The Super Analysts

Rating:
Summary: A useful read
Review: I enjoyed this book. Most of the people seemed to be fundamentalists. (I'm yet to find people in such positions to be chartists.) The interviews were with a wide range of types of analysts. The comments of most of them about the problem of internet bubble seemed quite astute. Certainly, most of these people realised that at the end of the day cash generation was final judge of success or failure of the Net stocks.

However I wish Andrew Leeming explained what a "buy" side anaylsist and a "sell" side analyst was. I'm reasonably financially literate but I hadn't come across these terms before. Similarly other people may have found his use of analyst jargon hard to decipher.

Overall though, Leeming has done a reasonable job of explaining the jargon either in the interview or with his useful footnotes. So if a second edition comes out, perhaps he should have a 10 pages or so giving a broad picture of what an analysts does, continuing issues that confront them and contemorary issues that are confronting them as a preface to the book. This way all the readers would coming from a common level of knowledge when the interviews start.

A surprising common thread that came from these "Masters of the Universe" was humility a good analyst (as opposed to a media queen) required. Once you think you are god's gift to finance your useful life as an ananlysts is about over.

This humility factor also was mentioned a couple of times with regard to company management. In particular, the Australian Multinational Minerals company "BHP" gets bucketed number of times for it's arrogant management in the 1990's.

One take home message from this book is that mineral/mining stocks (other than perhaps oil) are not buy-and-hold stocks and they tend to be net destroyers of shareholders wealth. They are highly cyclical and should only be traded that way.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for aspiring analysts
Review: Leeming asks some really good questions to some influential analysts and their advice and experiences should be taken into consideration. We are able to experience vicariously what they went through and remember them as novices climb up that corporate ladder. A good point were the different valuation techniques that each analyst prefered in their sector. However, after some time the book keeps reiterating the same points by which analysts should live by. Therefore getting a little stale.Overall, i felt i benefited from reading this book and did not regret reading it.

Rating:
Summary: For all serious investors
Review: This book gives you an insight into how top analysts cover stocks and value them. Most of the analysts have been covering stocks for over ten years. This makes their stories all the more valuable. If you use fundamental analysis then this book is a definite Buy recomendaton.

A plus for me was the Australian content which is rare in such books.

Reading this book will make you a better investor.