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Title: The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros, Paul A. Volcker ISBN: 0-471-44549-5 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 25 July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Lousy book by convicted for inside trader
Comment: Why is Paul Volcker writing books with convicted inside traders?
Volcker supposedly had a good reputation.
Soros was convicted of inside trading in December 2002. There should be a section in this book on how to make piles of money by trading with non-public information.
Rating: 4
Summary: A good book for a comodities trader
Comment: Soros wrote this book several years ago as a self proclaimed "life's work" about his techniques for trading in the currencies and commodities markets. He became famous for making a billion dollars in one day by shorting the British pound against the dollar and other currencies. More recently, Soros has become famous for his financial backing of neo-communist media-hit organizations, like moveon.com and international A.N.S.W.E.R., due to his pathological and self-acknowledged hatred of G.W. Bush. This seems at odds with the cooler countenance of a financial markets trader such that he is, and a successful one at that, but, it's a funny and inconsistent world, is it not?
Soros demonstrates throughout this somewhat turgid tome a masterful knowledge of the seemingly ceaseless elements of the fundamentals underlying the trading decisions of a fin-mkt operator. His theory of reflexivity, a play on Einsteins theory of relativity, is a commentary on the human capacity to change events by taking actions ahead of perceived expections only to distort the outcomes expected in the first place. Put simply, it's an understanding of how markets actually work in real life, not in the void of an academic lab setting.
When you're capable of making a billion in a day it's easy to gain a messianic complex and there's a bit of that on display in this book. Couple that with Soros' having escaped totalitarianism as a young Jewish boy in Hungary, and you can only marvel at his skill, talent and tenacity.
Being a creature of the fin-mkts myself I thoroughly enjoyed this book, however it would be tedious for almost anyone not consumed by the prospects of i.e. shorting palm oil in Asia while going long soybeans in the west, or someone bent on knowing the open interest represented in the oil tanks of Rotterdam; not something one hears discussed nightly on the news.
For a look into the mind of the money behind the Kerry campaign of 2004, read this book. But, read it dlowly and take copious notes. And, good luck on your foray into currency trading, you'll need it.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not a book for Everyone
Comment: Definitely not a book for novices of investment. I would like to say not a book for anybody, but that seems to be too harsh. May be it is fair to say you can still do well in investment without knowing his methods. His way is not for a regular individual investor, not for the faint-hearted at least.
But there are some valuable lessons you can learn from reading his not so easy-to-understand writing. He talked about a phenomenon in business world, in which an industry feeds on its own success and grows bigger and its stock prices higher, until it tumbles. Then, the fall will trigger more to fell, until it seems there is nothing left. Sound familiar to the dot com bloom and burst of 2000? Actually, he was talking about the electronic industry bloom-burst cycle in the 1960s in America.
An electronic firm buys components from other electronic firms. When one was successful, say, its new TV model is a big hit, it buys more from its suppliers. And it get imitates and its competitors are buying more from their suppliers. Suddenly, there are many electronic firms and everyone seems to have a bright future, i.e. ever growing sales. This in turn makes investment in electronic firms seem a sure ticket to win. And they do, their stock prices just shoot off the roof.
But then, the public can only take so many new TV, even you buy an extra one for your mother-in-law, because it is a cool new trend, there is a limit how many they can sell. Then one of the TV manufacturer fells, so are their suppliers, and the suppliers¡¦ suppliers. Once the chain reaction begins, there is no going back. Companies fell and their earnings become losses. Stock prices of electronic firms tumble and tumble. With that goes the money of many papas and mamas, and ¡§intelligent¡¨ investors like you and me.
George Soros¡¦ way is to buy during the up-trends, take profit and wait for a while, then sell shorts during the downward cycle. He described what he did during those days in details.
Another boom-burst cycle he described is on LBO ¡V ¡§Leverage Buy Out¡¨ in the 80s. I am going to leave you to read the book to find out.
Or until, I have time and read it again.
There is an account of his biggest winner ¡V the bet on Pound against Bank of England. But it is not very good, because I can¡¦t remember a thing about it.
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Title: Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve by George Soros ISBN: 0471119776 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 04 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power by George Soros ISBN: 1586482173 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: George Soros on Globalization by George Soros ISBN: 1586481258 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 05 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered by George Soros ISBN: 1891620274 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 02 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, Marketplace Books ISBN: 0471059706 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 11 May, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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