Market-price

I read this book and the rest of the "Adventure" series in grade school over thirty years ago. After a ten year search for copies of the books, I finally went back to that elementary school library two thousand miles from current home to track down the author so I could buy these wonderful stories for my son. No single author has had a more lasting impact on my life. I encourage you you to read "Amazon Adventure" and all the rest with your family, just like you've done with "Harry Potter."

I read this book as a young girl (at my brother's recommendation). It is one of my all-time favorites. Very exciting! I would really encourage parents to buy it for their daughters, as well as their sons. Like the Harry Potter books, its appeal is universal.

I'm 44 years old and after all these years I still remember living these adventures with Hal and Roger. As a 9 year old I read every book in the series that I could get my hands on. It kindled my love for books. I'm now ordering all of the "Adventure..." books I can for my boys. If you have young children with an active imagination, I highly recommend this series. I hope that it sparks in them a life-long love for reading.

Would never sell this book! Would never loan this book! But you can come to my house and look at it. Every bit of information (and there is a lot) is absolutely accurate!
My friend Joann and I had planned two weeks in Paris, just for Flea Markets, when my "brilliant" friend Annie in California sent me this book. I can't image my "hunt" without it. It made preparing for the trip a blast and the actual running around a breeze. Thank you Sandy. I would buy anything that you wrote. To the rest of you: Don't even think about it. Just buy the book and hop on a plane. Take along Sandy's advice and extra suitcases!

Thank you, Sandy, for this great book! Just returned from Paris where 3 other antique dealers and I visited all the markets listed for Paris that were available in November. The information was accurate and honest and the directions very complete. This is a great time saver for serious shoppers like we are and enabled us to maximize our limited time in Paris. We plan to use the other sections of the book on a future trip (soon we hope!) and recommend it to others we discover that are planning a shopping trip in France. Well worth the modest price!

I roadtested this book on a recent trip to Provence and it was just what I needed. Not only did it tell me about the markets and their wares, but it also directed me to the best meal of my trip. The other big plus was useful French phrases for transactions with vendors who had little English.

Market Models is an essential tool for practioners who would like to gain fundamental expertise on financial modeling. Aside from the practical view, Alexander's book has got such a clear and comprehensive reading that even the most inexpert individuals can get enthusiastically involved in learning issues related to risk management, investment analysis and financial forecasting. Recent econometric techniques on time series are brilliantly applied with real examples on the finance field. The book demonstrates that the author has a great knowledge on both a theoretical as well as a practical basis on market modeling and knows how to combine the two aspects in a very intelligent way. I considered this book to be a fundamental reference for either financial profesionals and academics.

Targeted towards practitioners concerned with model development, the book addresses key issues in market risk measurement, quantitative trading and investment analysis in a very systematic and clear exposition. I find it particularly reassuring that someone with the author's academic background and hands-on expertise has decided to undertake the responsibility of putting-up a comprehensive guide to financial modelling, from the basic use of financial data to statistical techniques selection and model implementing. Particular attention is paid to supporting each subject with real-world examples, both within the text and in the associated CD. Moreover, the spreadsheets contained by the CD can always represent a useful reference for building your own models. As I find this book really helpful for applied, but also academic model development, I recommend it highly.

If you are looking for detailed rigorous mathematical development then look elsewhere, that is not the reason to purchase this book. It is targeted towards application and there it excels. I have not seen any other book on this topic that so effectively presents a level-headed applied approach that keeps the basic assumptions of the models firmly in sight.
What tool fits when is nicely discussed.

I think Dorothy Garlock's books could be rated on separate items e.g. time setting, characters, plot, descriptions. Ribbon in the Sky I thought:
The setting: great
The characters: interesting
The plot: good
The descriptions: excellent.
I left the story a little sad for people that read and quoted scripture yet knew nothing of forgiveness, repentance or unity.

This is one great book!!! The romance is sizzling, and the characters are unforgetable!! I couldn't put this book down, and am now anxious for my next Dorothy Garlock book!

Tension and excitement are found on every page, as Letty and Mike fall in love, then lose each other due to Letty's father. When Letty - fifteen, pregnant, and terrified - seeks out her grandparents that she doesn't even know, in hopes they will take her in until Mike finds her, you can feel the fear with every word Ms. Garlock writes. Throughout the story, you feel all the growing pains of Letty as she becomes a woman and mother.

Mike Dolan comes home from working in the logging camp to hearing that Letty has become ill and died at her grandparent's farm. Mike begins a reckless life when joining the war, and when he finally gets out... decides to visit Letty's gravesite, hoping he'll be able to move on. Only instead of a gravesite for his dear Letty, he finds out she is alive... and with another last name... could she actually be alive?? ... and is she married???

In addition, the story includes murder and threats from Letty's family after many years... these items will keep you turning the pages!

This is a touching story, and if the romance doesn't draw you in... the relationship of Mike Dolan with his son, Patrick, will. Great story... and as always with Ms. Garlock, great selection of characters!!!

This book was by far the most romantic, exciting, and wonderful book I have ever read. Dorothy Garlock is a fantastic story teller. Her characters are great people especially the men. This is not something that you normally find with other romance books. If you don't read this book and get excited when they finally find each other, then you are not human. Take my advice, buy and READ this book!

This is the best book available on interest rate models. Very detailed. Much more focused and readable than Rebonato's book. More pragmatic and explicit than Musiela and Rutkowski. Not as theoretical as Hunt and Kennedy. James and Webber also looks very good, but I'm not that familiar with it. All other books have only bits and pieces on interest rates.

With all the due respect to the other authors I would say that if one is interested in a good theoretical book whihc is also good on the implementation side then the book of Brigo and Mercurion is definetly the best book I have ever read on the subject.

Anyone interested in implementing the LMM/BGM/MSS model in practice is well advised to read it.

I would just say that this is certainly a must have in the field.

In the late nineties I went through Brigo's innovative work on stochastic nonlinear filtering with differential geometry techniques. I was favorably impressed by results and style, particularly in his dissertation and in his 'geometry in present day science' very readable overview. Interesting results are found and nicely told with accurate - but not pointlessly complicated - advanced mathematics for the problems at hand, I reasoned.

I've followed a similar path from control to finance, and having worked with interest rate models, I couldn't help but order this Brigo-Mercurio book. I had high expectations 'cause these two guys are working in a bank on the real thing.

Sure enough I'm not disappointed.

1-factor models are handled with great care, a ton of formulas and recipes are given. I've never seen this kind of analysis of pricing with Gaussian 1-f models. The new upgrade of the CIR model is interesting and accurate. "CIR++" is now my favorite 1-f model. I like the treatment of lognormal 1-f models and the explanation of Monte Carlo and trees -- the flow-chart for Bermudan swaptions is crystal clear! Plots of market implied structures and volatility calibration are useful additions.

The chapter on 2-f extensions has one of the best discussions on volatility, and two tons of useful formulas/recipes. Two dimensional trees!

The HJM chapter size is OK. I agree - the useful models embedded in HJM are short rate models and market models.

Market models - these three chapters alone are worth the book. You'll find yourself nodding as you read the guided tour. They make it look easy all the time. The exposition is focused, clear, intuitive, detailed. There's also new stuff, just check the calibration discussion! Smile modeling begins with a brilliant tour and ends with Brigo-Mercurio's new approach - the mixing dynamics - deserving a whole chapter if expanded.

The detailed explanation on products is a much welcome original addition. Cross currency derivatives!

Quotes - as in Brigo's old work - are a pleasant diversion while reading. The 500 and more pages are a treat given the competitive price.

Still there's room for improvements - more "CIR2++"! Something on 3-f models. Historical estimation of the correlation matrix and low-rank optimized approximations. Expand smile modeling! More hedging. Something on structured products. Cross currency libor model. chapter 9 - other interest rate models - sounds out of place and can be suppressed for other things.

This book rings true and has useful teachings for students, academics and practitioners. Although it requires some background in stochastic calculus, it's hard to beat on the pricing front. Kudos to Brigo and Mercurio! It only harms there aren't enough books like this.

"The Price of Vigilance" by Larry Tart and Robert Keefe is noteworthy for it makes us aware of not only the need for such flights but how costly some are in human sacrifice. The recent Chinese incident is likened to many such episodes during the Cold War, although many were not so lucky and paid the supreme sacrifice; such as the crew of 17 of the C-130 turbojet shot down September 2, 1958 near the Turkish-Soviet Armenian border. My brother M/Sgt George P. Petrochilos was one of the 17 who perished that day.

The authors also in their informative way present the technology and terminology in a clear and comprehensible manner. When one reads this book they can readily understand the need for intelligence surveillance flights. I heartily recommend reading "The Price of Vigilance."

Theresa Petrochilos Durkin

The Price of Vigilance is one of the most informative and historical books of the Cold War that I have had the pleasure to read. I have used this book for researching my own book, THESE GUYS, to come out in about 18 months. The unit 6901st in Zweibrucken (West Germany at the time of Cold War) is mentioned many times, which is difficult to find, if at all. The transcript of MIG Pilots shooting down our C-130 - tail # 60528 is hair raising. This is reality. This is military history at it's best. Writing is superb!Citations are as good as the book! Well done, Larry Tart and Bob Keefe. I salute you.

"The Price of Vigilance" would probably be a great PhD dissertation in military history. The reporting is very detailed, and the analysis seems to be objective. The last 50 pages of the book are appendices, reference notes, and an index. Included are many excerpts of letters, reports, and interviews. These excerpts give the book a human touch and help liven up the at-times monotonous recitation of facts and timelines.

The first chapter of the book was written after most of the manuscript was complete, as a review and partial analysis of the EP-3E incident on Hainan Island, China, in April 2001. The book went to press before the plane was returned to the U.S., but the authors comment on changing attitudes in the world of airborne surveillance as compared to the height of the Cold War.

If you're a SERIOUS student of surveillance activities in the the Cold War, you'll find this to be a worthy textbook. More casual readers will probably have trouble getting all the way through.

In this last part of the Vanyel trilogy, Mercedes Lackey really shows off all of her style. Although the two books before 'Magic's Price' was good, the last one stuck with me forever. The thing that I like about her books is that she really makes you feel like Vanyel is *real.* His emotions, his terrors, his pain, and his joys are all really felt and no one who reads this book can put it down without feeling sorry for Van. As for the subject of Van's apparent homosexuality, at first, I was shocked because he was the first gay character that I've ever read about. But Mercedes handles the subject greatly, and doesn't go into much detail about his love life like some other authors would. Also, his lover is shown to be a very supportive character, who helps Van through the toughest time. Mercedes' last Mage book also tackles some taboo issues, which I really liked. For one, the homosexuality is a biggie, which she does in a way that is either criticizing nor patronizing. She just tells it like it is. And the subject of male gang-rape in the book is also handled delicately, which I was impressed with. That subject is hardly read about or known, and Mercedes has enough guts to present that trial of Van's life in such a way that I felt sorry for Van by the end of that chapter. What I do say is that this is not your ordinary 'swords & sorcery' book, but it's one of the best fantasy stories out there. It's sensitive, touching, and immensely pleasing and controversial so that it challenges your beliefs and heart. I would recommend it!

-Oh gods- There are so many ways to tell why this trilogy has become my number one favorite set of books. I am re-reading "Magic's Pawn" for the upteenth time and it never ceases to move my heart. Once my friend lent me her copy of "Magic's Pawn", I couldn't stop. I was so gratefull that she owned the whole trilogy or I would have gone crazy and bought them all at once, which I did later...
Anyways, about "Magic's Price": It, along with "Magic's Pawn", is one of my favorite books in the world. By the end, I was in tears, sobbing, because I truly loved this book and felt moved by it. It starts out with an older Vanyel sparring with Herald Tantras. Later on in the book, he meets a talented Bard named Stefen, whom he... Oh, I don't want to give away too much. It covers their adventure thought the perils of Valdemar. Something is coming... And only the last Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron can stand against it.
I can only hope to encourage people to read this trilogy and all other books by Mercedes Lackey. Her world of Valdemar will be treasured in my heart as an escape to a world of fantasy that I truly love.

This is, without a doubt, a wonderful ending to the trilogy. It's heartbreaking, and I cry every time I read the last two or three chapters, because they are beautifully written and sad but happy at the same time. You absolutely HAVE to buy this trilogy.

The preponderance of research for the past 100 years or so has demonstrated convincingly that stock markets are pretty efficient and that stock prices move randomly, or almost randomly. That is a strong argument against trying to time the market. Author Leslie N. Masonson disagrees, contending that if you use a few simple techniques to time the market, you can avoid losses and wind up with a more profitable portfolio than if you simply bought a representative selection of stocks and held them, as most financial advisors now recommend. He could have presented more evidence to support his opinion, but he is honest enough to contrast his point of view with the many arguments against attempting to time the market. He acknowledges that timing requires certain staunch character traits that are far from universally present in the investing populace. That is to his credit. Also to his credit, according to us, is the fact that he usefully defines and discusses a number of trading techniques and information sources that even non-investors should know about and that investors should understand

I have been a trader for years, actively trading well over a 100,000 shares a day, while managing a substantial portfolio. I have read most of the "I have a winning stock market strategy for you" books over the past several years. Aside from a handful they all were relatively disappointing. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this, "Market Timing", book. Many of the, "Market Strategy" books I have read require the investor to spend an unrealistic amount of time managing their investments and require them to have an in depth understanding of the stock market. I found much of the information to be eye opening and enlightening, even for a professional, and the strategies quite useful. If the author's goal was to provide investors with a No Nonsense perspective of the market and strategies to increase their total return while significantly decreasing their risk over the long term, then mission accomplished. I strongly recommend this book to amateur and professional investors.

I have been investing since the mid 60's and the philosophy I follow, spelled out by all the stock mavens, is to buy "quality" and "hold". Masonson's book points out the folly of this approach. He makes a convincing case that in spite of all the wisdom that I have absorbed over 40 years, that "it ain't so". I will need to spend more time digesting his simple marketing timing strategies. In the future, I expect to be a smarter investor and not sit tight when the market is collapsing. Thanks for opening my eyes to the real world of investing. This book is well written, has tons of interesting facts, and lays bare the critical importance of cutting losses short and investing with the odds in your favor.

I was not sure what to expect when I picked up the book, but for [the price] why not check it out. It was much better than anything I expected or have read in similar titles. The author gives the reader a solid foundation for entering and exiting low priced stocks. The book is filled with lots of good examples of the right time to buy beaten up stocks. The primary focus of his selection technique is technical analysis, although there is a fundamental bent thrown in. If you are thinking that there are bargins to be had after the past 2 years in the market, this is a title well worth checking out.

Very helpful in determining what, where, and when to buy stocks that have experience significant correction. Since the latest 2000 correction in the market, one would think that people will pay more attention to this type of thinking rather than simple momentum investing.

Excellent details, charts, graphs and explanations of how to chart the beginning of a turnaround for stocks that have been corrected or depressed.

The title of this book is a bit misleading in that it mentions the words "hidden values" which are usually associated with fundamental analysis. In fact, this book advocates stock trading based on charts. Everybody knows that we should "buy low and sell high". But when is the price of a stock "low"? This book will give you an answer.

... I started out with thte harperhall trilogy and i found that AMAZING! Her style is just so good, she keeps the chapters flowing nicely into each other. And romance laced with the excitement! I spent the whole day reading Dragonsong! Well, I got hooked!

I had final exams and couldn't read as much but I finished the rest of the HarperHall trilogy right after. I started the dragonriders of pern series and Dragonflight was just plain good!

The book is about Lessa who had to hide and pretend to be a drudge when her family was murdered by Fax, a ambitious man who controlled seven holds. She came out of hiding to announce her birthright to Ruatha Hold. But she met F'lar who told her she could be a dragonrider. Thus begins a plot of romance (with F'lar of course!) and saving all of Pern. Yes, I love romance!

I have finished the next two books, Dragonquest and The White Dragon. They too are marvelous books and I plan to get those three for Christmas. They too are great with of romance (F'nor and Brekke, Jaxom and Sharra) and excitement.I have a goal to finish the rest of the Dragonriders trilogy.

I never really had a favorite author but now I can for certain say that Anne McCaffery is my favorite author! But I still don't have a favorite book yet because..... There's too many Dragonrider of Pern books to pick from!

I really hope more people will read this book...

I only got acquainted with Anne McCaffrey this year, I am affraid. My first book by this author wasn't even related in any way with the Chronicles of Pern but it introduced me to an author who has now become one of my favorites. I had heard of these series of books and heard people talking of them. Living in Portugal as I do, you cannot find books as well as you can in the United States or in England, for example, and I had to read this series in English, which I did not mind at all. But it took a lot of searching...

The fact is, it was worth it. In no time I had become an addict to this author's works and when I first read Dragonflight, I was hooked on the marvellous world Pern was and the amazing relationship between man and dragon, a relationship based on love and trust... and necessity. This is an amazing introduction to a world and a society brought to us by the imaginative mind of Anne McCaffrey.

Lessa is of the Ruatha Blood and when her Hold is conquered by the greedy High Reaches Holder Fax, she sweares vengeance. Working as a drudge, plotting the death of Fax, with a watch wher as her only friend, she grows up for ten Turns with the thought of regaining her Hold from Fax's hands. During the Dragonriders of Pern Search, she sees the opportunity to get rid, once and for all, of Fax. But instead of becoming Holder of Ruatha, she is given the choice of becoming Weyrwoman in the only Weyr left. The Dragonmen of Pern are sworn to fight Thread, the threat which plagues the wonderful world of Pern, a threat long forgotten as it has not returned. But the pass of the Red Star promises the return of the Thread, even if only F'lar, rider of Bronze Mnementh, believes the time has come. In the Weyr a last Golden Egg of a Queen lies, awaiting hatching, when Impression will be made (the total empathic connection between man and dragon), awaiting a Weyrwoman to take the place of the old and a new Queen to reborn the Dragonrider's of Pern who will need all their courage and strength to fight for the future of their world. Will Lessa and F'lar succeed when the Dragonriders have fallen into disgrace to the eyes of the Holders? When a threat is no longer perceived as existent, how can one hope to protect themselves? When hope is lost... there is a spark that will brighten and bring hope back... a spark in the hands of the Dragonriders of Pern...

I highly recommend this book, the first of a worldwilde cult of the amazing chronicles of the Dragonriders of Pern.

Elves shooting bows, dwarves built like solid stone, and wizards enchanting little creatures with magical spells. Doesn't all that fantasy stuff get kind of boring after awhile? Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, Sword of Shannarah, and many others are all the same, just with different names in different places doing different things. For the first time, I have finally read a fantasy novel that is different. With unimaginable imagination, author Anne McCaffrey creates a whole world of fantasy very different from the traditional styles. With realistic descriptions, complicated twists in plots, and a great, drawing style of writing, the author takes you on a journey you'd never thought existed. With the idea of dragons and humans as the main figment of fantasy in this novel, Anne McCaffrey combines just enough modern day sci-fi with medieval fantasy to create one great novel. Combining the ideas of dragons with a modern world where planets orbiting each other cause dangers, the author creates a magical world you would've thought had never existed. Not giving too much at a time, the author slowly draws you in and slowly, things become more and more clear as you near the end of the book. Many a time I have had to slap my head and say, "Geez! How come I never thought of that?" The complicated plot makes it hard for readers to guess the story and not get any delight out of reading it and being surprised by the answers they find to the plots. Though the book has a rather weak introduction and takes a while for the reader to get completely drawn into the world of Pern and it's dragons, it doesn't take long before you are unable to put the book down again. The suspense that the author creates at the climax of this book is amazing. I read for 5 straight hours through the climax because it was simply too fantastic to put down. I just HAD to know what happened next. Like an addiction, the book just draws you back and back like a magical spell was cast on you. Anne McCaffrey makes it seem so realistic that it's as if I was there throughout this whole adventure! After reading this book, I can't stop daydreaming day after day what a life on Pern with dragons would be like!