Learn how to detect any corporate sleight of hand—and gain the upper hand with smart investing Investing expert John Del Vecchio and “Motley Fool” Tom Jacobs offer a compelling arguement that the secret to stock-market success today isn’t finding the next Google or eBay, but avoiding the next AIG or Enron. To that end, they offer simple, clear techniques for detecting when and how legitimate companies make their numbers look better than they are. What's Behind the Numbers? offers seven rules for finding companies playing with—rather than by—the numbers and explains how to avoid losing money by determining exactly when a stock is about to head south. John Del Vecchio, CFA, serves as a Principal of Ranger Alternative Management and principal of Parabolix Research, Inc. Tom Jacobs is lead advisor for the Motley Fool Special Ops, a stock service where he manages a special situations and opportunistic portfolio. He is cofounder of Complete Growth Investor LLC.
A time-tested guide to stock trading market cycles Published every year since 1968, the Stock Trader's Almanac is a practical investment tool with a wealth of information organized in calendar format. Everyone from well-known money managers to savvy traders and investors relies upon this annual resource for its in-depth analyses and insights. The Stock Trader's Almanac 2013 contains essential historical price information on the stock market, provides monthly and daily reminders, and highlights seasonal trading opportunities and dangers. The Stock Trader's Almanac 2013 is packed with timely insights and targeted analysis to help you navigate turbulent markets and beat the odds in the year ahead. This trusted guide combines over a century's worth of data, statistics, and trends along with vital analysis you won’t get anywhere else. Alerts you to little-known market patterns and tendencies to help forecast market trends with accuracy and confidence An indispensable annual resource, trusted for over 40 years by traders and investors The data in the Almanac is some of the best in the business For its wealth of information and the authority of its sources, the Stock Trader's Almanac stands alone as the guide to intelligent investing.
Says Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management about The Art of Value Investing: "I learned the investment business largely from the work and thinking of other investors. The Art of Value Investing is a thoughtfully organized compilation of some of the best investment insights I have ever read. Read this book with care. It will be one of the highest-return investments you will ever make." Based on interviews with the world's most-successful value investors, The Art of Value Investing offers a comprehensive set of answers to the questions every equity money manager should have thought through clearly before holding himself or herself out as a worthy steward of other people's money. What market inefficiencies will I try to exploit? How will I generate ideas? What will be my geographic focus? What analytical edge will I hope to have? What valuation methodologies will I use? What time horizon will I typically employ? How many stocks will I own? How specifically will I decide to buy or sell? Will I hedge, and how? How will I keep my emotions from getting the best of me? Who should read The Art of Value Investing? It is as vital a resource for the just starting out investor as for the sophisticated professional one. The former will find a comprehensive guidebook for defining a sound investment strategy from A-to-Z; the latter will find all aspects of his or her existing practice challenged or reconfirmed by the provocative thinking of their most-successful peers. It also is a must read for any investor – institutional or individual – charged with choosing the best managers for the money they are allocating to equities. Choosing the right managers requires knowing all the right questions to ask as well as the answers worthy of respect and attention – both of which are delivered in The Art of Value Investing.
Praise for Financial Statement Analysis A Practitioner's Guide Third Edition "This is an illuminating and insightful tour of financial statements, how they can be used to inform, how they can be used to mislead, and how they can be used to analyze the financial health of a company." -Professor Jay O. Light Harvard Business School "Financial Statement Analysis should be required reading for anyone who puts a dime to work in the securities markets or recommends that others do the same." -Jack L. Rivkin Executive Vice President (retired) Citigroup Investments "Fridson and Alvarez provide a valuable practical guide for understanding, interpreting, and critically assessing financial reports put out by firms. Their discussion of profits-'quality of earnings'-is particularly insightful given the recent spate of reporting problems encountered by firms. I highly recommend their book to anyone interested in getting behind the numbers as a means of predicting future profits and stock prices." -Paul Brown Chair-Department of Accounting Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU "Let this book assist in financial awareness and transparency and higher standards of reporting, and accountability to all stakeholders." -Patricia A. Small Treasurer Emeritus, University of California Partner, KCM Investment Advisors "This book is a polished gem covering the analysis of financial statements. It is thorough, skeptical and extremely practical in its review." -Daniel J. Fuss Vice Chairman Loomis, Sayles & Company, LP
There are two parts to the investment equation: (1) How to make money from investing and (2) how to avoid losing it. This book deals with the second objective. Investors can prosper from small mistakes because they teach valuable lessons, but large mistakes (blunders) wipe out large amounts of capital and ruin lives. Blunders result in lost opportunities, children not going to college, or retirement being postponed or permanently abandoned. Severe losses can produce depression, failed marriages, and even suicide. How do investors stumble into blunders? They are not prepared, and they are ill-informed. They invest in inappropriate investments, and their timing is bad. They listen to bad forecasts by economists, portfolio managers, CEOs, journalists, and security analysts. Just because an investment product exists does not mean it should be bought. Some investments like mortgage bonds and variable annuities are structurally flawed and too dangerous for average investors. Blunders occur as a result of misleading statements by the media. They also occur due to scams. Investors are way too gullible and greedy. The investment landscape is treacherous, and it is important for investors to pay attention and employ healthy amounts of skepticism. Investors must employ less emotion and more reason. Investing is not a hobby! There are many resources to guide investors on how to make money in investing, but there are few guides on how to avoid losing money. The information deficit in Avoiding Investment Blunders is significant. This book contains detailed guidance and occasional colorful examples of the author s missteps and the mistakes of others. Investment blunders are, therefore, financial disasters that must be avoided at all cost. Investment blunders usually only happen once per person per lifetime. This book will help ensure that blunders do not happen at all!
Recognize Wall Street tactics for what they are, and make smarter decisions with your money Wall Street Potholes shares insights into the money management industry, revealing the shady practices that benefit the salesman far more than the client. Bestselling author Simon Lack brings together a team of experienced money managers to give you straight-from-the-source intel, and teach you how to recognize bad advice and when it's better to just walk away. Investors are rightly suspicious that many products are sold more because of the fees they generate than their appropriateness to the client's situation, and that's only the beginning. This book lays it all bare so you can walk into your next deal with your eyes wide open. You'll learn just how big the profit margin is on different products, and why Wall Street intentionally makes things as complicated as possible. You'll learn expert tactics for combatting these practices, so you can avoid buying overpriced products and confidently discriminate against advisors who put their own interests first. For all the volumes of investment advice on the market, dissatisfaction with the financial services industry has never been higher. This book describes the reason for that disconnect, and tells you how to see through the smoke and mirrors to make the best decisions for your money. Discover the profit margin built into some popular products Learn the reason behind bundling and why Wall Street fears comparison shopping Consider the importance of benchmarking, and why so many firms avoid it Become better informed so you can easily recognize poor investment advice If asking questions of your financial advisor only nets more confusion, if you want to have more control over your money, you need a firm grasp of how these firms manipulate your trust. Wall Street Potholes tells you what you need to know to become a smarter investor.
The money manager and New York Times–bestselling author explainshow to protect yourself from fraud: “Fisher details the red flags that should alert investors.”—Associated Press Whether it’s small-scale or large, a pump-and-dump or a Ponzi scheme, financial fraud is nothing new. Where there’s money, there are scammers—and it’s up to you to understand their playbook and ask the right questions to avoid getting taken. With a decades-long career in the industry, the founder of the multibillion-dollar money management fund Fisher Investments offers a clear guide to detecting the warning signs. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, this reliable resource: Prepares you to identify and avoid financial scams that could instantly destroy your wealth Contains both recent and historic examples that highlight how financial frauds are committed Provides questions everyone should ask before entering any investment endeavor “With five straightforward rules that would have saved any investor from Bernie Madoff, investment firm CEO and Forbes columnist Fisher gives readers a secure plan for fraud-proof investing, worthwhile for novices and sophisticated financiers alike…Much more than what to avoid, Fisher’s concise guide should be highly illuminating and confidence-building for anyone with a bank account.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
HOW TO SEPARATE THE NEWS FROM THE NOISE: WHAT EVERY INVESTOR NEEDS TO KNOW There is no shortage of financial advice these days. From cocky cable pundits to nattering news columnists to off-grid online bloggers, there are more so-called experts than ever before--and the noise can be downright deafening. This no-bull, bottom-line guide from "The Reformed Broker" Josh Brown and Yahoo Finance's Jeff Macke will help you cut through the cacophony and make the most of today's media news. It's an eye-opening crash course in separating financial facts from fiction—featuring interviews with some of the world’s most influential investors, including: JIM CRAMER (Mad Money) takes you behind the scenes of his polarizing TV program--and talks about his clash with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. HENRY BLODGET (Business Insider) shares anecdotes about tangling with Eliot Spitzer, covering the Martha Stewart trial, and launching his Business Insider site as a "marked man." BEN STEIN (Win Ben Stein's Money) reveals how he really feels about Bernanke, Bogle, Buffett, and bailouts. KAREN FINERMAN (CNBC's Fast Money) exposes the hype behind the headlines—and the "show biz" demands on television news pundits. HERB GREENBERG (TheStreet.com) explains why investors need to follow social media, where the "real" news is disseminated. BARRY RITHOLTZ (Bailout Nation) reveals his secret for "watching" financial TV. You'll also find invaluable insights from the original father of financial TV, Jim Rogers, and from James Altucher, the most shockingly honest commentator in the history of the medium. And you'll get a front-row seat for the processing and packaging of the news and learn everything you need to know about the talking heads who shape each day's narrative. Up-close. In-depth. All-true. Clash of the Financial Pundits is the one guide that will change the way you look at markets and investing forever. PRAISE FOR JOSH BROWN'S BACKSTAGE WALL STREET "Much like Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker captured the essence of 1980s institutional Wall Street, Brown's Backstage Wall Street re-creates the boiler room retail brokerage culture of the 1990s and early 2000s in vivid color." -- FORBES "Joshua Brown may be the funniest writer on finance today, but Backstage Wall Street could make you cry more than laugh. The buffoons, manipulators, and incompetents Brown parades before us are the stewards of our retirement accounts." -- BARRON'S "Run don't walk to read Brown's chronicles of deception [perpetrated by] those wonderful folks on Wall Street, who nearly bankrupted the world's financial system a few short years ago." -- DOUGLAS A. KASS, Seabreeze Partners Management, Inc.
The latest must-read book from the authors of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Aftershock series of books, Fake Money, Real Danger strips away the confusion and exposes what’s really happening to our economy and investments—and shows you what to do about it now, before it’s too late. Picking up where Aftershock left off, Fake Money, Real Danger reveals how the Covid-19 pandemic—and the government’s massive money printing and borrowing in response to it—is providing investors with a once in a lifetime opportunity to build wealth in the near term, while also taking the crucial steps necessary to protect yourself and your investments from the inevitable Fake Money bubble pop in the longer term. What FAKE MONEY? Massive government money printing increased the U.S. money supply by more than 1,000% since 2008, printing more money in ONE MONTH in 2020 than during the two years of the Financial Crisis in 2008 and 2009. Mammoth federal debt is now at a staggering $30 trillion—up $3 trillion in 2020 and on track for continuous huge increases. The amount of federal debt is nearing 10 times our annual tax revenues. What REAL DANGER? All U.S. economic growth since the Financial Crisis is entirely due to government borrowing. All of it. Without massive government borrowing we’d have no growth at all. Stock markets will likely continue to rise because of Fake Money but face an inevitable crisis when continued massive money printing creates serious inflation. You and every investor are now at a crossroads. Your next move will decide your fate: protection and profits OR wealth destruction and regret.
The Investing Rip-Off How can you tell whether an advisor is conflicted or looking out for your best interests? What questions should you ask when making important investment decisions? How can you select investments that avoid needless expenses and risk? As investors, many of us have put our faith in the financial services industry when it comes to the stewardship of our wealth. Unfortunately, the industry has consistently failed us on this front. The financial services industry including banks, brokerages, and insurance companies is unique among all others. Through effective advertising and marketing, it's been able to evade being painted with the brush other underperforming industries have, and in most cases, their well-designed sales pitch has allowed them to effectively prey on the emotional desires of investors. Based on author David Loeper's nearly twenty-five years of experience with this industry's inner workings, Stop the Investing Rip-off reveals the real costs of the investments we make, details the false and misleading information sold to us, and discusses the devastating effects they can have on personal wealth. With this book as your guide, you'll gain invaluable insights into the major segments of the financial services industry, how they spin their offerings, and the questions you need to ask before committing any money to a financial product or service you may be interested in. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, Stop the Investing Rip-off sheds much-needed light on the often-unseen aspects of the financial services industry exposing what¿only insiders know and shows you how to avoid the conflicts of interest that could compromise your financial well-being.
