Future-value

The book offers basic information on how to invest and save money, but, that's all it does. The book is more appropriate for someone at a later stage of their life, and for someone who has no idea how one should save or invest money. If you already know the basic information about investing, then this book is not for you.

If ever there were a standard primer for financial information, my vote would be this book. What a wonderful gift this book would make for a newly married couple, or even a daughter who has just graduated high school or college. A son, too for that matter! As someone who has never had much extra money, I just recently graduated from college and am now pursuing full time employment, I know that when I begin bringing in that second income, that I will want to have some education on what to do with it. I bought this book for that purpose. It is a basic information book that provides vital facts and figures to anyone needing advice in regards to insurance, 401K, stocks, bonds, retirement and ect. For someone who has just a limited knowledge of these topics, this book will be a Godsend. A child could read and understand the concepts presented in this book. It gives resources for more information as well. Pick up this book and you will expand your financial horizons! The book is written in a very casual, witty and motherly type fashion. It will make you warm and fuzzy! And perhaps even fatten your wallet

I stopped reading this book after the first 7 chapters. It's easy going conceptually, but manages to be very irritating for the following reasons: The "definitions" are often confusing and unilluminating, although the examples that follow generally manage to get the idea across. There are also a large number of mathematical errors, which I was able to clear up only because I'm already familiar with the essentials of VaR. As a first introduction, the book is therefore useless. Perhaps the remaining 10 chapters of the book are of sterling quality -- to hedge against this eventuality I award two stars, rather than just one -- but I will be seeking another source.

[And shame, shame, shame on Wiley Finance's editors. Apart from the above errors, here are just two howlers that prove that the book was published before anybody read it: "Neper's number" for e (Napier?), "phenomene" as plural of phenomena (which would have made a kind of grammatical sense weren't it for the fact that phenomena is alread the plural of phenomenon.) No doubt Wiley Finance believes that sales are unaffected by reputation.]

This book is a detailed and meticulous presentation of the calculations involved in Value at Risk (VaR) measurement. According to authors Pietro Penza and Vipul K. Bansal, Value at Risk is one of the most popular approaches to measuring the risk of harm to financial portfolios. It is a valuable institutional tool. Be aware, though, the book's message and how-to assistance will seem generally irrelevant to individual investors, except for a handful of extremely high net worth individuals at the top of the Forbes 400. Its calculations are beyond the ken of most non-mathematicians, but they will intrigue the right audience. We find this book to be a useful addition to the libraries of professional investors, bankers or risk managers, particularly those with highly developed analytical skills and a certain degree of comfort with financial engineering. Some other financial managers and lay readers will find useful information here, though they may need to walk on tiptoes through those sections of the content that are over their heads.

Penza and Bansal has done a good work on making a whole picture of Market Risk Measurement. With the clear explanation, it helps the beginners to quickly grasp the concept on Market Risk Measurement. It is well organized in 16 chapters, beginning with a few chapters on financial risk management in banking, including a review on the traditional Asset/ Liability Management. The review on Mathematical and statistical techniques is very well described. The authors also explained the analysis of pricing financial assets, including Fixed-income, equity, and derivative. Finally, they show the common methodologies to calculate VaR-Parametric, Historical Simulation and Monte Carlo Simulation.

I considered this book as a good literature review on Value at Risk, but not the step-by-step one. It provides complete set of formulas but too few examples. I recommend for beginning- and intermediate-level readers who want to know the overall concept of Value at Risk.

Basically this is typical value investing with a small cap bent, though he will buy value at any price. Chapter two covers this and the rest of the book will put you to sleep. He's long winded, add small type and over 350 pages... it was a struggle to finish.

Much of it could have been left out. 50 pages are a review and comments of past years portfolios. Another chapter is on his pet peeves, one on funds, one defending use margin and one on Tech analysis (he doesn't use it for individual issues, but he looks at a few general market indicators to guage risk and overbought levels in the market). Except for a chapter 9 analysis of Ford, there isn't much about selection besides chapter 2.

His returns were made using full margin. His best contibution it to say don't be too rigid on the numbers, be flexible. Usually stocks will be undervalued on a couple measures but not all of them. I'd recommend any other book on value investing.

THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK IS THAT YOU BUY THE MARKETS WORST STOCKS AND HOLD THEM FOR AT LEAST FIVE YEARS HOPING THEY WILL COME BACK TO GLORY. hE BUYS STOCKS THAT HAVE LOW P/E'S LOW PRICE TO SALES AND LOW PRICE TO BOOK. USUALLY THESE STOCKS HAVE LOADS OF DEBT, TERRIBLE PRODUCTs OR ARE IN A TERRIBLE INDUSTRY. eXAMPLE STEEL
Most of the stocks he picks are terrible and will never make you any money and are the riskiest in the market.Example of stocks he tells you to buy in his newsletter kmart, wcom, conseco etc.
all bankrupt. Once in while he gets lucky and has a big winner. Don't count on this. If you want to lose big money read his book and follow his insane advice on the use of margin.

Unlike some books, were authors write about great investors or skilled authors with little practical experience present their opinions, Al Frank is a great investor and a skilled author with lots of practical experience. Thus, the book is a pleasure to read, more comprehensive than most and presents conclusions drawn from decades of value investing in common stocks.

With a folksy, down to earth approach, the author goes over what's most important for a long term investor: Patience, Stock Selection, Diversification and Risk Management. Important financial ratios are also explained and the use of margin is reviewed in great detail. In fact, there are very few investment books which deal with margin as well as this one. This is probably because not many investment book authors have as much experience in this area as Al Frank. However, this is not a get rich quick book, but instead the presentation of a logical, long term seasoned strategy.

A well written and articulate book, but however seems to be a rehash or "term paper", comprised of the analysis of the writings of Dr. John Henric Clarke, Molefi Asante, Amos Wilson, Naim Akbar, Cancellor Williams, and Claude Anderson. An excelent book for the junior high school student, or high school student, but leans too heavily on blaming the victim rather than providing viable solutions.

This is it. The wisdom of the social/political sages in one brief, easy-to-read summary. This is a book for your liabrary, coffee table, school, or communting experience.

Each chapter captures the essence of the source, the probable solutions, the accountability and the prognosis.

Bob Law has done us all a great service.

Good summary of the new BIS rules, but the review of understanding marking-to-model is sketchy, inconsistent, and rife with too many pseudo-graphs and footnotes to his own books and articles.

The first edition was for a while the only book on the subject. As such, it had to be the best. But, at that time, RiskMetrics VCV approach was the only approach. Jorion analyses this approach in detail, and derives many results (for example, attributing risks, etc.). He then implies by omission that they work for other methods, they don't. He also implies by omission that RiskMetrics is the absolute greatest, it isn't - it's probably now the weakest method. Surveys show that now only 10% of banks worldwide are using this method - and the numbers are falling.

There is nothing about coherence, the problems with VaR, the fundamental problems with using it to allocate risks to portfolios...
There was no reason to bring out a new edition.

This book takes a statistical approach to risk management, but the approach is dated.

Risks of many products such as exotic options and credit derivatives cannot be adequatley measured by value-at-risk (VAR) conventional methodology.

The subject of credit derivatives is comprehensively - and well- covered in "Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Securitization" by Tavakoli.

Good Book for sophisticated investment analyst