Review of Bogle On Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor (Hardcover)

For almost a decade now, this has been my bible on mutual funds.Using a straightforward and candid approach, Vanguard founder John Bogle explains every aspect of mutual funds and the industry behind them.Never does Bogle exaggerate information or mislead the reader as many other financial "guru's" do to sell their books.He is a true consumer advocate and his goal is clearly to educate.

Covered is everything from stocks, bonds, money market funds, indexing, asset allocation, expense ratio's and the risks inherent not only in investing but in not investing (e.g. the erosion of the dollar vs. inflation in "safe" investments).Bogle utilizes numerous graphs and statistical data throughout the book to help make his point and to allow the reader increased comprehension.

It is important to note that this book was published in the early 1990's.Since then capital gains tax laws have changed and the Roth IRA was yet to be created.For more up-to-date information I would recommend reading Bogle's newer book, Common Sense on Mutual Funds. Nevertheless, Bogle On Mutal Funds is a great place to start educating yourself to become more financially savvy.This book has been invaluable to me and I believe it is key to my investing success.I find myself often referring to it, expecially now in these turbulent market times just to hear Mr. Bogle remind me to, "stay the course" and I will be rewarded.No wonder so many admirers refer to the beloved Mr. Bogle as, "Saint Jack."



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Review of Outsmarting the Smart Money : Understand How Markets Really Work and Win the Wealth Game (Hardcover)

In a perfect investment world the price of a stock embodies its value. And those who believe this 'efficient' market hypothesis will be buying index mutual funds certainly not this book. But those who dismiss this academic construct to profit from the inefficiencies evident in the market still run substantial risks not adequately addressed by most investment books. The minefield of risks that Cunningham guides us through is that the biases of others, the cause of those price vs. value anomalies, are also our own biases and can trigger money-losing investment decisions. Overconfidence and the "pattern seeking" bias to project short term trends into the future are just two examples, but they do so some of the worst damage. They lead to a dangerous reliance on margin borrowing and excessive trading activity. Also, recognize that companies make many of the same behavioral errors. It is the author's "smart" investor who can spot the folly of manic acquisitions by companies acting as if they were on steroids - grasping for growth at a fiscal cost. Cunningham dismisses technical analysis as "hokum" (Here he agrees with the proponents of an efficient market who maintain market movements cannot be predicted accurately). Stay away from IPO's, companies relying on pro-forma accounting, and sector funds. Read analyst reports with caution, but do study closely "management's discussion" of their business in the annual report. Be wary of stock buybacks, stock option programs, stock splits, spin-offs, secondary offerings, and performance-based incentive plans. Any of these programs can be abused and rise out of corporate hubris. Above all: Recognize your biases, your tolerance for risk, be objective, and have criteria to know when to sell your positions. A lot of territory is covered in this book with some of the best material appearing in Chapters 10 and 11. Cunningham builds a persuasive case for adopting a long term, value oriented investment philosophy which is least affected by these biases.



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Review of The Price Waterhouse Guide to Activity-Based Costing for Financial Institutions (Hardcover)

This book it's an excellent reference when you're implementing an ABC/M project in a Bank. It has a complete list of cost drivers that are also used as performance metrics.

It's an excellent example of how can ABC/Mbe used also with services not just in manufacturing



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Review of Streetsmart Guide to Valuing A Stock: The Savvy Investor's Key to Beating the Market (Hardcover)

The methodology doesn't cover some industries (financial, insurance etc) but for the majority of companies this will come up with an intrisic value (not book value) of the future earnings discounted over time for inflation, risk etc. I made a spreadsheet that does the methodolgy the book teaches,but the author has one for sale. I wish I had the spreadsheet beforereading it, as I had to reread sections to gain a good understanding afterI had the spreadsheet. It allows you to follow along his examples and"see" the numbers and forecasts effect the valution. I will emailmy version to any interested parties. No instructions, bare bones, butworks. You wont understand it without the book.



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Review of The Irwin Guide to Using The Wall Street Journal, 6th Edition (Hardcover)

This book is a good introduction to the principles of the macro economy.

The author explains the basics of the federal reserve system, monetary policy, the causes and effects of inflation, and various personal investment products such as stocks, mutual funds, commodities, and money market accounts. The basics of each is explained, and the author shows how each is tracked daily in the Wall Street Journal. The purpose is to allow individuals to understand their investments, track their progress, and be able to react to changing market conditions. Its all sounds very axiomatic, but the great thing about this book is that it states basic principles that are often assumed, and thus left unstated.

For example, if the following excerpts are helpful to you, then this would be a great book for you:

Page 15: "The forces of supply and demand condition every business cycle."

Page 25: "Bank lending finances spending, and spending generates inflation. The Fed controls bank lending and can thereby control inflation."

Page 33: "Every commodity has a price; the interest rate is the price of money. As with any commodity, the price fluctuates according the the laws of supply and demand."

Page 165: "Mutual funds are popular with individual investors because they permit diversification in a wide variety of securities with a very small capital outlay."

These are examples of the points covered, and the level at which they are covered. If the above quotes sounded obvious, this book may be below your expertise. But if you finally want to understand the jargon you hear on CNNfn, this book will do the job.

This would be a great book to buy as a graduation gift for a high school senior, or anyone without a background in finance.



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Review of Inside Greenspan's Briefcase : Investment Strategies for Profiting from Key Reports and Data (Hardcover)

I have read tons of business/financial books. Inside Greenspan's Briefcase is the best guide to understanding the economy, investments and Greenspan himself. Please do yourself a favor and get a copy of this remarkable book. Rob Stein has done a great job at giving the read an easy way of understanding 'The Big Picture'



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Review of If Your Life Were a Business, Would You Invest In It?: The 13-Step Program for Managing Your Life Like the Best CEO's Manage Their Companies (Hardcover)

I was revising my life plans and goals when I stumbled across an article on this book. Many of the concepts are similar to those I tried to communicate in my books (Conscious spending for Couples and The Ms. Spent Money Guide), but applied to ones whole life... it's a nice structure for something that I have always done and always preached that others do - align what you do with what you truly value. Even if you don't buy the book, please buy the concept! It's great.



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Review of Elementary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach (Hardcover)

This is THE BEST elementary statistics book I have read. Covers all concepts in a very easy to understand manner. The examples and solved problems show you eaxctly how a problem can be approached. For non-statiscians who want to use statistics to analyze their data, this is an excellent starting point. Wont boggle you with extensive formulae and derivations. But will tell you how and why the tests were developed and why and where you shoulduse a particular test. Excellent ready reference for any data analyst.



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Review of Trading Stategies for Capital Markets (Hardcover)

Benning assumes a mathematically sophisticated reader, who know little about how markets work. So he provides an education. Centred in no small way on the Efficient Market Hypothesis by Markowitz. This is the dominant theoretical framework for modelling financial markets, and whether you subscribe to it or not, you need to be well aware of it. The book suggests, based on plausible reasoning, that markets are weakly efficient. But that volatility can be greater than theoretically assumed.

Another key portion of the book covers the Capital Asset Pricing Model.

Black-Scholes option pricing is derived, showing the assumptions on which it was originally based. Other financial instruments are also covered. Like Collateralised Mortgage Obligation (CMO). Alas, no mention of its close relative, the Collateralised Debt Obligation, which has been much in the news in 2007. A curious omission. But the book is still well worth reading.



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Review of How To Be An Index Investor (Hardcover)

I bought this book because of my confusion with index funds after reading different advertisements from newspapers and websites. The result of my learnings are three limit orders I just placed for different sector funds.

This book is written objectively without a slant towards a specific product. Also, written for the inexperienced as well as the professional trader. It provided some real insights as to how trading is accomplished (in plain English).

The bing "WOW" was seeing how I was being penalized as long term investor in mutual funds because of the annual tax distribution. Also, the majority of funds do not beat the S&P500 index!! Why invest in them when these new investment resources are available?

Highly recommend this book to all levels of investors.



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Review of Multicultural Marketing [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

A very valuable resource. It includes all the relevant stats, and research to build a business case for increasing your ethnic marketing budget. If you are having a hard time getting buy-in from senior management for your ethnic marketing initiatives, this book is great ammunition.



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Review of Operation Financial Freedom: The Ultimate Plan to Build Wealth and Live the Life You Want (Hardcover)

This book opened my eyes to a whole new world. It has taught me so much.It is different than the usual "get out of debt" type books, it walks you through step by step on how to do everything! There is nothing that this book does not cover.From getting your finances in order and tackling credit card debt, to going into business for yourself, buying a home, getting more money at tax time, saving plans, the list goes on and on.I truly enjoyed reading the book because I was learning tons of things that I never knew.I have read this book more than once, I use it as a guide anytime I come across anything questionable dealing with my finances. It is a great book!



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Review of The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities, 6th Edition (Hardcover)

I used this book as a text for a graduate level "Fixed Income Analysis" course. This book covers almost all the fixed income financial instruments from plain vanilla bonds to interest rate derivatives. However, reading this book leaves the reader with a desire for more than just the peripheral knowledge, which is all this book offers.

Theoretically, this book justfies its being called a handbook, but on the mathematical front, it stands absolutely nowhere. There are little or no examples used in the text even though the author touches base on the advanced topics sometimes. Any fixed income practioner, including me, will tell you that ONE JUST CANNOT LEARN FIXED INCOME CONCEPTS WITHOUT GRASPING THE MATH BEHIND THEM, and this book scores poorly in the quantitative analysis. Fixed income securities are extremely sensitive to interest rate fluctuations, and hence, it would be only sensible to present atleast a few chapters trying to explore the concepts used in the modeling of interest rates. But this book doesn't do that. There is little quantitative discussion about duration and convexity, two of the most important risk-measurement tools for bonds.

Since it is called a handbook, I don't see any reason why the author should hold back advanced concepts from the readers. Conversely, since this book doesn't attempt to teach all the concepts to its readers, it should not be called a handbook. This problem is actually common to all the Fabozzi books. Either his math is weak, or he is just busy making money writing a handbook on every possible fixed income security. It's only a shame that a capable and learned individual like him should do such a sloppy job.

I would recommend books by Bruce Tuckman, Garbade, or Horne for more advanced and intelligent discussions on fixed income securities and interest rates rather than this book. One really need not waste money on this book. Theory on Fixed Income instruments is widely available from Federal Reserve publications, which are almost always free. Put your money only where it will produce fixed & positive returns - Fixed Income 101.



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Review of Marketing Corporate Image (Hardcover)

Simplistic, outdated and self-promotional. If you know anything about branding, you'll be bored. If you don't know anything, you still won't after you read Marketing Corporate Image.



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Review of The Streetsmart Guide to Overlooked Stocks : A Guide to Investing in the Best Overlooked Stocks for Superior Returns [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

Too many times, mutual fund managers, brokers, and financial advisors recommend only the large-cap stocks which are widely known by the investment community. The author states that investors can benefit from holding overlooked stocks because they provide better potential returns. Good overlooked companies are well-managed firms in the earlier stages of a corporate life cycle compared to large capitalization companies. These smaller companies usually have the ability to react more quickly to customer needs and market changes because they have flatter management organizations. In addition, they usually have more insider ownership, thus aligning management's interests with shareholders. Finally, they are not as closely followed by Wall Street.

This book teaches readers how to find and evaluate these small treasures. I highly recommend this book to investors.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market



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Review of Sell the Brand First: How to Sell Your Brand and Create Lasting Customer Loyalty (Hardcover)

Many organizations struggle to improve their sales through incremental changes in selling strategies.They are missing the biggest thing they can do which is sell the brand first.This book outlines a clear cut strategy to improve your sales by selling what you already own, your brand.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to improve their sales force and leverage their brand.



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Review of How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett: Profiting from the Bargain Hunting Strategies of the World's Greatest Value Investor (Hardcover)

First of all, the author does describe early Buffett activities as some sort of shady active trading/arbitrage, i.e. anything but value investing. That is a plus, and Timothy Vick should be credited for honestly admitting that. Reading from page 13, Buffett's estimated net worth in 1969, the year he shut down his speculative Buffett partership, was $20 to $25 million. You can disregard everything else in this book, because once you have made $20 million through active trading/arbitrage, does it really matter what you do for the rest of your life?

If Buffett made his fortune and got his start in investing through active trading, what's the point of extolling buying and holding and value investing?
Let me rephrase the question, can a buy-and-hold value investor make $20 million in 12 years starting with 50K ? Of course not. If you want to get rich, AVOID value investing.

So, once you are as rich as Buffett was in 1969, you can certainly afford to condemn active traders and speculators because A) you don't have to ever work and can live off dividends or interest on Treasuries B) you can settle for 10% or so percent annualized return on your value stocks.

Second, the author lists Buffett's core holdings (AXP, G, KO, WPO, MTB, etc) and claims they have had a fabulous return over the years, and these "value investments" are the reason Berkshire book value was going up 25% or so annually. False and wrong. If you do the math, market price of most of these stocks went up from 5% to 10% annually (one or two exceptions at 18%). So much for fabulous stock picking! So why did Berkshire book value go up so fast? The answer is, probably because Buffett is a great manager and did a good job running his core insurance businesses and managing the cash flow of the companies he acquired and controlled. You have to understand the difference between buying and holding stocks you have no control over (value investing), and successfully running a business you own, taking over and controlling other companies, and awarding yourself compensation exceeding the gains of other shareholders (what Buffett has done throughout most of his career, but not lately). Is running a large insurance company equivalent to value investing? Probably not. There is a big difference between holding a piece of paper and running/cotrolling a business.



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Review of Surviving the Storm: Investment Strategies That Help You Maximize Profit and Control Risk During the Coming Economic Winter (Hardcover)

Nice to read someone who takes a global view without predicting the end of postive personal investing.
Offers insights into choices you can make now and for some years ahead.
Refreshing to read after listening to the daily hype we're confronted with on TV and newsletters.
Projects a potential scenario going forward without talking down to the reader.
If he is right in some areas then well worth the price.
Insightful,helpful charts,well outlined stratagies



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Review of Wealth Management: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Investing and Managing Client Assets (Hardcover)

Mr. Evensky's book has had a profound impact on my wealth management philosophy.He is very effective in blending the broad scope of investment management theory with "real world", practical application.I found it particularly useful because it is not a book written by an academic who has never sat across the table from a client and held their hand through the good times and the tough.This is a must read for any serious manager of wealth.

A. Todd Black, CFP



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Review of The Standard & Poor's Guide to the Perfect Portfolio: 5 Steps to Allocate Your Assets and Ensure a Lifetime of Wealth (Standard & Poor's Guide to) (Hardcover)

Kaye emphasizes five steps to allocate your assets and ensure a lifetime of wealth. These steps boiled down to:

1) Identify Your Goals and Objectives
2) Choose the Specific Asset Classes in Which to Invest
3) Determine What Percentage of Your Total Assets Belongs in Each Asset Class
4) Decide Which Investments Products to Use
5) Monitor the Performance of Your Portfolio and Adjust Your Asset Mix if Warranted

I believe this to be an intermediate investment level book in terms of how much prior understanding you should have of money management and general knowledge of bonds, stocks, mutual funds, and real estate. If you were to pick up this book without knowing anything, you would gain value from this book. On the other hand you would gain much more if you knew your investment options beforehand so you have an idea on how to allocate them properly (which this books helps you do). Kaye is trying to show how to construct a diversified portfolio of assets based on the risk tolerance you can handle with respects to your stage in life, career pathway, and other independent situations (that include having dependents, investing experience, and goal for your financial future). While you can easily go to an online calculator and calculate what percentage you should be invested in stocks based on your age, it's not as simple as a single calculation. This book gets into more detail on how and why it is vital that you take into account many factors when determining your portfolio mix.

Interesting Notes While Reading Through This Book

- Chapter 4 (The Location of Your Assets: choosing the right accounts) has a very thorough explanation and calculations of the value of setting up a traditional or Roth IRA.

- Mutual funds are required by the SEC to hold more than 20 securities. Chapter 3 has a comprehensive explanation of everything you should know when starting withmutual fund investments.

- Kaye writes that "it costs a middle-income family approximately $250,000 to raise a child from birth to age 17." This is another reason why it is so vital that you have a portfolio constructed to fit the lifestyle you need because keeping money in the bank may not even keep up with the rate of inflation.

- Finally Michael Kaye writes that "tax considerations should never be the sole factor and outweight your investment analysis in determining what to buy, sell, or hold." I could not have agreed with him anymore regarding this comment. So many people try to hold onto securities for more than a year to take advantage of the long term capital gain tax rate, and a lot of times they don't realize that they might not even have a capital gain at the termination of that year to take advantage of.

What Was Left Out

While Michael Kaye did a great job with this book, what I believe was left out was not how to construct a portfolio of various types of assets, but how to construct a "perfect stock portfolio." Now there may not be a straightforward answer to that question, but that was one of my early expectations (even though it was not the goal of the book) because a lot of investor's assets will be in stocks or mutual funds. Many investors aren't aware of how to truly diversify a stock portfolio, and trying to diversify a stock portfolio means more than just buying companies in different sectors. In his previous books, Kaye writes how to find stocks based on financial statistics/ratios that you are looking.Therefore I was looking to build upon that and find how to construct an effective portfolio in a variety of economic conditions.

Investor Level: Intermediate
Pages: 217
Release Date: October 2007
Overall Grade: B+
Bottom line: Read this book after you read his first book on stock screening and selecting stocks.



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