fool.com readers) no longer even run their real money portforlios as of 02/2003. Here is CBS Marketwatch's assessment of their performance:

"Of course, one year does not a track record make. How have the Motley Fool portfolios stacked up over the 6-plus years the HFD has tracked the service? Taking into account several portfolios that it used to maintain but which were discontinued along the way, the HFD calculates that the Motley Fool produced a 1.3 percent annualized return between Jan. 1, 1997 and Jan. 31, 2003, underperforming the 3.4 percent annualized return of the Wilshire 5000 over the same period.

Furthermore, among the 98 newsletters for which the HFD has data over this 6-plus year period, the Motley Fool stands in 62nd place."

Really this book should be avoided. I was going to sell my copy used, but honestly I felt the information in this book is so bad and so dangerous to other investors that I decided to throw it out instead. That way at least I know nobody else would succumb to its fallacy of easy money. I suspect their other books aren't much better. Stay away and read books by Bogle, Larry Swedroe, William Bernstein and other advocates of passive indexing. You'll do far better. ... Read more

Book Description

The numbers are astonishing: of the 45 million Americans who invest in today’s stock market, only 5 million realize they can invest commission-free through dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) and direct stock purchase plans (DSPs). But as more and more investors clamor to cut costs and take control of their own portfolio decisions, this number is destined to rise—dramatically!

All About DRIPs and DSPs tells investors everything they need to know about where to find direct investment opportunities, and how to profit from their affordable compounding benefits. Author George Fisher—a pioneer of more than 30 years investing in DRIPs and DSPs—discusses:

* Today’s top 100 DRIP/DSP companies
* Advice for building a personalized, diversified mutual fund
* How to use PEG (price to earnings growth ratio) to identify superior long-term opportunities

Reviews (4)

All About Drips and DSPs
This is a very good book about buying stocks directly from the company. In this market why pay broker fees. A bunch of drunken monkeys throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal can do just as well at picking good stock as a broker and there's no fees. This is a great nuts and bolts book on buying drips. This is a good book for the beginning investor.

Investing for Joe Average
This book succeeds with its target audience on so many levels. It's written in a non-pretentious manner and covers all the bases very well. Due to the nature of this type of investing anyone can pick it up and be in the stock market in no time.

How much more timely could this book be? With the gut-wrenching gyrations in the stock market right now, the prudent, dollar-cost-averaging investor's style deserves a comprehensive illustration. This book provides that.

The company capsules are an excellent bonus. You don't see anything like that in the typical investing book.

The investor's friend, George Fisher
A very readable primer for beginner as well as experienced investor. This book is sure to give a good case of heartburn to "financial planners" and "life retirement consultants" who make their living on portfolio maintenance charges. Chapter by chapter, George Fisher uncomplicates the world of dividend reinvestment and direct stock purchase plans, and shows the reader that it's just not as hard as it seems to become one's own self-reliant investor. Section "Best Of The Best" which profiles 16 top companies is alone worth the price of the book.

Finally a Book That DRIPs With Meat!
Dividend reinvestment planning is the dirty little secret your broker and mutual fund salespeople don't want you to know about. Why? Because DRIPpers pay all the commissions to themselves.
To date few books about DRIPs have gone much beyond the mechanics of starting a plan and listing a number of companies that offer DRIPs. Most books describe a "one size fits all" approach to DRIPping. Yet anyone who DRIPs will tell you it is more complex than that.
All About DRIPs and DSPs breaks the mold. It could be seen as the first text book and artistic approach to dividend reinvestment planning. There is the usual material about how to begin a plan but it also begins to consider individual approaches to the process. Although individuals are responsible for choosing their own investments Mr. Fisher helps the reader develop the skills to make wise choices. He teaches an investor how to research companies through simplified analysis, looking at management and reading an annual report. He sifts these to find what is important and does it with humour. I particularly noted the sections on how to read between the lines when management speaks or how Harley Davidson has the kind of brand loyalty that causes people to tatoo the company logo to their bodies.
There are also sections on portfolio planning with DRIPs, how bonds can be DRIPped and lists of DRIP offering companies with outstanding historical performances.
DRIPs are for take charge individuals, with only small amounts of money to invest, who are tired of paying exhorbitant fees for questionable service. This book has provided me other strategies to consider than my own and broadened my approach. All About DRIPs and DSPs is for the self motivated individuals who wants to invest effectively and successfully.
This is the kind of book DRIPpers have been waiting for. ... Read more

Book Description

An initial public offering (IPO) is one of the most significant events in corporate life. It follows months, even years of preparation. During the boom years of the late 1990s bull market, IPOs of growth companies captured the imagination and pocketbooks of investors like never before.

This book goes behind the scenes to examine the process of an offering from the decision to go public to the procedures of a subsequent equity offering. The book is written from the perspective of an experienced investment banker describing the hows and whys of IPOs and subsequent equity issues.

Each aspect of an IPO is illustrated with plenty of international examples pitched alongside relevant academic research to offer a combination of theoretical rigour and practical application.

Topics covered are:

Book Description

These are no ordinary reminiscences of a Wall Street broker -- these are, according to many readers, the personal tales of legendary trader Jesse Livermore, the man often blamed for the stock market crash of 1929.

Written by journalist EDWIN LEFÈVRE, Livermore recounts his rise from quotation-board boy to master of the market. He tells of speculation and excitement, bad deals and blown fortunes. He offers advice that's still relevant today and recalls stories that educate readers more vividly and memorably than any textbook. He explains his theory of the market and how it can be played and exploited for gain. Overall, his stories explain what makes a stock operator tick, and why trading will always fascinate those who strive to conquer it. ... Read more

Book Description

Niederman presents a fun and unconventional guide to recognizing profitable investment picks by paying attention to real world clues--from politics and the weather to advertising, fads and television shows. Full of recognizable examples--from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Snapple--and backed up by hard evidence and data, this book shows how to succeed on Wall Street, and have a good time doing it. ... Read more

Book Description

A lucid, witty, and intelligent guide to modern investment theory, the evidence for and against it, and how to translate theory into practical investment strategies. Explains the ``Random Walk'' or the Efficient Market Hypothesis and shows what it means, where it is true, where it is not -- and how investors can take advantage of the areas in which it is not true to earn greater profits without increased risk. Examines concepts of value, how the numbers can lie, diversification, market risk, out-of-favor stocks, little stocks and market timing. Forbes columnist Kenneth Fisher wrote of Johnson's book: ``Indispensable for those wanting to bypass Wall Street's most common dead ends.'' ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great book!Publisher should reprint.
I first found this book at my local library and found it to be one of thebest books on investments that I'd read.Since then I've tried to find itfor sale here and elsewhere, but have not been able to locate a copy. Ihope the publisher will reprint this book someday (even better if they'dupdate and print a 2nd edition) before I steal the one from the library(I'm joking; but I would like to have a copy of the book).

Best book I've read on investing
The SEC should make this required reading for anyone who wants to invest in the stock market.Johnson clarifies what is important and what is not in investing.Even after he shows you how you CAN beat the market, he makes you think about whether you really NEED to beat the market.Much more meaningful than Lynch's pablum. ... Read more