<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Soros = great mind, terrible writer
Review: Anyone who has had as much success as Soros must be doing something right, so I respect his mind. Unfortunately, he is a terrible writer. He could take ten pages explaining why 2 + 2 = 4.Here's an example:
"[the shoelace theory]...can be interpreted as a synthesis of Hegel's dialectic of ideas and Marx's dialectical materialism. Instead of either thoughts or material conditions evolving in a dialectic fashion on their own, it is the interplay between the two that produces a dialectic process." This passage is a microcosm of the entire book: he makes a valid point, but it's not a particularly significant or difficult point. The only difficulty is in parsing his turgid language. I sense he is a great investor who wants to be considered a great thinker, and he believes that in order to accomplish this he has to use big words to express his theories. Soros's widely praised theory of reflexivity is a valuable contribution, but he doesn't need 400 pages to convey it. I didn't read this book expecting a "how to make money in the stock market" tutorial, but I did expect to gain a better insight into how the markets function. I did not get that. Don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a book for Everyone
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing like it
Review: In all of investment literature, there's nothing quite like the peek inside Soros's mind in his "real-time experiment." The only thing that comes close is Lefevre's _Reminiscences of a Stock Operator_. Even when Soros is wrong (like when he sees the 1987 crash as marking Japan's rise to world dominance, or in predicting a worldwide credit collapse in the late 80's), he is fascinating. The guy really is smarter than sin, and the writing gives you a sense of the kind of relentless energy as well as intellect he brought to his work.
His discussion of "Reagan's Imperial Circle," in which Reagan's aggressive military posturing coaxed inflows of foreign investment into US dollar-denominated currencies, thereby masking the massive inflation his military spending created, explains as well as anything the US's prosperity in the 1980s. It also provides a road map, written twenty years ago, to what might happen now that those inflows, as well as the internally generated credit from Fed rate cuts have stopped. Inflation? Falling dollar? Is massive government spending really the Holy Grail politicians think today? Why did it not work for Johnson or Nixon, and work for Reagan? Will it work for Bush? Reading Soros greatly improves your understanding of the landscape that these questions come from.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool value investor, and this is one of my three favorite investing books. Probably not for beginners, though.
Rating:
Summary: Lesson in Dealing with Uncertainty
Review: In this updated edition, Soros summarizes his worldly philosophy--the connection between thought and reality and how it applies to financial markets. The heart of the book remains Mr. Soros's account of what he did with Quantum Fund in the mid-1980s, both as an example of his approach and a remarkable lesson in how to make money in markets where most of the time nobody, including Mr. Soros, knows what's coming next. His philosophical tenet, Reflexivity, denotes a feedback loop: Individuals act on their views of a situation, thereby changing the situation. For example, if traders believe a stock is going up, they buy it, thereby bidding it up. But their belief caused the result; there may be no fundamental reason for the rise.
Thus what we think determines what we do and has consequences, but typically it is not correct. Inspired by Heisenberg's rule about quantum particles, Soros proclaims a human uncertainty principle which suggests our understanding is often incoherent and always incomplete. From his case study, one notices that uncertainty continually besets Mr. Soros in managing his hedge fund, which has the same name as the particles subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. General models do not always translate into money making practice. But Soros provides an insight of great practical significance: traders need to be adaptive, because there is no way of knowing beforehand how a market situation will turn out. The Quantum Fund experience demonstrates how that works. This exercise in global macro strategy, a master speculator's take on commodity, currency and equity markets, is a a litany of doubts and hazards. He's been losing on currency trades for several years. Then in September 1985, he makes a killing by buying a lot of yen just before central banks switch to a new exchange rate system and the yen rises. There is a pattern: he sustains losses, reduces positions, gets out, then sees a great opportunity and pounces. In short, he constantly and quickly adapts to events. Despite various setbacks, Quantum Fund's NAV per share rose 121% in 1985 and 43% in 1986. Such numbers make for legend and Mr. Soros became one. How did he do it? He keeps an open mind and continually modifies his outlook with new information. As he remarks, "the markets provide a merciless reality check," and Mr. Soros never stays with an idea that fails the test. Most of the time he can't predict what's coming, but he promptly corrects course in response to feedback. That limits losses. On rare occasions he can see through the fog of uncertainty and hauls in the booty. This is not an easy book to read, but as another hedge fund manager, Paul Tudor Jones, describes it in the foreword, it is a timeless guide.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book for a comodities trader
Review: 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:
Summary: Soros = great mind, terrible writer
Review: 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:
Summary: A good book for a comodities trader
Review: 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:
Summary: The Best Book on Finance EVER
Review: This is by far one the most important business books ever to be written. It's a must for anyone looking to educate themselves about the world of business. Anyone can learn from the How-To gurus, but if you want to truly educate yourself, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book on Finance EVER
Review: This is by far one the most important business books ever to be written. It's a must for anyone looking to educate themselves about the world of business. Anyone can learn from the How-To gurus, but if you want to truly educate yourself, read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lousy book by convicted for inside trader
Review: 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.
<< 1 >>
| 
