Money-market-security

The book contains some basic ideas in the earliy chapters. I was expecting to get something more this for one main reason: It has been found that many novices do not know or care much about money management. It is really the experienced trader, especially the one that has lost their stake completely that then goes in search of money management strategies and usually these people would have already covered the basics somewhere already, with the amount of free literature given by the exchanges and brokerage firms. Estimating "risk and reward" by the use of head and shoulders, triangles, channels is very basic to my understanding and to that of most futures traders.

For my personal use, I had found that the chapter on money management found in Larry William's "Definitive Guide To Futures Trading" has been more useful to me than this entire book

While a large percentage of individuals do not achieve financial success in the futures markets, traders who do succeed possess a solid understanding of risk and exercise a disciplined program of loss containment and money management. Nazer J. Balsara's Money Management Strategies For Futures Traders provides a wealth of materials for futures and stocks traders alike. The book is a must-read and a relatively easy-read for those who wish to enhance their risk management sophistication with complex tools and who believe that the best way to survive and prosper in the markets it to contain your losses, play defensively and let profits ride.

All trading opportunities are not created equally and part of a trader's job is ferreting out the best markets to trade. The chapter on commodity selection presents four approaches to market selection, based largely on the work of J. Welles Wilder, the father of ADX (Average Directional Index Indicator) and RSI (Relative Strength Index). Here, the book is a good review of Wilder's ADX but focuses on the less-known aspect of his work: the commodity selection index. Wilder's approach uses ADX to identify futures yielding the greatest dollar-value price-moves for a given margin investment, in short, getting you in on the most appealing trades. Balsara also shows the utility of Wilder's price movement index when it is it is not possible to determine or estimate reward, thereby enhancing the analysis and return in mechanical trading systems. Sharpe ratios are also considered as a way of measuring risk-adjusted returns.

The text gives useful approaches to managing risk through stop-loss orders by laying out the usage of time stops, dollar-value stops and volatility stops. There is also a presentation on how to survive locked-limit markets by creating synthetic options positions, spreads or offsetting positions in the cash markets.

A studied read of this finance professor's work will help traders develop both the skill and the art of disciplined risk-taking.

I only wish I had utilized the statistical tools the author provides earlier in my trading career. However, I did find the book in time. Don't let the reference to statistics scare you. The author uses basic alegebra to aid you in trade selection and risk control.

This book may not guarantee you success in trading, but I do believe that if one does not apply the basic money management principles presented by Prof. Balsara, sooner or later, failure in the futures market is almost certain.

If you can't name the 5 basic steps of money management, I suggest you stop trading immediately, get this book with a couple of ticks worth of money you'll not be losing while your not trading. Read it a few times, set up your money management spreadsheet and may you trade with clarity previously unknown in your endeavors in the futures market.

While the author has tons of documentation about panics and bear markets, he fails to draw conculsions and suggestions together. Advice is scattered hither and yon. It looks like a collection of short pieces stuck together. It would have been much more useful to summarize the findings and organize the evidence behind it. This book doesn't know if it is history or "how to" book. However, it is the best (maybe only) summary of past panics and bear markets so it is good to have in an investor's library.

It seems that whenever prices are "too high", I tend to go looking for bargains in the cheap stocks department (read "losers"). Then when the whole market takes a dive, and brings even the strongest stocks down with it, I'm too frightened (or too broke) to think about throwing more money into this "beast" that ate my dreams of early retirement. This book showed me how specific events throughout the 20th century both internal and external to the market have over and over again provided excellent buying opportunities for those quality stocks you wished you had bought way back when they were so much cheaper. In a test of real life application, it gave me the historical perspective and confidence to jump in and buy at a time when everyone else was bailing out. It was largely responsible for my purchase of the two leading Internet portal stocks near their Oct 98 market crash lows; and my ability to buy the leading online "bookseller" (starts with an "A", and ends with an "mzN") at its exact bottom (less than a point) during the Feb 99 technology selloff. When applied to high quality growth stocks, "Panic Profits" offers you a fast, safe, and very simple (I love that word) approach to making big money in the stock market. Some gems of wisdom contained in this book: * "It's never too late to sell on a rally". * "Reflex rallies in the most hammered stocks offer ultra quick reliable profits". * "Rewards come from contrary action, not from sophisticated or complex strategy or analysis". * "IPO's & new ideas require more time, money, management, etc. than early investors ever expect". * "Recognize rolling declines of a bear market. Bear markets will bleed you to death - SELL!". * "Panic selloffs tend to periodically cleanse the market of weak money, and sets up for the next big advance". In my experience, the market sells off once or twice a year. "Panic Profits" will help you be prepared for the next big "opportunity", to see through your fear, and to act wisely (and profitably). It's simple. It works. I love this book.

This classic of basic definitions has a new edition that came out in 1999. Although I have not yet read that one, I do suggest that you skip this one.

The book is filled with discussions of how investors value stocks that few serious investors would recognize. There is almost nothing about investing outside the United States. NASDAQ gets almost no mention. The information about discount brokers is wrong. The terminology for describing many types of stocks was never correct, as best as I can recall.

The facts that are correct relate mostly to trivia, like what the number on a stock certificate means. It could help you answer a question on Do You Want To Be a Millionaire? but has little other practical use. Many of these facts (such as how to read the stock tables) can be garnered by simply reading the footnotes in The Wall Street Journal or Barron's.

This book is a good example of the communication stall. We tend to believe everything that we read from what should be reliable sources, even when the information is often faulty.

Donald Mitchell....

This book is excellent for people who are new to investing and managing their own money. It is colorful, easy to read, gives great real-life examples and provides a great index to the book can be used as a referrence manual. The book can be read rather quickly to give someone a feel for understnading stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures and money in general. It's a must read prior to investing money.

general information about mutual fund, something you can easily find on the internet.

It seems to be a very useful and helpful book for me. Since I usually ask the opinions about the mutul funds from my financial advisor, I found this book can even replace him! Now, I am waiting for the profits I will get from buying those mutul funds.

A mutual fund is essentially held by shareholders and managed
for an investment fee. This book discusses some of the top
mutual funds in the market together with the considerable
returns. Top funds are American Century Global Gold,
Vanguard Health, Longleaf Partners, Clipper and Calamos Growth.
These funds all have a double digit yearly rate of return.
Aggressive growth funds tend to have the maximal capital gains.
These funds can turn downward in a faltering economy so it is
critical to invest coincidentally with an upturn. If you catch
the bottom of a recession and invest, it is possible to
have three to four times your money in just a few years.
Many of these funds have good investment newsletters which
are important to read carefully. The key is to diversify risk
by placing your portfolio in a managed risk mix of investments.
i.e. safe returns, intermediate risk and aggressive funds

clearly written by a pair of highly intelligent intellectuals. it is a pity they cannot comunicate.

The authors not only demonstrate their understanding of financial markets by way of the breadth and precision of the topics discussed, but they also present the material in a way that is understandable to even those uninitiated in finance. If you are looking to learn the basic concepts underlying the various markets (equity, bond, mortgage, etc.), and you are interested by the wide range of pricing tools available today, this book is up your alley.

This is one the best introductory textbooks on the subject of financial markets and institutions. It is comprehensive and full of examples and exercises. The authors do an excellent job of presenting complex concepts in a relatively simple and straightforward style. Highly recommended.

I found Mr. Dines book to be big on price and small on continuity and meaning. The text moves in and out of ideas so quickly that it is difficult to decipher any point to his many colorful stories. His personal philosophies don't really teach you much in the end. I would not recommend the book to anyone hoping to learn more about investing.

Although this book is full of cool stuff about mass psychology, with lots of examples to prove the points, it got a little dry and repetitive after awhile. Also, the price makes me want to puke. The cartoons added all over the place helped put a bit of life into the reading though.

This book is not really about investing. Although it's teachings about human herd mentally can help you in the stock market this book is about much more. It is more a philosphical journey. The chapters on Paradox and Low and High states can allow you to look at the own occurances in your life to see why you maybe or may not be struggling.

In addition, the Dines Girls are total babes.

At one point this might have been a useful book, but it's dated and not all that useful in today's fast-changing market. Where's the reference to day trading?

With the advance in investing software and the development of internet sites which specialize in charts, quote, portfolio tracking and news, this book is out of date. All of the software reviewed in the book is also out of date by about two years.

I consider myself a fairly knowledgable investor. I bought this book thinking I might pick up a little information about on-line investing. It turned out that I learned a whole lot more. Even if one doesn't invest on-line, Jubak's process of evaluating a stock is great. The book is a 'little' bit dated, but otherwise right on target. I highly recommend the book and Jubak's many articles on the Microsoft Investor web site.

from experience i am familiar with the subject of the book well, and it seems to me that the author attempts to overthrow logic in this work. A waste of money and time...

Hi Readers,

I have enjoyed myself tremendously, reading 'Armchair Tycoon' and 'Poolside Tycoon', by Malcolm Stacey. As a successful and active investor for over ten years, and had read many investment books before, I have finally found two books, which are confidence boosting, truthful, informative, easy and fun to read - ones that I could not put down.

They now sit on my desk as reference books. They would make perfect Christmas presents too, for people I care about, and would like them to invest wisely for a better future. All the tools one needs are in these books.

Now, may I thank you all, for letting me have my say!

Best regards, Readers and Amazon.com.

Jo.Bradley.

A one-star Amazon review of the late Marcia Stigum's book: "The Money Market" denigrates her work, but recommends this book. Coincidentally it seems to have appeared just after a reviewer recommended her book over "The Repo Handbook" authored by Choudhry, one of the authors of this book.

It hardly seems sporting to denigrate the excellent work of Ms. Stigum when she is no longer able to set the record straight. Her classic work on the U.S. markets that allows one to deduce the dynamics - and equips one to solve the mathematics - of the global money markets deserves high honors.

The unsportsmanlike behavior doesn't end there, since it seems that books with titles that compete with Mr. Choudrhy's upcoming releases have multiple one-star reviews from obvious pseudonyms and free internet accounts. The books that get the most attention from this stalker are the most commercially successful in the competing areas. Perhaps it is a fan gone mad, or perhaps there is a more obvious explanation.

I would have given this book three stars, but I deducted for bad sportsmanship.

This is a timely book that covers in great detail virtually all apsects of the markets. Well written and well worth getting.

After owning a couple of the previous works from the Motley Fool (and subsequently throwing them out because the advice is pretty bad) I took a look at the latest edition by borrowing it from someone.

First of all I've always found their advice frustrating. On one hand they kind of half-heartedly recommend passive index investing and then they go about telling you about the latest stock-screening get-rich-quick fad. Toss in a couple dubious stock picks along the way and you have nothing but a mixed message.

I think this book is a pretty shallow attempt for these two to make up for the really bad advice they gave in their other books over the years. They take several chapters explaining away (in hindsight) how wrong they were, but even in this light they fail to embrace proven strategies and instead go about telling you what stocks to own (Starbucks anyone??). Basically this book is trying to convince you that "This time it's different." They are now trying to mend their ways and show that now their advice is worth listening to and all the stuff they said before was wrong and they're very sorry you lost so much of your money using their strategies. And oh, by the way, we still offer for sale this nifty stock investment newsletter and website for a really great price!

I really think the best approach is to concentrate your portfolio on passive index funds compromising various asset classes (domestic, foreign, bonds, real estate) and just rebalancing once a year. This is a very proven strategy that will beat virtually every actively managed portfolio/fund with far less stress (and taxes). Most major pension funds follow an indexing approach for a good reason: It works.

For a much better read try out The Coffeehouse Investor, books by Larry Swedroe, Bogle, and William Bernstein. Send these two jesters back to the circus...

I didn't want to go to a one because some of it was useful. Their admission on how poorly they performed in the market downturn says it all. So now they're saying, along with countless others, "We have the best hindsight of anybody!", rings absolutely hollow. Very bland humor too.

If you've read or heard them before, there's no need for this one. Try to find somebody who has beaten these bad times.

Although the Motley Fools have shown their inexperience, like some of us knew they would, they have also started maturing. Much of their advice is generic enough to be good and hardly any of their advice is "bad" (like much of their competition). Also, there are some gold nuggets later in the program, so it is worth a listen if you are at any transition points in your life.