Investment-Risk

This provides an excellent overview and introduction to VaR and issues surrounding it. A must read for any body involved with financial risk management.

Cannot think of any other book that gives you the basics and beyond of VAR. As an MBA student I liked most the practical examples. Mathematical stuff is kept to a minimum, even though it can be sometimes quite demanding. Jorion is one of the laeding academics on VAR. He "defends" the properties of VAR very well after some criticism on VAR (see Nassim Taleb's web page).

Dr. Jorion's book formally introduced the concept of VaR to me several years ago. It's written so that a novice in risk management can understand the concepts with ease.

A great book.

The third edition of The Art of Low Risk Investing is clearly written and easy to follow. The author presents a system for investing in equity securities that is easy to use even by beginners. This system uses moving averages to predict overall market performance and the performance of individual securities. This low risk-investing model gives precise times to buy and sell securities, as well as times to be fully invested and to not buy securities at all. I enjoyed the book, but found the later part of the text a little too self-serving and philosophical. Despite these distractions, the text is an excellent introduction to art of technical analysis in equity markets.

With the use of a personal computer and a charting program Zahorchak's multiple moving average system provides precise buy and sell signals. Here is the key. Each upward moving average crossover alerts a chartist that a stock is on a path towards a bull market. Conversely, a succession of downside intersections warns an issue is slowly turning sour and sliding into a bear phase.

I have used this technique for over thirty years. It outclasses every other method I have tried.

For the winner, the best book on the best trading parameters ie: moving averages. Read this book in 1987 and have done fantastically thereafter.

Words of wisdom and a common sense approach to profiting in the markets is what you'll get from this slice of Ned Davis Research. This is a revision to the 1991 edition that contains updated information and a take on the year 2000 bubble. Seven chapters of insight are packed into this coffee table-style book, with loads of color-coded charts and aphorisms. If you're looking to obtain a grasp of the common traits that have made the monsters of money management successful, this book is worth your while.

Maybe you've seen Ned Davis on CNBC or CNN; he's often quoted in Barron's and The Wall Street Journal; he's been in the business for over thirty years and has a lot to offer. He's also a good study of the old pros, such as George Soros and Peter Lynch. From them he has gathered four traits that are key to maintaining success. They are: Objectivity, Flexibility, Discipline and Risk Management. Hard to argue here.

With the four common traits of successful money managers as a base, the book brings the Ned Davis Research Group's insights and experience to the table. A dissection of what contributed to the stock market bubble of 2000 and a no-nonsense look into what is moving our economy right now are key features to this edition. The economy model building process and analyses of stock and bond market timing are also discussed in depth. Though the content-type is academic, I found the commentary to be refreshingly concise and practical.

According to Ned Davis, the business of speculating is largely psychological. Great quotes and facts about crowd psychology are influential for understanding the markets. As he states:

"In case we are being swept up by the crowd or in case our own reality becomes badly distorted, what we need is an unbiased, objective standard that will weigh the evidence and pass judgment devoid of emotionalism."

The overall composition of this book is tuned more for a position trader rather than a pure day trader. You won't find exercises to hone your entry skills, but the wisdom and market insight are like vitamins that will keep you focused and on-target for profits. No matter what your trading goals are, this book will keep you pointed in the right direction.

"Being Right Or Making Money" is like getting a pro level college course on how to stay one step ahead of the stock and bond markets, and is destined to be a desktop companion for any serious investor, especially those whose foray into online trading has left them at a disadvantage after the post bubble and Enron days.

This is a place where many might have started, as it provides an excellent foundation for market analysis and the formation of a life time investing plan. The book's emphasis is not on how to make a fortune day trading, but rather it teaches investors how to make sense out of information that truly forecasts the future of the market.

There are several chapters on how to create asset allocation models in both bonds and stocks. And it is here that investors will find hidden jewels such as how to make sense out of contrarian opinion and how to analyze the stock market's momentum.

The book is written with a general audience in mind, and has great long term indicator charts that clearly illustrate how and when the indicators work, as well as the results of their buy and sell signals. Highly recommended for those who are truly serious about investing, and those who are looking for better forecasting tools...

This is easily one of the best books I've ever read on quantitative techniques for stock market analysis. The first two chapters (by Ned Davis) gives his view on what moves the markets. It's a treasure chest of ideas ... some old, but also a few new ones (at least to me).

The rest of the chapters are written by staff members of NDR. The book contains several timing models with historical performance. While some of the models rely on data not easily obtained, the breadth of ideas is impressive.

Highly recommended.

Let's start out this review by stating up front that we disagree with Daniel Ben-Ami's assertion that a preoccupation with risk measurement and management is a detriment to the global economy. With that out of the way, we can say that Ben-Ami presents a unique analysis of the modern global economy that is not at all without merit. His contention that lagging growth is a greater peril to the world's economy than financial instability is reasonable and backed up by ample evidence and illustration. And his position that increased regulation could be doing more harm than good will be embraced by all free traders. On the basis of these discussions alone, we [...] recommend this book to anyone thinking seriously about international financial systems. But this book is perhaps most useful as a starting point for debate, which it will certainly generate in the mind of any informed reader. While you might quibble with Ben-Ami's conclusions ' as we do with his assertion that the threat of the 1990s financial crises was overblown ' you will not be bored.

Usually, books on the dry subject of modern finance are a difficult read but this one is a welcome and worthy exception. The text is so fascinating that I managed to "make it" in three rather short sessions - and without the slightest trace of boredom in the process. I found no superfluous or pseudo-profound sentences and even the footnotes of this carefully researched study fully deserve the reader's attention.

Ben-Ami manages to explain in a few dozen pages the basics of apparently difficult concepts (as he rightly tells us, "even the most complex strategies tend to be built from simple components") such as derivatives, mutual funds, pension funds, hedging, etc. In the process, he shatters a lot of mistaken myths and conventional wisdom.

It is simply not true, he explains, that the instruments of modern finance are essentially speculative; on the contrary, they are usually a means for corporations and investors in general to better manage risk. Modern capitalists, unlike their predecessors of a more dynamic era, have an exaggerated aversion to risk and they try to build their portfolio in a way that minimises it. Thus a corporation dedicated to making cars, for instance, might prefer to invest part of its earnings in derivatives or hedge funds instead of innovating its production processes. The result would of course be a less dynamic form of capitalism, where more resources are spent on the financial markets - as opposed to the real, productive side of the economy. This, insists Ben-Ami, is in short what has been happening since the end of the post-war (1945-73) economic boom.

He offers powerful examples to illustrate his thesis. Yes, he says, it's true that George Soros made a billion dollars out of speculating against the British Pound in the early nineties - but that was only because the fundamentals of the British economy were really incompatible with the high value of its currency. A few years later Soros was betting on a fall of the Rouble and eventually lost two billion dollars. This time he had made a wrong analysis of the fundamentals of the Russian economy and got his fingers burned. The conclusion? Well, speculators really don't have the power to dominate events. So much for the idea that modern economies are but passive instruments at the hands of unscrupulous capitalistic sharks!

Ben-Ami regrets the general climate of fear for the future and horror of risk-taking that he thinks has taken hold of Western Europe and even more the USA in the last few decades - and has been, BTW, amply demonstrated in the recent near-hysteria caused by the appearance of a few cases of Anthrax in the US. He sees in this tendency a sign that the "animal spirits" that Keynes considered essential for the proper working of a dynamic capitalist economy are faltering.

The author doesn't present us a "solution" for this problem, probably because he's well aware of the fact that cultural attitudes are very hard to change. But he does warn that the climate of fear that currently permeates western society constitutes a clear impediment to stronger economic growth, both in the First and Third worlds. And he writes in such a clear, unpretentious style that one might just hope his analysis will eventually find a sympathetic hearing in the decision-making centers of Europe and the United States.

The author performs a complete and delicate post-mortem of modern capitalist beliefs and misconceptions. I read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" some time ago. Daniel Ben-Ami constructs a compelling argument in favour of unregulated markets, healthy competition and good old fashioned risk taking. Unlike Raynd he steers away from abstruse philosophical theories and sticks with what really matters to the reader: Real life examples, cataloging the myriad failiures of faux-capitalism. If like me you whince every time you hear about another ill-thought out but well intended goverment safeguard, you'll enjoy this book for the intellectual ammunition it delivers.

Like his previous book Investment Gurus, Investment Visionaries is another great series of interviews with money managers and pioneers. While the methodologies of venture capitalists and technology investors are more difficult to distill and systematize than the value and growth investors that Tanous profiled in his last book, there is value nonetheless in this book, particularly in the interviews with Don Valentine, William Haseltine and Gregg Powers. Valentine shares and expands on his well-known preference for defined markets over talented entrepreneurial managers, Haseltine describes the genesis of Humane Genome Sciences' innovative drug development platform, and Powers reveals a wonderfully simple and useful way to search for value in annuity business models within the technology sector. Most imporantly, Tanous is a great interviewer and listener, and he draws out great insights from his subjects without making himself the center of the interviews.

Based on his interviews with Gregg Powers in this book and Bruce Sherman in his previous book, I would urge Mr. Tanous to consider writing his next book exclusively about their investment firm, Private Capital Management.

This book amazed me for the wrong reasons. I read it as an investment book but I was blown away by the revelations that these brilliant minds see in our not-so-distant future, like moving objects with our brain (which apparently can be done now) a life expectancy of 120 years, and a bunch of medical breakthroughs just around the corner. Made me forget it was an investment book. I guess I'll have to read it again.

I read this book on the recommendation of a broker. I thought I would just read one or two interviews that interested me (I was particularly interested in developments in new medical procedures) but once I started, I read them all! The author's interviewing style is so easy and non-confrontational that I suspect his subjects lowered their guard and told more than they probably intended to. I found the subject matter fascinating. Here is a living history of some of the greatest investment decisions of all time told by the people who made those decisions. The venture capitalists the author interviewed on Sand Hill Road in California were particularly fascinating to me as they talked about their decisions to invest in legendary companies like Apple and Intel. That led me to wonder what these people like today that I can invest in! Fortunately, the author asks most of the visionaries for ideas and stocks they like now. He lists them all in an appendix while hammering home the point (and he does it a bit too much) that we should remember that these are risky stocks and we shouldn't go overboard. Overall, I found this book fascinating from an historical point of view, and useful in pointing the way new technologies will help us in the near future and maybe make us some money!

According to the Preface, Mr. Borge writes to pique [the reader's] interest in Risk Management. The reader to whom the author is writing is a reader without experience in finance. Indeed, in his effort to avoid the depth or rigor of a risk management textbook, Mr. Borge eliminates much of what a finance professional might find interesting in a book about risk management. Business professionals with a background in finance may find themselves hungry for more substance than the book has to offer.

On the other hand, Mr. Borge successfully describes risk management in terms that individuals without experience in finance will understand. Throughout the book the author applies risk management principles to situations encountered in daily living. These simplified examples give the book a sort of 'Who Moved My Cheese' feel, reinforcing my experience that the book might appeal to non-financial types, while leaving financial-types wanting.

This book, without a doubt, offers a very clear explanation of the basic principles of risk management. The book concentrates on financial applications and even has a chapter in which he creates a CEO scenario for the reader where the ideas of risk are put into practice. Borge also shows how the same principles may be applied to personal life from the decison to marry to what type of home insurance tp purchase. Borge comes across as very affable and this helps to make the subject matter 'friendly' also. However, I doubt this book was ever intended for finance professionals - though it might be useful in introductory courses on risk management. I also think those looking for more philosophical approaches to the subject (for instance Peter L. Bernstein or Nassim N Taleb) of risk may be somewhat disappointed. At anay rate this book offers sensible advice that avoids easy solutions. In an ideal world this book would be outselling Who Moved My Cheese?

This book both addresses risk management from
a professional perspective, and from a personal
level. The examples are abundant, instructive
and highly entertaining!

You can't go wrong with this book.

Kiev's thesis rests upon the premise of setting profit goals and then trying to hit them. The idea is that you will be compelled to refine everthing about your trading and put away all excuses in order to reach this goal -- a sort of goal as catalyst for improvement theory. While this seems like good advice I am afraid that for longer term traders it runs headlong into the "only take what the market gives you" truism. If I set a goal of $10,000 per month, what do I do when the market goes nowhere for four weeks? You guessed it, I would try to force things. Not good. So unless you are willing to accept the thesis of setting specific profit goals you won't gain that much from this book. A much better treatment of general trading psychology can be found in Mark Douglas' "Trading in the Zone".

This was definitely Kiev's best book yet. What made the difference between it and Trading to Win was that it was actually helpful and laid out a course of action. Trading to win was chockful of examples but you were unsure of how you fit into it.
The book is full of little tests to determine what type of trader you are. Unfortunately he is not big on advice you sorta figure that out yourself after reading so many pages of what's your best course of action.
The downside to the book though is the Master Trader section which sorta drones on.
Still his best.

....another 5* piece created by Dr. Kiev. The Psychology of Risk is an excellent tool to improve and build on one's trading technique. whether a novice or an expert, psychology of risk is a must read for all levels...

This very short book can be read in a single sitting. It gives 17 pieces of sound advice for the conservative investor. Much of the advice is fairly obvious to anyone with more than six months of investing experience. Not a book for the daytrader or the system trader.

A must own. If you only buy one book buy this.

This book answered all the questions I had after reading all the other books. It told me everything I needed to know, in a simple, straight-forward way. I live by this book, now, and have done very well by following the advice it contains. I bought a copy for my brother-in-law who also thought it was the best book on finance he'd ever read. I loaned my copy out, didn't get it back and had to buy yet another copy and it's still the best money I've ever spent. I keep hoping Mr. Rodman will write another book that covers market cycles and other more in-depth issues - just for our education.

This is not a reference book, and it's not about "big" theory either. It's pretty practical, and good for self study. You should have access to some econometric/statistical software (i.e. EViews, S-Plus, etc.) to fully understand this book.

I want to see the table of contents of this book. How can the author and the publisher expect people to buy this book without providing the table of the contents?...

This book is awesome. It starts with bedrock concepts needed for analysis of financial data and it takes the student up to the most recent and important techniques used in the industry today. However, if one expects to fully utilize this text, one should have at least one semester of applied econometrics or some equivalent course in statistics and continuous probability, although it will be practical to study the two topics concurrently.

It's difficult to say this politely, but it seems a lot of this material should be credited to Stanley Diller who published "Parametric Analysis" for distribution to Goldman Sachs clients and then expanded on this work at Bear Stearns, and Paine Webber. Stanley is known as the "Father of Convexity" and the work on bond risk measures he did was brilliant and comprehensive. It seems that if work is going to be so heavily borrowed, credit should be prominently given to the source.

Fabozzi has a lot of intuitive books, but I think this is the best concise book out there that give a focused discussion on Convexity and Duration. Lucid on all aspects of bond convexity and a very good analysis of option embedded bonds with negative convexity.

the book gives the fundamentals of risk management. You can grasp the idea of duration, convexity and other commonly used terms. The book especially tells how you will use the terms, not to derive them. I recommend the book, it is indeed useful