Market-prices

As a fairly avid reader of true crime, I am used to the formula of "crime discovered - background of players - investigation/confession - court case - aftermath" so this was a different formula. The horrific, senseless slaughter of two women and a family by a kid barely in his teens is just the beginning as cop Ken Collins and his community mount a campaign to change the circumstances of how juvenile offenders are treated in Rhode Island. Released at age eighteen! Interesting is the side story of Collins' deterioration in his private life as he becomes consumed by his obsession to try and make it right for the memories of the victims. I also would have liked to have had a better sense of the victims themselves instead of the extensive description of the slayer and his life. The book is methodical and factual, not a "keep you up biting your nails and checking the locks" kind of read and occasionally becomes rather plodding at times. yet the story deserves to be told and I did finish it. I gave the book three stars, yet I give the town and the participants who worked toward keeping a killer behind bars a solid five.

I was very surprised to see this book in a local book store. To my knowledge it is the first, and only, book written about the tragic murders committed by Craig Price in Warwick, RI when he was in his early teens. Mr. Price brutally murdered two young women and two young girls for no apparent reason(s). This book describes the brutality or "overkill" inflicted by Mr. Price, but focuses primarily on the efforts of the Rhode Island legal system to keep him in prison past his 18th birthday, as he was a juvenile when he perpetrated these totally hideous murders. I found the book a bit slow moving even though I am very familiar with the Price case. It is not the type of book that grabs one and keeps one reading into the wee hours. At times it tends to drag, in fact. Was the system manipulated in order to keep Mr. Price imprisoned? Without question, in my mind. Was this justified? Again, without any doubts. Mr. Price is a textbook anti-social personality disorder. To my knowledge as a mental health professional with 20+ years experience in the field, there is no treatment or "rehabilitation" for people like Mr. Price. At least no empirical evidence to support such a claim. Mr. Price could be the "poster child" for supporting the death penalty -- certainly he should never, ever be paroled as it is a given that he will once again engage in violent behavior. He deserves life without any possibility whatsoever of parole. Ms. Lang does an admiral job of outlining the positions of both sides, but her writing style can become "boring". Nevertheless she is to be commended for writing about this serial murder case and how it has influenced other states to enact legislation regarding juveniles who committ such horrific crimes. Mr. Price is scheduled to come up for parole in 2005, I believe, although his sentence, based on subsequent convictions for other offenses "should" keep him behind bars until 2018, when he will be approximately 44 years old. A frightening and sobering thought, one that all Rhode Islanders must never, ever forget about.

What a disappointment! I expected some discussion of market indicators and oscillators in timing the markets (see the promo), but instead got "invest in the last two years of a presidential cycle" and if you invest in the years when January is up, then you'll get an additional 0.5% return! While I admit that's timing the market, it's certainly not much to chew on, but I guess someone could make a case for these being indicators? Not me.
There apparently was no proofreader to catch missing verbs, misspellings, incorrect grammar, or to differentiate between "principle" and "principal". A few of the charts and tables bore little resemblance to the accompanying text and a couple end-of-chapter summaries contradicted the text being summarized. Also confusing were the filler chapters giving advice on selecting a financial advisor and how to manage your debt. I didn't see the connection to timing the markets. Nevertheless I did come away with a few choice tidbits, some interesting observations, and a generally better understanding of market behavior so the read was not a total loss, just not what I anticipated.

I thought this book was actually quite good. It does not have the 'magic formula' that some people may be seeking-but then again, no other book does either. There is no magic formula.

Instead, what you have are practical and useful bits of knowledge that can help one understand the overall market cycles.

This book is not trying to sell a system, nor does it attempt to pinpoint entry and exit signals.

Yet, it gives one the tbackground against which one can calculate when to get in and out. This is a guide for the 'forest'. I found it very useful-when trying to navigate between the 'trees'.

I think people that incorrectly anticipate it to be a textbook on mechanically generated entry/exit signals are barking up the wrong tree.
This is excellent basic stuff-I have an MBA and still found it very useful.

Here Ms. Price's use of factual characters works against her a little bit. The story of John McQueen is a little too bogged down in the history of Florida during a time not too many people are familiar with. Maybe too much politics and unfamiliar history for a lot of folks to read on the beach.

if youv,e ever been to an auction and need a quick reference before you bid or buy this little book is for you it fits in your pocket yet speaks volumes when you need a value or some information on about every u.s.coin.

Too technical. Gets trapped into unecessary details. Sometimes theoretical, sometimes practical, but the mix makes it hard to read.

the book was informative and helped me better understand why gas prices were going up in my state.

"The New Global Oil Market" definitely has its moments, and there is definitely a lot here, if you can only find it in this highly uneven book. Chapter 10, for instance, provides an excellent, original look at world oil supply disruptions since 1973. Other chapters, however, ramble on or are badly written and could have used some major editing. In the end, this book, although filled with a lot of good information, is not as useful as it could have been if 1) it had been better organized/edited; and 2) some of the weaker chapters had been eliminated or replaced with better ones on their subjects. Finally, a major problem with this book -- its uneven style, content, and quality -- may have been partly avoidable if the editor had been a bit more ruthless or at least settled on a few themes or approaches by his 25 "experts in the field". On the other hand, it may just be that there is some value in a book which makes clear the lack of consensus among world oil market analysts. Perhaps the "New Global Oil Market"'s goal of creating a comprehensive, succint, and authoritative book on world oil markets may, despite its best efforts, was simply unreachable.

The Dow 36,000 Theory is all about predicting a paradigm shift in current investors' perceptions. Tomorrow's investors are expected to forsake the old paradigm and embrace a new one. Authors James K. Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett present the "discounted dividend" model of the stock market as their reason why stock prices will soar, eventually. In 1999, they said it could happen anytime but put a window on it of 3-5 years. Hasn't happened yet. But this book is important as a look-see into how academic constructs originate and work their way into "commonly accepted stock market wisdom." The P/E was once a kernel of an idea in someone's head. Now, it's the basic way to value stocks. So, conceptions do change over time.
Dividends, say Glassman and Hassett, whether paid out quarterly or totally retained in the company, are the only important way to determine a company's true worth. They call it the PRP (perfectly reasonable price).
To justify lofty expectations, the words "assume" and "assumption" are used dozens of times and lie at the bottom of what, so far, is wrong with this concept. Just because they calculate something as being worth many times what it's selling for today doesn't mean prices will skyrocket tomorrow. It requires acknowledgement and action by investors. We're back to the old high school conundrum of whether a tree makes any noise if it falls in a forest without anybody hearing it. It this case, the question is whether a stock will ever sell at its "true value" if nobody ever bids the price up that far? Obviously not.
Their credo, "Buy anytime, hold forever," as well as the recommended use of index funds is a recipe for never having to admit you're wrong regardless of what happens to your investment account. You never have to confront performance because that far away goal just hasn't been reached yet. Continue to hold. It's an enviable position, if you can get people to take you seriously. But Dow 36,000...is it possible? Sure, anything is possible if the paradigm shifts. It's shifted before and will shift again. The trouble with paradigm shifts is like Greenspan's recognition of a bubble. You won't know about it until it's already happened...and then it's too late,,,

That remains to be seen. If you are a fan of Glassman, then buy this book, it is an extension of his writing genius as well as his understanding of the fundamental forces that guide the market. Before you assume that I advocate the DOW 36,000 theory let me just state: according to the book, the theories, and the math, it is an entirely plausible conclusion to reach, however, my personal view is that yes the equity premium is diminishing, but I don't think that it will ever equalize with the bond market. Equity consumers (i.e. investors) are very caught up in the short-term environment, no matter how well a company is project to do, if there is a strong rumor or stumble along the way, the price is going to tank.

That being said, I think DOW 36,000 is a fabulous book that has stirred up a hornets nest of protest by suggesting that the "fundamentals" are based on some assumptions, that over the history of time, have proven to be erroneous. Glassman and Hassett spell this out and show a "new way" to value companies. Outstanding work gentlemen.

The point of this book is to revolutionize investing. By the debate it has caused in the "intellectual" communities, I think it has done just that. People such as Burton Malakeil (sorry for the misspelling) and Paul Kruger have addressed the DOW 36,000 theory, and while they did not support it, they still have opened the doors to discussion. When barriers are knocked down and a new inquiry begins one of two things can happen: 1. The old way is proven to be inferior. Or 2. The old way is proven to be superior. I am not claiming that the old way is inferior or superior, I am just looking forward to the debate.

Fool on (to those who understand what I mean!)

A wonderful book that has increased my wealth markedly by reading it. I am a contraian investor and took this as my final signal that the top was in. Such Bullish sentiment is helpful in telling me when I need to get short asap. Regards to the authors , thanks for swelling my trading account, shame you had to screw over countless people who actually took your mindless pap seriously!

Also if you are one of those CNBC watching muppets and think the bearmarket is over think again. I will go long again when these guys release the "dow will never break 1000 again" I await with baited breath! :-) the best market timing tool I have ever used keep up the good work!

From the content to the writing style this book scores a zero. The book is more of a sales piece for another book Stridsman wrote. I have never heard of someone being so stuck on percentages. Stridsman should be a middle school math teacher. Of course percentages are important, but I don't think we need to pay nearly 40 dollars for a magazine columnist to tell us that. I guess if you happen to want to buy his code for tradestation you might find the book more interesting, but you can get that stuff for free off of many sites. Don't waist your money.

Wow, what can I say? This is a huge disappointment. I don't think you really need this book because Stridsman's first book is good enough and better. The problem with this book is that the systems are rehashes of articles that the author has already written for Active Trader magazine, and the systems are not even that good. This book is "been there, done that" -- it does not advance the technical analysis literature with any new concepts or ideas. I had a strange feeling of deja vu only a few pages into the book. Again, I am really surprised that this book was released - cannot recommend it at all.

It doesn't matter how great your system is if you don't have a relevant money management strategy that will sustain you for the long run. Mr.Stridsman does just that. He does not pull punches in showing the relevance of trading systems and how useless they are if there is no money management component.

He then goes on to show you how to combine these two seemingly disparate concepts into concrete solution for trading jus about any market.

Where he falters is in the mechanics of the actual items that you can trade. Especially with single stock futures now on the scene I would have like to have seen some examples of single stock futures in the book. In this instance I would combine Mr.Stridsman concepts with the book "Single Stock Futures For Small Speculators" or "Futures For Small Speculators".

Otherwise I was thoroughly impressed.

Yanis, with an impressive bio listing time at GE on defense contracts and the Navy's AEGIS system, pitches his personal (Y-anis) system to beat the market. Problem is, he is so focused on backtesting the system, he fails to realize that he never defines the rules for using his system in real time. Y-factor is an exponential moving average of Friday's closing price for the S&P500 for the last 16 Fridays. Yanis finds buy and sell signals when the daily S&P index crosses the interpolated moving average between Fridays. Of course, the investor will not be able to compute the buy or sell signal until the following Friday's numbers are posted! Yanis never says how the real time investor is supposed to get his buy/sell signals. If Yanis's buy and sell signals are used when they can actually be computed, that is after the following Friday's numbers are in, the backtested results lose major money. One wonders how this got past the editor and publisher.

Net result? This book makes me wonder what has been going on between GE and the Navy with all that defense money during the author's career there.

I read the book with great interest and I was initially really excited about the trading strategy proposed, i.e. to use a exponential moving average to trade S&P 500 (i.e. SPY, which is listed on AMEX). The author concludes that the strategy will help you to increase returns AND reduce risk. The problem is that the author has made, explicitly or implicitly, a couple of crucial simplifying assumptions that are flawed, e.g. no transaction costs, prices move in a straight line from one Friday to the next (the author backtested his method only on weekly data although the strategy should be executed on a daily basis), no intraday or intraweek whipsaws, no spreads, perfect market liquidity etc.

I backtested the strategy on a daily basis (using the daily closing prices) for the last 62 years and concluded that even with no transaction costs/spreads you cannot increase your return compared to the buy and hold strategy. However you can reduce your risk by being out of stock market roughly 1/3 of the time. I also backtested the strategy for the last 14 years taking into account the opening, high, low and closing prices during the day to better account for intra-day swings. The conclusion was the same.

To sum it all up - it seems to be possible to reduce the risk of your SPY holding (i.e. the S&P 500 ETF listed on AMEX) if you are prepared to do extensive trading (i.e. at least one trade a month, which is twice as many trades as the author predicts is necessary), but do not expect any extra returns. In fact, I conclude it's more likely that you'll achieve slightly lower returns than a buy and hold investor over the long term.

My background is as an auditor and computer programmer. I read every book I find on stock market timing and run them through personal computerized back testing. Very few market timing systems work - at least the ones that are published.

Mr. Yanis uses a simple moving average to time the market but with a couple technique twists. Most moving average systems used by themselves cause excessive trades and false signals. The Y-Process system also suffers from that but to a lesser extent. The meat of this book is all in one chapter.

The book is well written and the system's weaknesses honestly reported. The actual returns are documented. He uses a hard to understand method to show buy/sell points and to calculate returns - it should have been done differently.

The timing process requires tracking a few numbers but nothing complicated and it has beaten buy and hold by avoiding major downturns. What's more, this book was published in 2000 prior to the worst of the market collapse and would have gotten you out close to the top. As of September 2002 it's still signaling to stay clear of stocks. If nothing else, this may provide a way to determine when the current bear market has spent most its energy. I'd say that's worth the price of admission, wouldn't you?