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Summary: Best of the Buffett Books
Review: Lowenstein is to Buffett what Gleick is to Richard Feynman. This is easily the best of the Buffett books. Lowenstein combines astute financial acumen with fair and balanced biography. Very well written, organized, and executed. A better book on Buffett simply can't be found.
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Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is a truly outstanding book for 2 primary reasons. The first reason being that Roger Lowenstein has spared absolutely no effort in his research for this book. He is very thorough and gives a number of references in each chapter. The second reason is that it is very inspiring to read how Buffett built his empire almost from scratch. This book gives a very good account of Buffett's thoughts when he was making his investment decisions. Also the subsequent deviation between Benjamin Graham's "Value Investing" and Buffett's own unique approach is highlighted. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who plans to invest in the stock market on a long term horizon.
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Summary: What You Can Learn From This Book
Review: I just read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. This book is a great supplement to that decidedly more technical text, and offers excellent insights into what drives Warren Buffett. While the Intelligent Investor is somewhat dated, this book gives you a more updated version of Buffett's exploits and ideas, as well as a fresher look at Buffett's metamorphoses since his days at Columbia. I have read numerous books on Buffett, and I have to agree with Bill Gates' analysis of this book - this is the one to read. An indispensable biography of Buffett, and a must read for anyone keen on Buffett's investment philosophy.
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Summary: Warren Buffet: A National Treasure
Review: It Couldn't Have Happened to a Nicer GuyLowenstein achieves a rare feat in business biography: I came away from this book with a warm glow and a deep respect for one of the leading lights in American business: Warren Buffet. Quite rightly, the author likens Buffett to a combination of J.P. Morgan and Will Rogers - someone who has a sharp mind for business, who banks on character rather than glamour and who can spin an instructive and entertaining yarn on how the world works. Buffett is truly a national treasure. Indeed, Buffett's upbringing, the story of his youth and his approach to life and business brought back memories of the values, character and hardwork of my grandparent's generation - values that seemed to have been eclipsed in the past 40 years. Buffett's story serves to remind us that those values still work and can serve as the basis of solid success in business and life. But the book is actually much more than the story of Warren Buffett. Within its covers the reader finds the central biography, three smaller biographies and a discourse on value investing. The three short biographies are of Ben Graham, Kay Graham and John Gutfreund: each a very sympathetic and humanizing portrait. The sections on value investing presented the most cogent arguments against Modern Portfolio Theory and the Efficient Market Hypothesis that I have read yet. I knew there was some dissension as to the merits of EMH - but nowhere had I encountered this convincing an argument against it. Somehow Graham, Buffett and Lowenstein - but mainly Buffett - distilled the argument to a point where I "got it." Naturally, the first thing I did after finishing this book was to rush out and get Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" which I devoured in three days. Highly recommended! Lowenstein gets in close to his subject, yet respects his privacy. I'm still wondering why Mrs. Buffett moved out - but of course it's none of my business. As with any paradise, there are snakes in The Garden: Dwayne Andreas of Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) and Larry King of the Franklin Savings & Loan of Omaha. Lowenstein names the first as Howie Buffett's employer and the second as a phony that Buffett rebuffed. For more on these nefarious characters I refer the reader to Kurt Eichenwald's "The Informant" and to John Decamp's "The Franklin Cover-Up." The first is the inside story on ADM price fixing; the latter a somewhat purple-prose, true crime and hard to believe story of a really sick individual. Indeed, I wondered why Lowenstein bothered to bring up King at all. All in all, though, this is a really wonderful book. Not only will you learn that character still counts in business, but that intrinsic value almost always rises to the top. Highly recommended.
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Summary: A REVELATION
Review: For me this was the best of about 6 stock market investment books I bought after selecting from a list of books touted by Morningstar.com as good reading. I read this book straight after reading Ban Grahams book, The Intelligent Investor. The latter is regarded as essential reading for security analysts, money managers, etc. but I found it relatively heavy going. Seeing Ben Graham was Warren Buffett's inspiration I thought it better to read this first before moving onto Roger Lowenstein's book about Buffett. Here, I saved the best until last because this book is mind blowing, even though all the principles espoused by the great Ben Graham are detailed in Roger Lowenstein's book. Therein lies the difference - this book is easy to read & Ben's principles, which Warren Buffett endorses, are put in a perspective, which hit you immediately between the eyes-just like a revelation. The first few chapters I found a bit tedious but once I had past these, the book was riveting. Whilst a biography, it has plenty of "how to" investment information & will certainly make you into a bettor stock market investor. It is the best book one can read if you have not done any investing in stocks yet-merely to avoid the mistakes & bad habits other stock investors have made & I speak for myself. One understands how Buffet avoided the Dot.com crash & why. Possibly the most interesting thing for me is that Buffet believes that NO ONE can call the market. He says its silly to rely on investment strategies like buying shares on a Monday is better than a Friday & that investing in small caps in December will likely reap you a fortune. And you should watch out for October. Whilst the latter comments are trite, there are huge numbers of books written exclusively about investment cycles & when to make calls - this book puts that technical stuff into perspective & for me this was tremendously thought provoking. I first read this book in December of 2001 when the tech. stock boom was on the wane. I was a committed "growth" investor until I read this book. I am now unashamedly a "value" investor. This book has completely changed the way I have thought about stock market investments & I am intensely relieved to have come across it before making more baseless investment decisions. I have read this book three times. I have since read about four other books on Warren Buffett's investment "styles" & this one is still the best.
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Summary: Wow - Definitely the best Buffett book out there...
Review: A sumptuous feast of the life and times of Warren Buffett. The absolute perfect finale to a study of 'Graham-and-Doddsville' philosophy. Reads more like a Michael Crichton novel than a biography of some rich old man, I can't wait to reread this. I highly recommend this one.
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Summary: This is the best biography of Warren Buffett on the market
Review: I am sure that I have read every biography of Warren Buffett ever written. Several others are good but this is the one book to own. It stops in 1995 and could use an update but extremely well written with great insights into Buffett's personality. Gets into his personal life, good and bad, a great deal more than other books. You get to know Buffett the person as opposed to only Buffett as an investment genius....
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Summary: A Fine Book about a Great Investor
Review: What interests me is not how smart Buffett is - of course he is smart - but how lucky he is. He himself put it well: If he had been born in Brazil, or somewhere other than America, he could have ended up a bum on the street. His talents would not have met their opportunities. Too young to fight in the second world war, he was old enough to avoid the draft for Korea and Vietnam. Another example of his luck would be meeting Ben Graham at Columbia....after he had been turned down by his first choice: Harvard Business School. Graham was a genius in investing. But he was nearly bankrupt by 40 years of age, wiped out by the Crash along with everyone else. He died wealthy - worth only a million or two! When Security Analysis came out of the printers Graham could hardly point to his own investing career as a succesful example of his own abilities. It says much about Buffett's own genius that he immediately recognized Graham's philosophy as the correct one, at a time when nobody had heard of Graham. My personal feeling is that Buffett and Graham are right in the way they approach investing. Unfortunately, too many people in America share my feeling now, and the general interest in stocks makes investing in stocks much less rewarding than it used to be. Those who are still interested in making money through stocks should look elsewhere, outside America. Not that stocks are the only way to wealth, of course.
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Summary: Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
Review: Of all the so-called financial wizards, one stands above them all: Warren Buffet. Starting out in a middle-class Nebraska family, Buffet turned his prodigious talents for investing into a fortune of over $9 billion. Like many with a particular sort of genius, the man contains myriad complexities and contradictions: a traditional moral base that somehow includes both wife and mistress; a serene exterior that masks a fixed fear of death and a history of parental abuse; and a generosity that does not preclude requiring his children to repay all loans with interest. Lowenstein, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has made a thoroughly researched attempt at exploring how Buffet's mind works. He gives a largely sympathetic view of a man who says bankers should wear ski masks, a billionaire who has "no art collection or snazzy car...but lives in a commonplace house on a tree-lined block." A worthwhile addition to most public and academic libraries
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Summary: Gives nice insight in Buffet's philosophy
Review: I like this book. It is not about the Buffet's investment methodology, but about his investment philosophy. By describing both the personal and business life of Buffett, the author tells us a lot about Buffett's way of thinking. I think the author is a little bit harsh on contemporary finance theory and it is funny when he accuses Buffett of confusing intrinsic and bookvalue in a certain investment decision in the 60's. However, I hope the author is working on a second edition, because this story ends in 1995 and what happened the last seven years with Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company of Buffet, is interesting, just as this book.
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