Fund-of-funds Books

Exceptional book, a real page turner.

I gave it back to the friend I borrowed it from but will by my own copy to read again.

If you want to know what start-ups are all about and fast growth models - buy this book.

Good book...excellent for the MBA class I am taking.
Great price on Amazon, quick delivery.

This was more like a novel than a business book. And that is a good thing. The story is written in such a way that you want to know what will be next for the little company that could.

A must read for anybody interested in business or strategy, or just a really cool story.

It was witty, entertaining and extremely smart.

Gave me an excellent perspective of starting and running a start-up.

Eric Jackson's Paypal Wars reads like a novel and offers an insightful look into the early days of Confinity. Brought in as an early impromptu marketing employee, he stuck with company until its final sale to eBay. As part of this process, he describes the early struggles of the company, the continuous fight against Billpoint, the enormous problem of fraud, and even some corporate politics.

PayPal is an interesting company even if just for the fact that it survived the dot com crash. But they also managed to raise hundreds of millions in venture capital, fought off eBay on their on turf, and managed to go through an IPO and several mergers. As you can tell, the storyline is exciting, and Eric Jackson does a great job of documenting it in this book. For a technology entrepreneur, this should prove to be a captivating read.

Cold war crop war.


A story involving Ukrainian anti-Soviet agitators, as well as a food crisis in the Soviet union. A crop disease leaves the Soviets with a serious shortage, and the US sees an opportunity to help out, while getting some things they want in return.

Politburo hardliners don't want to do this deal with the Western devil, advocating invading some European countries and taking it by force.

A plucky MI6 contact and a Russian woman he has a relationship with try to do something about it.

Freddie Forsyth has been around for years but I only read day of the Jackal, my first Forsyth, in 2005 during the Ashes. I'm a cricket man myself, but I could not put the book down. I've tried to read the thrillers in sequence since then, and this I rank alongside ' Jackal as his best at this point in the chronology. All four so far, however, are outstandingly good reads.

The plot here is multi-stranded, and its cracked open progressively like a complex and clever cypher. Each twist has knock-on consequences. There is a real sense of a timebomb ticking away with nobody knowing how long until detonation or how sensitive the explosive is.

Like other Forsyth novels (to this point certainly), it is male dominated and driven by ultra-dedicated professionals in a mysterious world unknown to most. The forensic detail adds compellability and one wonders if Forsyth was the chief founder of this documentary style.It certainly works for his writing: clipped, brisk, focused. Not a word wasted.

For all its hard-nosed focus on matters of real politique, busy activity about terrorism and espionage, and the well-drawn characters who populate the Cold War, the most compelling elements are nevertheless human ones, in short, two mini love stories. It is these the reader most cares about. The power of the personal to stir empathy is immense and Forsyth cleverly keeps these plot lines to the end to resolve. The novel transcends its time in this way.

Forsyth is very much an anatomist of power. The interweaving of the plotlines could not be more skilful and his advance plotting of the novel must in itself have been a military skill of some accomplishment. The details break down slowly like a disprin and take increasing effect. You genuinely marvel at how options are cut down for escaping from the enormity of the threat that Forsyth's central dilemma poses. This repeats the formula of his previous novels: tense and detailed build ups with a last minute denoument.

There are one or two blemishes on the paintwork. Those who know Forsyth a little will see his personal politics betrayed here, unfortunately, but this is not a cardinal sin. His failure to develop any female characters in the four novels I have read so far leaves a small question mark (but also, does he need to? I suspect so, maybe more so after this story which was written in 1979). One or two small details are not fully resolved at the close, such as Thor's wife, but this is fine as Forsyth knows the reader's imagination will bridge the gap. He does handle the final scene with apolomb and I shed a tear at this and one other scene. Big softy, me.

The pace of the novel is relentless; it's really hard to put down. The pretext of the novel is in itself both intruiging and terrifying. Truly Forsyth must be the master of this form of literary writing. Michael Crichton, in a different genre, appears to have adapted it successfully, but it is a very demanding approach. It asks a lot of the reader too. This one, like his others, repays the effort.

I have read his work for years. Bought this so my son had something else to read beside Star War books. This is his best!!

As someone else mentioned, this has a very tense suspense that is revealed at the last page...

The books starts off fine, goes on in a fast mood till about 200 pages, where it hits a bump. For another 50-100 pages its really slow with mind numbing details (like latitudes you never care about, places you never heard of and thought existed in Mars, and other really boring details). But once you are past about 250-300 pages, you really can't put the book down.

It tells stories happening simultaneously in America (White House), Britain (the SIS), Britain/Ukraine, and Russia. Forsyth brings his talent from "The Day of the Jackal" here to present an engaging story (except for the above mentioned shortcomings).

You will really learn too much about the political structures in Russia and America (by the middle of it, you will love America/Britain so much that you will confirm with the opinions that Russia has (before '91) one hellhole of a political structure); you will also meet people of the calibre of Lebel/Jackal (or Sherlock Holmes/Moriarty for people who haven't read Forsyth's) in "Day of the Jackal" here, but slightly more cliched. Overall, you just have to hold on in the middle and turn a few pages as he mentions the really boring details of various things (like ships, guns, countries etc) that you probably will never use or never even care about.

Other than that, this book turns out to be one of the best ever written. The last 150 pages really deserve two or more readings and the last couple of pages surpass the combined talents of many suspense/mystery writers...


Some of the political ideas expressed in the book you may not subscribe to, but definitely is good enough to know.

One hell of a book, be prepared to ignore your work, etc to be sucked into this book....

After turning spy fiction upside down with his first three novels, Frederick Forsyth took a lengthy breather before returning with this, his first foray into geopolitics. While dated in some ways with its Iron Curtain setting and talk of Ukrainian liberation, "The Devil's Alternative" remains a clever, fast-paced return to form by the then-young master.

As a grain mishap threatens the U.S.S.R. with famine, a British operative is contacted by a former lover who has access to transcripts of secret Politburo meetings. While U.S. and British leaders deliberate over their volatile contents, a Ukrainian partisan brings the emerging crisis to a flashpoint by hijacking the world's largest tanker just off Amsterdam.

What's missing in "The Devil's Alternative" is a compelling central narrative. Not that what's here isn't compelling, but unlike the earlier Forsyth novels, there isn't one clear lead character to follow. Adam Munro, the British agent in Moscow, comes closest, but his is but one of three stories Forsyth the ringmaster puts in front of us, and Munro is not present in the two most dramatic parts, that being the hijacking of the Freya and the deliberations in the Politburo as the premier tries to fend off a power grab by zealots bent on starting World War III.

This might disorient some looking for a more straightforward thriller, but what's here is good, solid spycraft, nicely layered with Forsyth's attention to detail. The Politburo material is especially terrific, even if it consists largely of talking heads and shuffling papers. Forsyth finds that believable level of real human tension in every situation.

"The Devil's Alternative" is very much a product of its time, pre-Reagan and the "Evil Empire" speech. The focus of President Matthews, a thinly-veiled Jimmy Carter, and his mostly dovish cabinet is to keep the peace with the USSR, even if it means giving the Russians millions of tons of grain in return for hollow arms concessions. Forsyth, who is sometimes described as politically to the right of Attila the Hun, demonstrates a surprising friendliness to this realpolitik-lite approach, though he may just be making his points in more subtle ways.

Forsyth's acerbic insight into the motivations of the central players is mercilessly acute: "In his time he had learned that, in principle, politicians have little enough objection to loss of life, provided that they personally cannot be seen publicly to have had anything to do with it."

This may also be the best book in demonstrating Forsyth's cleverness with storyline. Time and again, he sets the reader up for one action and then delivers another. Even when you expect a twist, Forsyth's way of delivering them is breathtaking. Bear down especially with the last chapter, as Forsyth turns over cards you didn't even know he was playing.

There are logic gaps, as other reviewers note, and the story drags a bit more than it should at the beginning. But those who keep reading will be amply rewarded. "The Devil's Alternative" is a good alternative to nearly any thriller published today.

I bought this hardcover version of the BCP for when I was traveling abroad in Europe so I wouldn't accidently ruin or lose my leather bound copy with all of the confirmation and baptism records and best of all -- the Presiding Bishop signature page! Yeah, i'm a church geek.

This edition is durable and easily fits in a backpack or cargo pants pocket and while the print is somewhat small -- I would say that these smaller editions are geared more towards "veterans" of the BCP and not newcomers.

The only criticism I have is that the gold-colored bookmarker is easily frayed and is hopeless to repair. I only wish a more durable bookmarker came with this edition since I bought it for a "heavier use". Other than that it is a splendid book in all editions and a little bookmarker certainly won't distract me from uniting in prayer with my brothers and sisters in the faith!

amazon is absolutely good choice for every buyer,not just only being honest to their commitment in terms of products and delivery.

but we can assure that our desired order will arrive safe & quality.

I have found this book to be of great value in my Ecumenical relations with other faiths.
I have also found for myself a deep spiritual renewal in reading this book.
I recommend this Book of Common Prayer to all that value the wisdom within other faiths.

Well, I can't rate the BCP anything but positive. My only concern was I failed to read the size of the book and it was smaller then I would have liked, the pages are thin, but at the same time feel very "strong." It has the Daily Office and the complete Psalter. If only I had read the dimensions, I am sure I would have opted for a larger addition. If you don't have problems with smaller print, then by all means purchase this copy, you can't be the price. Also the binding it very good, the book while small, lays flat, whch is a really nice in a hardcover book of this size.

I bought the book of common prayer because I wanted to have something more formal for my devotional life in the morning and the evening. I needed something that would help me be more organized and more disciplined. The book of common prayer is very difficult by itself. I was able to obtain a user guide that helped me to understand how to use the book of common prayer and since then I've been able to use the and is in the wonderful contribution to my prayer life. I am in awe and appreciate that the work that went into the creation of this little book. This is a tremendous amount of information structured to help the individual read the Bible in a whole year plus also develop a deeper spiritual life both morning and evening and develop a discipline that can carry you through tough times and good times. It is my goal to use this on a regular basis. I highly recommend it to those that are serious about a devotional life and who will take some time to master how to use it. The user guide, which you can also obtain from Amazon.com, is a wonderful addition that will help you tap into the riches that are within the pages of this little book.

I love reading investment books, but often get bogged down with basic 101 investing advice...pay yourself first, dollar cost average, live below your means etc.

Thhis book was like taking a professional course on how and why to diversify you portfolio. Simply put it was on of the best books I ever read. Thank you Rickard Fenni!!!!
John K

All these long term returns people give in regards to stocks, bonds, gold and such do not involve active management but instead take a buy and hold strategy. So why follow a theory of regression to the mean the author suggest on page 36 in asset allocation. Why increase your expenses every year by selling some of your top performing sectors and use that money to buy into the poor performing sectors. This strategy seems like market timing set on automatic and we all know that it's very hard to time the market consistently. Index funds that beat most funds don't market time. They work by being fully invested in the asset class, they have a long term buy and hold view, and they keep expenses and taxes low. You can get basic asset allocation info for free from Vanguard's website which also offers target date retirement funds for those who want to use asset allocation the simple way.

Picked up another great book by Richard Ferri and this one's well worth the investment.

This book does a fine job of explaining asset allocation and the fundamental concepts that build a diversified porfolio. Asset allocation is explained very well in relation to portfolio diversification and how rebalancing is essentially the way to increase gains. It explains very well that asset allocation is all about risk management and there is no one size fits all though we can still markup broad categories of similar investor behavior. Market timing is about making a killing by buying in low and selling high however it involves uncertainty given everyone shares similar market information. Rebalancing is market timing without having to chase the market, its buying low and selling high passively though.

All in all, great read and beneficial for all. Lot of practical advice. Its good it came out after the early 2000 tech-stock bubble bursts so it presents the grim reality of investing when your financial plan does not manage its risk and assets.

Just before reading Richard Ferri's "All About Asset Allocation" I had read William Bernstein's two books on the same topic, "The Intelligent Asset Allocator", and "The Four Pillars of Investing" (both really excellent). Compared to the broad reaching Bernstein books, which bring in a lot of examples from stock market history in explaining Asset Allocation, the Ferri book is a straight up text book, clear, spare but complete, and really well done. It really helped to hone my understanding of the topic. After reading it I also purchased his book on Index Funds.

Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang (ISBN 3-88243-800-2), Book Review

A Slovenian reader, writing a review in English, for a German book is a strange combination indeed. The fact is that this reviewer was 14 years old when the WWII started, surviving the Italian- (from 1941 to 1943) and then the German occupation. That much time has passed from these »undesired« events, might contribute to an unbiased review. Anyhow - please, keep reading!

The core of the Grass narrative is the sinking of the German passenger liner Wilhelm Gustloff, which was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. The ship, rearranged inside, repainted military gray outside, with added anti aircraft guns on the board, was sailing from the Baltic port Gotenhafen/Gdynia toward Kiel. The 208 m long vessel of 25,484 BRT was originally built for 1463 passengers and a crew of 417. However, on the fateful 30th of January, 1945, when the vessel went down, she was overloaded by a mixture of crew, heavily wounded, able-bodied soldiers, and girls drafted into the Marinenhelferinen. But, some 80 % of those embarked were the German civilians, running from the advanced Russian troops. The ragged Russians were returning to the Germans tit for tat in the form of looting, mass raping and killing. The knowledge of these atrocities, which spread like a prairie fire, had driven several million eastern German civilians into a panic run toward the West and just a few of them found their place on Gustloff. Her drowning was the world's greatest ship catastrophe, way overshadowing the sinking of the Titanic (1912, from collision with an iceberg) or the Lusitania (torpedoed in 1915 by a German submarine). Only some 500 from almost 10,000 people embarked on Gustloff were rescued, partly by the ship's own rescue boats, but mostly fished out of the ice-cold sea, where all those, less fortunate found their grave.

In order to put himself in the middle of the story, Grass has changed his true date of birth (which is 16th October 1927) to the day the ship was sunk. He has also put the place of his birth on the torpedo boat Loewe, where his highly pregnant (also fictious) mother, after being hoisted out of the rescue boat gave him birth. However, this fateful January 30th gives no reason to celebrate the birthday he claims. The culprit is German history. In his own words ..."The history, more exactly, the history which was touched by us is a clogged toilet. We flush and flush, but s... (Grass has written the full word) comes up."... The true reason for his dissatisfaction is that on the 30th of January 1933, Hitler and Nazis seized power in Germany and that this day was celebrated as Machtergreifung in Third Reich.

Originally the passenger liner was built in 1937 for the German organization Kraft durch Freude (Strength by Joy), the only German worker's organization allowed during the Nazi era. Wilhelm Gustloff was a TB patient in the famous Swiss Sanatorium in Davos. After he was cured, he did not return to his native Germany, but remained as a high rank NSDAP functionary in Davos, where he organized party meetings and took care to dutifully report the (correct or incorrect) behavior of the less lucky German patients in the Sanatorium. In 1936 a Jew, David Frankfurter, shot him dead. The killer was sentenced by a Swiss Court to 17 years of jail, the killed becomes a martyr; his ashes were enshrined in a mausoleum in Schwerin (after the war in the DDR), where he was born, and the ship was named after him.

In his novel the author skillfully mixes the facts concerning the vessel sunk, with the fiction, where his mother, who was somehow obsessed by the sinking of the ship, keeps retelling the story time and again, always describing some other horrible details. How the children, who jumped into the ice-cold sea improperly, were floating in their rescue vests, heads down, engulfed in ice, etc... Since the last year of the war was full of bombing, strafing, shelling, frequent court-martialing and firing squads, the life in Germany was running correspondingly faster. To tell who was the father of the child she delivered on that torpedo boat, would be almost as difficult as for someone who was wounded by a running circular-saw, to point to which tooth was the first to grab him.

For many years after the war the story of the sinking Gustloff was not any more discussed than the other horrible events, such as the allied bombing of Hamburg in 1943, or the Russian discovery of Auschwitz in 1945 or similar events. However, after computers became more easily accessible, the discussion pro et contra of killing Willhelm Gustlof and sinking the ship named after him, found a place in the chat-room on the www.blutzeuge.de. (Blutzeuge means martyr in German, as Wilhelm Gustloff was considered to be.) The chatting reflected fanatic Jewish-Nazi antagonism with »appellations« like Judensau (Jewish sow) or Nazischwein (Nazi swine) exchanged back and forth. Here the author reaches into the middle of the story with his masterful hand, at the same time describing at length the postwar circumstances in Germany, as well as the sinking of the ship. Later he found that his own (fictious) son was the main person involved in that internet chatting. The end of the story is tragic; however, discovering any more details would not be fair to the would-be reader.

I was interested in reading "Crabwalk" after Gunter Grass' piece in the New Yorker last year about his own ties to the Third Reich.

This novel is about a little known event, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Many years ago, I worked in a hospital during the summers for extra money. I was called in by a family to stay with a dying man who was a survivor of the Wilhelm Gustloff. It was quite a story.

What is particularly wonderful is how Grass weaves in the story of his neo-Nazi son's use of the internet to connect with others still enthralled, and repelled, by the Nazi regime. This novel is not another story about the Holocaust, but rather the suffering of the German people and their own "mixed" feelings about the past.

A wonderful read!

This is an amazing book and possibly better than some of his other ones. While this highly reflexive novel can be read on a number of levels, the most gripping story is that of a grandmother teaching her young grandson hatred toward Jews. This central vignette is all but eclipsed toward the end of the book by other 'reasons' for his hate crime and discourse, suggesting that it's hard for us to consider how easily hate can be taught within one's own family (we accept far more easily that hate is taught by "cults," "fundamentalists," and other unsavory groups). Highly recommend it.

"Crabwalk" is a very interesting analysis of Germany and its' perspective on its' sins in WWII. It is told through the perspective of what was probably the most grevious act by the Allies against Nazi Germany; the sinking of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff. The estimated loss of life on this ship (essentially carrying civilians) approaches 10000. Yet instead of giving readers a sense of empathy for the victims, many or most will come away with a sense of disappointment. This, I believe, is part of the author's intention.

It is by no accident that Gunter Grass centered his story around a dysfunctional family. I sensed that he was speaking as much to his countrymen as to the world in general. The divorced spouses trying to raise a single child results in the child being more attached to his paternal grandmother instead. Is this a comment on the German youth in a divided country turning to the order of the past in order to gain a respect of their heritage? Maybe that's way too much analysis but it was what kept coming back to me. I suspect that the German skinheads of a decade or so past may have been an influence on Grass's perspective; how did a country ashamed of it's genocidal past beget a generation of racist anti-semites?

The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff is certainly a story that needed to be told and Grass took that story in all its' detail and created so much more. If you just want to know about the sinking of the ship, it's all here. However, if you want to read the complex thoughts of an eloquently literate man on the state of his country, it, too, is all here. (And all in just 234 pages).

Based on the editorial and individual reviews, I purchased this book for my father, an avid reader of WWII historical accounts. Upon receiving the book I skimmed through it and to my great disappointment discovered that it is a fictionalized account. Had I paid closer attention to the book's web page, I would have noticed the word NOVEL in the editorial description and on the cover. I'm not saying that Gunter Grass's information is inaccurate. He may well have included the most accurate account of information available, but the fact that he took that information and wrapped it up in a fictional story would be abhorrent to my father. I, personally, was turned off by the foul language. I had to return the book. So, for those of you looking for a plain, factual accounting of what happened, this isn't it.

Tabitha "Tab" Rutland is a young girl in an Alabama town in the early 1950s. This is the last Polio summer before the availability of the Salk vaccine.

In order to try to stop the spread of this terrible disease that killed and paralized its victims, leaving many to live in "iron lungs", many towns and cities closed places where people gathered. During this last polio summer, Bainbridge closed the theather and public pool leaving children looking for adventures in other ways.

Tab, a tomboy, a great fan of Roy Rogers, seeks adventure with her best friend, Maudie May, "the lightest brown colored person" she knew. They had a lot of fun, but also were in danger at times.

They fished for the "largest cat fish" in the Tennessee river, built a secret hiding place in the woods. They meddled with the town bootlegger, Mr. Jake, and they learned many secrets of the people of their town.

Devoto is a very gifted writer and in this debut novel shows a well developed plot with believable characters.

This book made me laugh outloud at times. Very enjoyable.

A cute story but did not really grab me and make me want to keep reading. Very light and fun. Great vacation or weekend reading.

Though the above catch phrase was usually applied to the ole Lone Ranger westerns, the same could be said of this wonderful book: it takes us back to the thrilling days of yesteryear, the days of our youth when the only things that mattered, so we thought, were "Who's your favorite Cowboy?," "Who you like best, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry?" and "Who has the best horse, Roy or Gene (Trigger or Champion)?...

This book is about a time, the mid-fifties, when all the world was young, or so we thought, and the only really bad men were on the Silver Screen. This particular story is set in that last summer of the great polio scares.

It is the story of a young girl, Tabitha, "Tab" for short, and her one last glorious summer before the world--the awareness of a world other than the peaceful, idyllic world in which she lived--collided with her world of innocence, play and peace.

All of the traditional Southern characters are here, all contributing in sometimes delightful, sometimes sad, ways. Life as it was back in those days. Back before it got complicated.

Pat Cunningham Devoto is a gift, a delight and a rare Southern treasure.
This is the first of three books featuring characters who made their debuts in his book. They are characters we come to know,to love and really care about, characters we cheer for and for whom we weep. Good stuff.

One small example of Devoto's writing as her character Tab looks back on the short, but most eventful summer of her young life:

"That night, standing with my back to Mama, washing the dishes at the sink, I said to her, Do you remember what a dandelion is like? All summer it growed into a puffy ball with millions of tiny pieces close together making a beautiful flower. Then when you pick it and blow very hard, just one time, all the pieces of the flower float off into space separated forever." She said she remembered. I said I remembered, too. The dirty dishes blurred before my watery eyes....

"That day Maudie May's world had floated away from me forever..."

If you are child of the fifties, especially a Southern child of the fifties, or if you want to find out or remember what it was like during the great polio scares of that day, this is the book for you. It is, in reality, a book for everyone.

Even after a month has passed, I still find myself thinking of this book, and when I was reading it, I couldn't put it down. Devoto tells a story of childhood in the South (northern Alabama) in the early 1950s, where fear of polio and segregation were pervasive realities. 8-year-old Tab (Tabatha) is friends with a boy whose mother, fearful of polio, makes him stay in the basement while she's at work. Tab's other friend is Maudie May, a 13-year-old "colored" girl whose younger twin brothers (known only as the Brothers) tag along around, kept in check by their strong-as-iron older sister. It is a time when children really were free to spend their summers with little adult supervision during the day. As a result Tab and her friends have some amazing and funny adventures, including an unforgettable episode on the Tennessee River in a rickety rowboat they've borrowed. I laughed out loud at a number of points in this book, both from the funny situations and the funny commentary by Tab.

This book is a keeper.

This book was a gift from a 'southern' friend in an effort to explain the 'southern psyche?!' Good, lord, I thought I'd die of hackneyed plot development and platitude! The truly interesting aspects were never persued nor explained -- the mother--southern woman personified and yet left to hang -- the ill-fated father -- zip! Ultimately a mawkish effort at 'southern literature' that leaves the reader unfulfilled and the genre stagnant. I am shocked to learn this thing has been compared to Harper Lee and Truman Capote! Are people just not reading anymore, are they just stupid, or what? After a brief while; you just don't give a damn and want to finish the thing. If this is the present/future of 'southern letters,' I'm even more glad the North won the Civil War!

Buy this book...you will make money if you follow the advise to go with index funds...skip the brokers and money managers...they are salespeople trying to hack out a living.

Pre-2000 meltdown, I had control of $75k in an IRA. I watched and believed I could join all those people making so much before the Internet bubble burst. After the burst, my bubble dropped all the way down to $42k. Man, am I a great investor or what? Then, I read this book. Sold all the stock that was left, allocated into a "risky" portfolio of Index Funds ( I went a little deeper with the small cap value and international funds). Less than 7 years later and after many great nights of being able to sleep, north of $155k and counting. No trading costs. I rebalanced once. Now, if I only had put the original $75k in Index Funds instead of all that wonderful Internet stuff....lesson learned the hard way. Read this book, digest it and implement its investing advice..

Not for those who are active fund managers. The author makes quite a logical, compelling case to invest in his style. The main thrust is passive managed over active managed funds. He goes through statistics that support his position, and attacks publications who don't support. Like a lot of financial books, it gets a bit bogged in numbers at times, but overall the flow is excellent. It changed my investment approach.

Investors should recall that a 1990 Nobel Prize was awarded to three financial economists whose ideas helped legitimize what is known as 'modern portfolio theory' (MPT). MPT points to an investment strategy that author Larry E. Swedroe says is at variance with the interests and advice of the popular financial establishment (hence Swedroe's contentious title). For followers of MPT, stock and bond market prices represent, very efficiently, all that is known and expected by investors of a security. There is no evidence that markets systematically misprice securities. So, the market prices securities to their value. Markets work. A corollary is that no individual money manager will be able to consistently know more than the market. Wall Street's managed (active) efforts to exploit perceived market pricing inefficiencies fall short. Active managers are undone by higher fees and the taxes that trading profits generate. This is Swedroe's main argument with Wall Street. Stock selection does not work consistently or economically. Active management is flawed by its underestimation of market efficiency and its operating expenses. Bottom line: Money managers don't beat the indexes. Swedroe quotes Benjamin Graham, an icon for stock-pickers, near the end of his career apparently siding with the market efficiency school. Indeed academic research supports the idea that the most important factor in market returns is not stock selection but exposure to key asset classes (e.g., large or small company stocks, "growth" or "value" stocks, international or domestic stocks). Swedroe argues for passively 'managed' index mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETF) on the basis of their lower expenses and the market's efficiency. Investors should have a globally diversified portfolio of "low correlating" assets because of the unpredictability of certain asset classes moving in and out of favor. Investors seeking greater returns may find them with small capitalization and "value" stocks. Swedroe identifies a key tenet of MPT in Chapter 10, namely, how diversification works to increase the average compound return of individual investments within the portfolio. A little more detail might have been useful in this section. WHAT WALL STREET DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW is a helpful if somewhat repetitive introduction to the basic ideas of modern portfolio theory. The author revisits this material even more persuasively in his later book, RATIONAL INVESTING IN IRRATIONAL TIMES.

Some interesting points, but his claim about the efficiency of the market being always reflected in the stock price and there being "no evidence" to the contrary is garbage. He uses the 90's to show how Warren Buffet did not beat the market. But the 90's were an irrational bubble fueled by dot.com stock madness. When Yahoo stock was peaking, to justify that price, within 20 years Yahoo itself would have had to equal 1/3 of the entire U.S. economy!! There was NO WAY that Yahoo was not going to fall in price at one point, as it eventually did. Its price was hardly "efficient" at its peak. The market can be beat, and Lynch and Buffet have done it. And Buffet is famous for his patience in waiting A LONG TIME for his investments to pay off (which belies the ten year #). But most people do not have Lynch's and Buffet's minds and THAT's the reason most people should invest in index funds. And that's why Buffet himself recommends the average person invest in index funds. 60% of the US population is overweight. The average American lacks discipline. THAT'S why the average person should invest in index funds. His conclusion is correct for the average person, but not all of his reasoning.

I am just starting the trek to land Angel investment for my new venture. I read this book through over the last 3 days. It has many insights into the world of Business Angel investing under one cover, although it's greatest weakness is it was published in 2000 so with everything changing so fast I had to take ever line with a bit of salt. Biggest pros: well-researched, balanced reasoning (on a logic/life experience level; I can't yet comment on whether it is in this field), offers a window of sorts into the minds of Angels.

This book starts off slowly but when it gets rolling it is very helpful ,giving good infromation where and when you need it.

"Angel Investing" by Mark Van Osnabrugge and Robert J. Robinson gives useful information about angel investors and venture capitalists.

Van Osnabrugge and Robinson estimate that angel investors--wealthy individuals who invest their own money into start-up companies--invest three to five times more money than venture capitalists and back thirty to forty times more ventures, making angel investors the primary source of external capital for entrepreneurs.

But, how do you meet and present your business idea to an angel investor? What factors do angel investors give the most weight to when debating whether or not to fund a venture? How do angel investors differ from venture capitalists when valuing a start-up company?

"Angel Investing" answers these questions and many more. It is stuffed with studies, interviews, and solid advice. "Angel Investing" can be divided into three main categories:

* General background about angel investors and venture capitalists and their relationship and importance to business and the economy.

* Practical advice for entrepreneurs seeking start-up funds from angel investors or venture capitalists.

* Practical advice for individuals considering becoming angel investors and making investments in small companies.

Each topic in "Angel Investing" is well documented. It's a rather formal book, actually. Robinson is a professor at the Harvard Business School and Van Osnabrugge is a former fellow of the Harvard Business School.

I found the section about successful angel investment deals a bit too rich for my taste. For example, we learn that one angel investor who backed amazon.com got a 260 times return on his initial investment of $100,000 making him $26 million. Another angel who invested in the Body Shop received 10,500 times his initial investment. As a new angel investor, don't get overly excited about the prospects! Remember, many angel investments fail dismally. As the authors point out, you must only invest money you can afford to lose!

If you are already a financially successful entrepreneur who considers becoming an angel investor, you might want to read "Angel Investing" to help improve the chances of making successful angel investments. However, the book is not a complete analysis of the due diligence process.

And, of course, from an entrepreneur's standpoint, reading a book won't automatically put you in contact with serious angel investors, and much of the real work in financing a new venture involves finding personal contacts to introduce you to appropriate angel investors. Van Osnabrugge and Robinson note that most funded ventures involve personal introductions.

Maybe, if you're ready to invest $50,000 per company or more (and ready to lose $50,000 or more per investment!), you're tired of investing in public companies (with mystic accounting and lack of reportability to the investor), and you want to add value to your investment by contributing information and contacts to your investment, this might be a good book to help get you started. On the downside, you'll probably have no diversification and poor liquidity with angel investments.

The most important tip from "Angel Investing": Do adequate research before investing in a company. And, it's best if you know the industry and know business.

Peter Hupalo, Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur."

I am the Founder & CEO of a business that within the next 8 to 12 months was seeking to raise between $2M and $5M to fund our expansion. I always thought of going straight to Venture Capital firms or Private Equity divisons of Invmt Banks that I have already been in touch with. This book, Angel Investing, was a truly priceless read to me. The education delivered by authors has helped me re-strategize my approach to inviting external investors and also the amount that I should try to raise and the schedule of funds. What I thought was most helpful was the detailed comparisons between Angel Investors and Venture Capitalist, as well as understanding the psychology behind their thinking and how an entrepreneur seeking outside funds should try to prepare every aspect of their presentation (themselves, their product and overall business plan). The book has given me tools to have most questions covered and more importantly has prepared me to become an angel myself in the years ahead.

If you are planning to go after Angel funding, this book is a must-read. The book contains interviews with a broad spectrum of Angels, who discuss their investment experience, the thinking they go through, and key things they look for, when evaluating an opportunity. This book would serve as an excellent reference for anyone preparing to be in front of Angels.

The editor tells us the book is a study of "why so many persons are anti-capitalists and as a result are attracted to socialism and communism". He also says the book deals with "the ideas and opinions and psychological reasons of people for acting". Mises (1881-1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian school, the subjective-value marginal-utility theory of economics. He fled to the U.S. during W.W.II and spent the rest of his life here. This was written in the 50's, although it feels as if it was written today, only now the condition is more wide spread. Mises saw these conditions and mind-sets clearly in its early stages. Did we hear him? Mises says "it is the task of this essay to analyze this anti-capitalistic bias and to disclose its roots and its consequences".

This thesis deals with the philosophy, sociology, and mentality of the man, driven by envy and hatred, who despises the rich and our free market capitalism. I was surprisingly pleased that it was clear, concise, and very readable. Mises delivers good arguments refuting the critics.

Mises helped clear up some confusion on why wealthy individuals (not always the ignorant masses) succumb to a socialistic-communist mentality even though their wealth came from a capitalistic society. The effects of this mentality run much deeper than you would have thought. An illusion has been created; and how apropos for today. But we can prevent this enslavement by an "open and unrestricted support of laissez-faire capitalism". There are no mincing of words, it is either or (capitalism or socialism), or interventionism, for "a man who publicly talks or writes about the opposition between capitalism and socialism without having fully familiarized himself with all that economics has to say about these issues is an irresponsible babbler".

"....the immense majority of the socialist intellectuals were convinced that in fighting for socialism they were fighting for freedom. They called themselves left-wingers and democrats, and nowadays they are even claiming for themselves the epithet 'liberal'"

Wish you well
Scott

This little essay/study by Ludwig Von Mises again reinforces his views on laissez-faire capitalism and for the most part is very strong: he focuses this work on how Marxists attack capitalism when the truth is that capitalism is responsible for the rise of the living standards and soaring of technology ever since the Industrial Revolution. He also makes a devastating point when he points to the caste system-esque rankings of the "status societies" that existed prior to the Industrial Revolution and points out that, unlike in th pre-industrial caste/status, you CAN move up in a system of capitalism.

Which leads me to the reason I give this 4 stars instead of 5: he seems to state that if you are lower on the capitalist food chain than another, that the higher-up is automatically more "successful" than the lower. Here I'm confused as to what he exactly means by the term "successful": I'm not sure whether he means "successful" as in the free market has deemed them as more fit for the higher position than the lower man's position, or if he means "successful" in terms of actual "success" in terms of output of some sort measurable by empirical figures. If he meant the latter, I disagree that that is always the case. I have a feeling he did in fact mean the latter since early on he frequently attributes the lower status of various employees (of status ranging from factory worker to VP of a corporation) to his own personal "shortcomings." I differ with this view of "shortcomings" because I see their lower status (and the other man's higher status) not necessarily as a result of anyone's shortcomings at all because it may not be possible at all for the lower man to possess or attain the skills or level necessary to reach the higher position that the other man has reached. Now, I'm seeing Von Mises' use of "shortcomings" as meaning that the lower person HAD/HAS a chance to obtain those skills/etc., but it's likely I misunderstood this and he is speaking of all shortcomings no matter whether the lower man can achieve them or not. I probably erred.

But the long and the short of this is that this paper excellently expands on Von Mises' beliefs of the laissez-faire capitalist system as well as his views on Marxism and Leninism.

Over fifty years ago, the famous economist whose career "showed that government intervention is always destructive," penned The Anti-capitalistic Mentality. This short book marked his official venture into psychology. We should be grateful today for its insight. His deconstruction of those opposed to free markets indicates that he had a far better understanding of humanity than do the majority of psychologists.

What impresses most about The Anti-capitalistic Mentality is just how prescient a work it is. The failures of socialism were evident in the 1950s but not as glaring as they are in 2008. Yet this truth does not prevent our politicians from continuing to push for more and more government expansion. The concomitant disruption and diminution of the private sector is discounted entirely. The experiences of Soviet Russia, the Warsaw Pact countries, and the vivid and ongoing failures of communist starvation zones like Cuba and North Korea are pooh-poohed by those desirous of further empowering the Leviathan. In light of what America has become, Von Mises' elucidation of the enemies of capitalism is more pertinent than ever.

It is the common man who benefits most from capitalism. He profits from those who save, who invest, and who engage in entrepreneurial activities. These individuals expand the economy, elevate wages, and employ him directly. More importantly, there are no structural barriers which prevent him from joining the ranks of such persons.

In the final analysis, to hate capitalism is to hate liberty as only within the framework of personal choice can one choose an education, a vocation, and course of life that suits them. The laissez-faire philosophy is what put an end to slavery and serfdom. Nobody born poor in a free society is destined to poverty. How ironic it is that so many anti-capitalists describe themselves as being "liberal" when there is nothing liberal about stealing the dreams and futures of those you regard as nothing more than wards or mascots.

Psychologizing proved a very elementary feat for Ludwig von Mises. His deconstruction and refutation of the anti-capitalist outlook was a noble undertaking. He flamboyantly paraded its irrationality for all to see over fifty years ago, but it is now up to us to popularize his forgotten, but exquisite, argumentation.

The Anti Capitalistic Mentality is Mises' attempt to uncover the driving force behind the socialist movement of the early twentieth century. As such, it should be seen as an alternative to Hayek's `Fatal Conceit/Abuse of Reason' hypothesis. Mises and Hayek agree on some points. Mises claims that "everyone is prone to overate his own worth and deserts" (p10). This is consistent with Hayek's Fatal Conceit hypothesis, but Mises takes the idea that people overate themselves inn a different direction. Hayek thought that intellectuals disdain capitalism because it offends their intellectual pride. Those who see themselves as the best and brightest cannot accept the idea that spontaneously evolved orders outperform any system that they can consciously design.

Mises emphasizes envy and resentment, along with the lack of proper economic education. As Mises puts it on page 36 socialists "are blinded by envy and ignorance. They stubbornly refuse to stuffy economics ... they pretend to trust only in experience. But they also stubbornly refuse to take cognizance of the undeniable facts of experience".

The main problem with this book is that it is too short. Mises did not develop his ideas in this book to the extent he developed other ideas elsewhere. Also, Mises relies too much on the notion that people hate capitalism because the market value of their wage is below their self-evaluation. People do tend to overate their own worth. However, it should be noted that even those who succeed often hate capitalism. Consider the following list of highly successful wealthy capitalism haters: John Lennon, James Cameron, George Soros, Stephen Speilberg, Warren Beatty, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda... These people passed the market test and then some. Yet they hate the system that made them wealthy and famous. Why? Lack of economic education might explain more than does envy. Who would they envy?

The Anti Capitalistic Mentality is still an important book. It explores vital issues that should be sorted out more completely. Since Mises kept this book brief, the task of developing this and Hayek's work on the motivations behind the socialist/interventionist movement will be left to their intellectual heirs.

Ludwig von Mises hit the nail on the head in this book when he explains very clearly why anti-capitalists hate capitalism. It basically boils down to jealousy. So if you want a great read that is less than 100 pages and will leave you with new knowledge, then you should buy this book.

In the spirit of Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street, The Great Mutual Fund Trap proposes that the most viable strategic alternative for investors is passive investing, also known as indexing.

The authors point out that a variety of hurdles to outperformance of the averages are strewn in the investor's path, including overconfidence in security selection and market timing skills, a blizzard of commercial mis-information and questionable third party investment resources, among various others.

Along the way to the book's conclusion attention is drawn to the ongoing social security debate and it is strongly suggested that passively managed mutual funds play an important role in addressing the problem.

Finally, the authors indicate that sometimes the best performers in a game are those that are able to successfully make the largest number of effective small decisions. A list of factors investors may want to consider in the implementation of their investment plans is introduced.

While the authors delivered some interesting points, quite a bit of the information was already available. [As indicated by at least one of the previous reviewers.] As such: 4/5 stars.

I feel this book is a must read for any individual investor who wants long term success. For 10 years I have been trying to become a confident, knowledgable investor. I read the books and magazines, the Financial Times, I roam MSN Money, I listen to radio shows etc. I have experimented and learned a great deal, done some things well and made many mistakes always feeling that most of the time my results--both gains and loses--seem random. I also have an actively managed account that seems to get the same random results I get but for much more expense. Upon reading this book all my experiences came together in a clear understanding that the market is indeed random and how I can best participate in it. Baer and Gensler not only affirm what I had learned here and there from others but many new things as well. They do so with excellent substantiation in a readable, straightforward manner that gave me the confidence I was looking for to make dramatic changes in my financial holdings. They gave me simple, excellent recommendations to execute my plan and navigate past the the traps laid out by investment companies. I agree with one reviewer that I too was amazed at how much I did not know. Filling in those gaps so I can now make informed choices was certainly worth the small investment in buyng this book.

The Great Mutual Fund Trap is primarily a compilation of complaints about mutual funds and conveyed little new or useful information. To a great extent the information could have been consolitated in about a dozen pages, but then it could not have been sold as a book.
Someone with no financial investing experience could learn about the problems with mutual funds from the book. But I would not recommend it.

It's a very well written book. The main purpose of this book is to show that mutual funds industry overall does not provide a good choices for regular individual investors and the book covers this topics exceptionally. It really reveals the real intentions of the industry and shows that this is the only way this indstry can work. The book advocates passive investment and especially index funds and exchange traded funds (ETF). While there were already quite a few good, if controversial, books about efficient market theory ('You can't beat the market'), such as famous 'Random walk On Wall Street', this book brings more details about today market environment and explains what choices passive investor has. My only complain is that sometimes I feel some kind of zealotry in authors considerations. Even for somebody that believes in efficient market theory some of the statements in this books could seem very questionable. Stock mutual funds takes majority of books space but the moment authors venture to the other territory (and they do try to cover practically all kinds of investments) their arguments often seem too absolute. Still, this is the book every investor in mutual funds must read (and it will probably convince you to make some changes in your investment strategy - it did this for me)

There is really nothing new in this book that has not been beat to death elsewhere and the reader will probably find William Bernstein's books more rewarding. For those who buy this book however you will not go too far wrong.