Buying-the

This book provided me with all of that missing information in a format that was to the point and easy to understand. It taught me how to tell the difference between Cubic Zirconia and Diamond, how to tell if I was looking at the diamond that was listed on the certificate, convinced me that cut was the most important quality in a diamond and most importantly, it told my WHY.

As a result, we have an engagement ring better than anything either of us had imagined and I saved thousands of dollars. Buy this book before you buy the ring, you won't regret it. Thank you, Antoinette and Antonio!

This book also helped me build a relationship with a jeweller -- something far more valuable then the raw information in the text -- because it gave me the information I needed to begin evaluating diamonds with confidence, and thus I was able to choose a dealer I felt comfortable with, and who provided me with what I knew was a good value.

One area where this book is lacking is in the insurance arena. It could provide more information about the options provided.

It should also list online links to diamond-related sites. I found a number of useful sites during my personal searches that should be in an appendix.

I notice that even the jewelry stores merchants talk differently once they found out you know their trade. Some even brought out a different collection because they know you appreciate the better quality. Knowing how to tell the difference in quality prevent you from being ripped off.

I wonder if the new edition coming up this year will talk about the injection into the market of large batches of diamonds stolen from the Russian Treasury.

Either Kimberly is mistaken or the people selling her book are mistaken. Either way the only version I have found is the one that is 5 years old.

However, where to begin? Who to see? What to watch out for? The internet is surprisingly little help in providing clear information about buying furniture direct from manufacturers and outlets in North Carolina. This book is of some assistance, organizing information for you. The only caveat is like any other book dealing with retailers or outlets, the information becomes dated. Companies come and go. Websites go up and down. So I recommend this book to learn about the process of buying furniture this way, but you may find the information needs an occasional update.

The authors of this book are doing us a favour by making us aware of how toxic these everyday items are, but does little to help the consumer who does not live in an area where alternatives are readily available. The real question is why our governments are allowing these companies to poison us. It's truly depressing.

But in many ways, this book has lost a lot of relevance. Now one can go online and purchase stocks in any amount with fees of as little as $3.00. And the fact that the book has not been updated since 1996 weighs heavily against recommending it be purchased by anyone today. Perhaps Carlson has not bothered to further update because of the ease with which stocks may eb purchased on-line.

Still, for someone who is a long term investor, it provides some choices as far as investing without involving a broker. And it is definitely an option if you have no desire to use the internet to make stock purchases. Just be aware that your options are limited; most companies do not offer direct purchase of their stock or Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs) to the public at large.

1)While book value may be faulty because of problems with goodwill and other distorting factors....
2)This is no matter because the average price/book ratio assigned to the stock will adjust for that faultiness.

The problem is that sometimes it takes a long while for the market to come to its senses about an issue --Cisco, one of the darlings Malloy uses to illustrate his method, is a poignant example. If one had used Malloy's method in 1998 (the year this book was published), the average price/book "adjustment" for Cisco's surreal book value accumulation would be much less severe than the averaging "adjustment" given when the market came to its senses about Cisco's misleading accounting practices in 2001. Malloy's argument that the market automatically cancels out erroneous book value growth is simply misleading on the basis of experience.

Concerning his comment about Monte Carlo simulation, one can pick up any textbook on the process and compare it to what Malloy offers in his book/spreadsheet --and decide for oneself whether what he's doing is Monte Carlo or not (get his book from the library before purchasing it). There is a large body of literature on this topic, and some of it addresses the technical problems that arise from using tools such as Excel, which is not really even capable of generating truly random numbers, to perform Monte Carlo simulations.

There are some other troublesome details about the book, and although the author claims to be accessible by email, he failed to answer any of my questions about the Monte Carlo approach he advocates. The Monte Carlo simulation scheme he suggests, which is included on a separate spreadsheet, is less than half-baked to say the least. True Monte Carlo simulation requires hundreds, and preferably thousands, of sampling iterations. The technique Malloy uses here does enough less that the reader is served an injustice by being taught that what he or she doing is "Monte Carlo simulation".

Summing up, the tools offered to novice stock investors in this book are interesting and really are useful with practice and understanding. The trouble is the reader really is not offered sufficient background or training to have a sound grasp on what any stock is "really worth" despite the book's claim, any more than someone reading a manual on surgical knots is ready to really assess a surgical case.

For example, a stock's price is book value per share multiplied by the price/book ratio. Suppose a firm overstates book value by 50 percent. That does not make the stock's price increase 50 percent. Instead, overstating book value causes a compensating error in the price/book ratio because the two factors multiplied together must equal the actual stock price.

In the same way, dividends are book value per share multiplied by the return on equity and then by the dividend payout fraction. Overstating book value 50 percent does not cause a 50 percent increase in dividends. There must be compensating errors in the return and in the payout fraction, because all three factors multiplied together must equal actual dividends.

Mr. Schneider also claims that the 'true Monte Carlo simulation requires hundreds, and preferably thousands, of sampling iterations.' Given the rough estimates of possible forecasting errors in valuing stocks, 'hundreds, and preferably thousands' of iterations is gross overkill. The average from as few as ten iterations gives investors a much more reliable value for a stock than a single estimate.

What Sherden doesn't do is tell us why people continue to believe predictions, and why billions of dollars continue to be spent based on predictions that aren't any better than throwing darts. But that's a good topic for another book.

This book is absolutely required reading for anyone who wonders whether stock analysts or economists really know what the future holds. The answer is simple: they don't.

He doesn't attempt to get too theoretical as to why prediction is hard. He just looks at the evidence and finds that it is so. None of the predictions that regularly fill newspapers, business books, government economic forecasts, stock-market guides are demonstrably better than tossing a coin. This is a crucially important message as the consequences of believing a duff forecast are enormous. Better to recognise the uncertainty and plan to be flexible.

I'm surprised at the negative comments from reviewers who wanted some analytical framework to deal with all this. This smacks of those who respond to uncertainty by demanding a more precise forecast. The first step for most people is to recognise how worthless forecasting is.

I work with businesses relying on forecasts and I've found Sherden's book invaluable at shifting their thinking. I don't expect Sherden to provide solutions; thats my job.

The only flaw in the book is that Sherden does not differentiate enough between the predictable and the unpredictable components of the future. There is some good thinking on this in the literature on scenario planning (but Sherden's fundamental thesis stands: most important things are not inherently predictable).