The History Book Club discussion

This thread is dedicated to discussing Trading, Investment Strategies and the Stock/Bond Market.

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings

by Philip A. Fisher (no photo)

Synopsis:

Fisher outlines excellent principles for evaluating companies and investing in stocks. He especially focuses on qualitative analysis concepts like the “Scuttlebutt” method.

His “fifteen points” for evaluating a company are highly useful to investors across the value and growth style spectrum. They focus on growth potential, profitability, executive and labor relations, executive integrity, and more. These form the basis for much of Warren Buffett's approach to qualitative analysis.

Fisher also sets criteria for disciplined decisions about when to buy and sell stocks. His "5 Don'ts for Investors" and "5 More Don'ts for Investors" are great lists of other stock investing advice as well.

Thank you Douglass for the add.

Security Analysis

by Benjamin Graham

Synopsis:

In his introduction to Part VII of the 6th edition, David Abrams calls Security Analysis "the value investors' equivalent to Deuteronomy." It is an extremely thorough explanation of how to evaluate stocks and bonds, primarily focusing on a company's income statement and balance sheet.

Graham and Dodd discuss the philosophy of value investing eloquently. They provide detailed analysis of dozens of companies' finance statements to support their arguments about how investors should analyze securities. It is an excellent reality check for anyone who thinks he knows a thing or two about investing.

The examples given by Graham and Dodd are a bit dated (1930s), but most of the principles are still relevant today. It is a valuable addition to any business library and a resource that you can use for a lifetime of investing.

Very good Douglass

Getting Started in Technical Analysis

by Jack D. Schwager

Synopsis:

Technical analysis is the art and science of deciphering chart patterns in order to better analyze and predict prices of a given security. Jack Schwager demystifies technical analysis for investors, introducing them to oscillators, price-and-time charts, on-line charting applications, and much more.

The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment

by Guy Spier

Synopsis:

What happens when a young Wall Street investment banker spends a small fortune to have lunch with Warren Buffett? He becomes a real value investor. In this fascinating inside story, Guy Spier details his career from Harvard MBA to hedge fund manager. But the path was not so straightforward.

Spier reveals his transformation from a Gordon Gekko wannabe, driven by greed, to a sophisticated investor who enjoys success without selling his soul to the highest bidder. Spier's journey is similar to the thousands that flock to Wall Street every year with their shiny new diplomas, aiming to be King of Wall Street. Yet what Guy realized just in the nick of time was that the King really lived 1,500 miles away in Omaha, Nebraska.

Spier determinedly set out to create a new career in his own way. Along the way he learned some powerful lessons which include: why the right mentors and partners are critical to long term success on Wall Street; why a topnotch education can sometimes get in the way of your success; that real learning doesn't begin until you are on your own; and how the best lessons from Warren Buffett have less to do with investing and more to do with being true to yourself.

Spier also reveals some of his own winning investment strategies, detailing deals that were winners but also what he learned from deals that went south. Part memoir, part Wall Street advice, and part how-to, Guy Spier takes readers on a ride through Wall Street but more importantly provides those that want to take a different path with the insight, guidance, and inspiration they need to carve out their own definition of success.

The Manual of Ideas: The Proven Framework for Finding the Best Value Investments

by John Mihaljevic (no photo)

Synopsis:

Reveals the proprietary framework used by an exclusive community of top money managers and value investors in their never-ending quest for untapped investment ideas. Considered an indispensable source of cutting-edge research and ideas among the world's top investment firms and money managers, the journal The Manual of Ideas boasts a subscribers list that reads like a "Who's Who" of high finance. Written by that publication's managing editor and inspired by its mission to serve as an "idea funnel" for the world's top money managers, this book introduces you to a proven, proprietary framework for finding, researching, analyzing, and implementing the best value investing opportunities.

The next best thing to taking a peek under the hoods of some of the most prodigious brains in the business, it gives you uniquely direct access to the thought processes and investment strategies of such super value investors as Warren Buffett, Seth Klarman, Glenn Greenberg, Guy Spier and Joel Greenblatt. Written by the team behind one of the most read and talked-about sources of research and value investing ideas. Reviews more than twenty pre-qualified investment ideas and provides an original ranking methodology to help you zero-in on the three to five most compelling investments. Delivers a finely-tuned, proprietary investment framework, previously available only to an elite group of TMI subscribers. Step-by-step, it walks you through a proven, rigorous approach to finding, researching, analyzing, and implementing worthy ideas.

Thank you Douglass.

Douglass thank you for your recent adds.

The Intelligent Investor

by Benjamin Graham

Synopsis:

If you're only going to read one book about stocks, "The Intelligent Investor" is the book to go with. Originally released in 1949 by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett’s college professor, this title remains the single best book on investing to ever hit the shelves.

While the book is a bit dense, its concepts help investors follow Graham’s popular “value investing” philosophy. The idea is to find long-term strategies that keep your portfolio safe and solid while others are busy trading and taking big risks. Finding these successful investments requires evaluating the company’s fundamentals, or financial performance, over market swings. Through the rises and falls of the stock market over the last 70 years, this book has held up as the go-to resource for investors looking for long-term investment success.

Source: the Balance

A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market: Everything You Need to Start Making Money Today

by Matthew R. Kratter (no photo)

Synopsis:

As the title suggests, "A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market: Everything You Need to Start Making Money Today" gives you everything you need to know if you're new to stock marketing investing. Author and retired hedge fund manager Matthew R. Kratter will walk you through up-to-date, basic lessons, like the best place to open up a brokerage account, how to buy your first stock, how to trade momentum stocks, and more. He'll also share mistakes that beginner investors make, so you'll need to pick up a copy before trading or buying your first stocks. With over 20 years of insights packed in the book, you'll learn how the stock market works, so you can start making money right away.

Source: the Balance

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

by John C. Bogle

Synopsis:

The updated 10th-anniversary edition of "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" came out in 2017, and it’s another that belongs on the bookshelves of both professional and armchair investors managing their own accounts at home.

This book explains one of the most popular investment strategies today and one that works in employer-sponsored retirement accounts and accounts you run on your own: index funds.

Author John C. Bogle believes that low-cost index funds are by far the best option for investors and leans on other investors to prove his case. But his theories go beyond those of academia — Bogle is the founder and retired CEO of Vanguard, an investment management firm with over $5 trillion under management.

Source: the Balance

How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System In Good Times And Bad

by William J. O'Neil (no photo)

Synopsis:

In "How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System In Good Times And Bad," William J. O'Neil showcases his CANSLIM Investing System — a seven-step guide for minimizing risk and maximizing gains. You can trust O'Neil's advice, as this book is based on a 100-year study on stock market winners, helping over two million investors build wealth. With this expanded version, you'll find proven techniques for identifying winning stocks, as well as tips on spotting the best stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs. You'll also learn ways on avoiding the 21 most common investor mistakes. Overall, this book provides great strategies for wisely investing in stocks.

One Up On Wall Street

by Peter Lynch

Synopsis:

The author of another great investment book, "Beating the Street," Peter Lynch's "One Up On Wall Street" is a go-to for investors who want to draw on their own common sense and knowledge to make smart investments.

Lynch managed the prestigious Magellan Fund at Fidelity from 1977 to 1990 producing an average 29.2% annual return — more than double the S&P 500 in the same period. His investment success led the fund to swell from $18 million in assets when he took over to $14 billion. The legendary investor has plenty of lessons in "One Up On Wall Street" for you to take to your investment accounts.

Lynch is another advocate of long-term investment strategies. He is a proponent of investing in what you know best and investing in companies where you see the investment power right in front of you. From the supermarket shelves to workplace tools and products, you might already know the next big thing. And according to Lynch, you may want to put your money behind it.

Source: the Balance

Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders

by Warren Buffett

Synopsis:

Each year, editor Max Olson adds more of Warren Buffett’s letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway to this compilation. Buffett’s letters tell the story of how a small, failed textile business turned into one of the biggest conglomerates in the world under his leadership. Sprinkled in the book, you can find tidbits about the economy, investing, management, and more.

The lessons here track the company from $18 per share in 1965 to $297,600 per share as of the 2017 letter. If you can invest like Buffett, you should be on track to great investment success.

Source: the Balance

Market Wizards

by Jack D. Schwager

Synopsis:

Learn about the stock market from the experts themselves with the book, "Market Wizards." In it, the world's top traders share their secrets of success with author Jack D. Schwager. Throughout interviews with dozens of "superstar money-makers" across most financial markets, including Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, and more, Schwager sets out to understand what separates these traders from unsuccessful investors. You'll hear straight from the experts in this interview-style book, though the author also boils down their responses into a set of principles you can apply in your own trading career. Plus, this book is filled with anecdotes, including one about a trader who turned $30,000 into $80 million.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Twelfth Edition)

by Burton G. Malkiel (no photo)

Synopsis:

The updated version of this Wall Street classic helps investors understand important stock market concepts including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), emerging market investments, derivatives, and more. From Princeton economist Burton Malkiel, this book popularized the “random walk hypothesis.”

The random walk hypothesis states that one cannot consistently beat the markets, so it makes more sense to build a balanced portfolio that matches market performance. This idea also supports the efficient-market hypothesis.

Fundamental concepts in the book include technical and fundamental analysis, whether or not actively managed mutual funds make sense, and other tried and true investment theories.

What are EFT's?



Source: the Balance

Irrational Exuberance: Revised and Expanded Third Edition 3rd Edition

by Robert J. Shiller

Synopsis:

Robert Shiller is such a well-known and well-respected economist that he has his own index named after him. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index is based on work by Shiller and Karl Case. The Nobel Prize winner forecasted the tech and housing bubbles, and readers look to his text to better understand how bubbles happen.

Bubbles and market cycles are important to understand, and a well-formulated investment strategy can help you avoid the biggest pitfalls of the boom and bust cycle. Shiller argues that psychologically driven volatility is a risk in all asset markets, including the stock market.

This updated edition of "Irrational Exuberance" includes a look at the stock, housing, and bond markets so you can better spot the next bubble and prepare yourself before it bursts.

Source: the Balance

Thanks, Bentley! I can't believe we didn't have The Intelligent Investor in this thread yet. It really is the book on the topic. If you could only read one book on investing, it would have to be that one. Jason Zweig's contributions to the newer editions are as brilliant as Graham and help make the text more relevant and digestible for today's audience.

by Benjamin Graham

I just started to help out over here and thought that it seemed to be missing so I am glad that I added it. Graham has been out of the picture since 1976 but he was Mr. Value Investing.

Benjamin Graham

Bentley wrote: "I just started to help out over here and thought that it seemed to be missing so I am glad that I added it. Graham has been out of the picture since 1976 but he was Mr. Value Investing.

[authorima..."

He quite effectively passed the torch to his protege, Warren Buffett.

Absolutely and what a great teacher and mentor he was - and his protege is now the teacher and the torch bearer. Warren Buffett was one of Graham’s students at Columbia Business School and Graham played much more than a significant role in shaping Buffett’s career/investment approach and prowess. There is much that Buffet has Graham to thank for.

Bentley wrote: "Absolutely and what a great teacher and mentor he was - and his protege is now the teacher and the torch bearer. Warren Buffett was one of Graham’s students at Columbia Business School and Graham p..."

Definitely, including introducing Buffett to GEICO, which Buffett eventually bought.

What is great about Buffett is he combined Graham's value investing ideas with Philip Fisher's growth/quality ideas to transform value investing into more of a "growth at a reasonable price" style of investing. This actually works better for modern companies, whose value is more based on earnings and cash flow than assets and liabilities. And that emphasis on profitability made Buffett about $80 billion more money than Graham ever made.

Yes true but then again Graham passed away in 76. But Buffet was an avid student and helped transformed Graham's ideas into something better.

Benjamin Graham

Warren Buffett

NYSE



The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York.

It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$30.1 trillion as of February 2018.

The average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013.

The NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. An additional trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building and the 11 Wall Street building were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1978.

The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it also lists (NYSE: ICE). Previously, it was part of NYSE Euronext (NYX), which was formed by the NYSE's 2007 merger with Euronext.

Remainder of article:


More:













About NYSE
Link:

How the New York Stock Exchange Works:
Link:

A Woman Has Been Named As NYSE President. It Only Took 226 Years - May 22, 20182:40 PM ET
Link to article and video:

How trading on the New York Stock Exchange actually works
Link to video:

Why does Wall Street still need humans? | I've Always Wondered...
Link:

by James E. Buck (no photo)

by Charles R. Geisst (no photo)

(no image) The Story of the New York Stock Exchange by Zachary Kent (no photo)

(no image) The Anatomy of the Floor: The Trillion-Dollar Market at the New York Stock Exchange by Leonard Sloane (no photo)

(no image) N. Y. S. E.: A History Of The New York Stock Exchange, 1935 1975 by Robert Sobel (no photo)

"THE NEW YORK Stock Exchange traces its roots back more than two centuries, to the informal street trading of bonds during the American Revolutionary War.

It had, over time, formalized a charter, beaten back and merged with competitors, adapted to such life-altering innovations as the telegraph and the telephone, and kept operating through harrowing investment cycles of climb, crash, and climb again.

“Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street,” observed Charles Dickens when, in 1842, he visited, “and many a rapid ruin.”

Sources: Albright, Madeleine. Hell and Other Destinations (p. 71). Harper. Kindle Edition, Wikipedia, Investopedia

Time the Markets: Using Technical Analysis to Interpret Economic Data

by Charles D. Kirkpatrick II (no photo)

Synopsis:

In Time the Market, award-winning technical analyst Charles D. Kirkpatrick uses technical methods to analyze key economic indicators and identify useful buy and sell signals for long-term investors. Uncover these powerful signals based on the technical analysis of corporate, industry, monetary, sentiment, and market data to avoid capital loss and become more profitable.

My Review:

Kirkpatrick has created an ingenious system for using technical analysis of corporate, economic, and monetary indicators to time the market, increasing stock market returns by buying and selling the market at moving average crossover signals. This is a quick read with some interesting ideas but probably not a game-changer for most investors.