Rating: 
Summary: Good For Novices
Review: "Hedge Fund Edge" is a good book for newcomers to the field of alternative investments. However, for a far more erudite and thorough treatment on the subject one should visit the Euromoney website. I do agree with Boucher's view on economics being an ardent supply-sider myself; though if you think that "Hedge Fund Edge" is going to give you some kind of grounding in macro-trading forget about. Use it as a very brief overview on economics and alternative investing. I have seen Boucher's Portfolio Strategy Newsletter. His ideas are sound (i.e. maximum fuel markets) and he does seem like a hard worker but I find his hedge fund picks to be less than desirable. He recommends Tudor-Nauticus and Bacon-Nauticus. First of all, even though everyone knows that these guys are legendary traders it still does not mean one should invest with them. Why? Because of size and capacity. Tudor and Bacon are far too large to make the kind of killings they have in the past. Bacon is also far too correlated to the equities markets. If after this you decide you still want Tudor and Bacon in your portfolio then your best bet is to purchase the shares via a private bank, not from some parasite who is going to charge you 2 to 3 percent a year on top of incentive and management fees. Yet Boucher does not mention this, it makes one wonder whether he has financial ties with the Nauticus Fund group. At any rate, he is clearly doing the reader a disservice by not stating the optimum manner of purchasing these funds. As always "Caveat Emptor"!
Rating: 
Summary: what hedge fund edge?
Review: a more suitable title for this book would be macro investing strategies, which i don't advise. why be a jack of all trades and diversify into bonds, stocks, global currencies and what not. boucher gives us good insight into an overall stategy albeit vague at times. the average investor would not fair too well on so much diversification, after all how many soros's are truly out there? hedge funds should be synonymous with market neutral investing and arbitrage. you won't find that here.
Rating: 
Summary: valuable intro to global liquidity-based equity investing
Review: Boucher's "Hedge Fund Edge" is a tremendous gift for equity investor's, and is one of the absolute best stock and general financial market books I've ever read, and I've read well over 200 "investing" books in the past 8 years. Boucher, who manages the Midas Fund (Hedge Fund), rewards the reader with a tremendously hard won compendium of his knowledge and research into what drives equity prices around the globe. He begins by discussing bear market risks to your terminal wealth, and then takes the reader on a tour of Austrian economic liquidity cycle drivers. Boucher discusses the value of technical analysis in confirming the timing of fundamentally based trends, a very sound and useful approach. He promptly offers up 9 simple, yet elegant mechanical models for stock market timing, ranging from technical price and breadth based models, to those based on more indirect fundamental things like consumer sentiment gauges. He then reveals his own formula for calculating the high reward/risk times for non-United States equity investing, melding interest rate trends with stock relative strength trends... a real gift, and worth many times the book price by itself. There is a tremendous compendium of money management rules and techniques ... methods of controlling equity drawdown while allowing upside gains. Another gift. There is another tremendous section on US market individual equity investing. Boucher includes his own modified/improved version of William O'Neil's CANSLIM technique (I feel like Boucher's handling of the technical patterns for buying and selling is much superior to O'Neil's pioneering treatment... and again, worth many times the price of admission). He then covers portfolio construction, via alternative asset classes: various types of bonds and what types of market conditions favor their use, including two excellent bond market timing models; use of gold and silver with several timing models; REITS; use of arbitrage funds and global hedge funds in portfolio diversification, including specific fund recommendations for their various niche expertise! Throughout, Boucher's coverage of strict risk control is very refreshing and speaks of his real-world experience managing funds. This is the absolute BEST $50 education I've ever given myself, and I'm tremendously indebted to Mark Boucher for publishing so much of his work and experience in one book. I read it front-to-back in two days on what was supposed to be a vacation cruise... I couldn't put it down. Read it a second time on the same cruise. And a 3rd once home. Boucher graciously acknowledges his own influences (O'Neil, Zweig, Davis, Freeburg, Sullivan, Bank Credit Analyst), making for an instant listing of follow-up reads if you wish. He mentions his favorite sources of ongoing investment info as well. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Boucher 6 stars, and if he writes another book, I'd buy it sight-unseen. Bravo.
Rating:
Summary: valuable intro to global liquidity-based equity investing
Review: Boucher's "Hedge Fund Edge" is a tremendous gift for equity investor's, and is one of the absolute best stock and general financial market books I've ever read, and I've read well over 200 "investing" books in the past 8 years. Boucher, who manages the Midas Fund (Hedge Fund), rewards the reader with a tremendously hard won compendium of his knowledge and research into what drives equity prices around the globe. He begins by discussing bear market risks to your terminal wealth, and then takes the reader on a tour of Austrian economic liquidity cycle drivers. Boucher discusses the value of technical analysis in confirming the timing of fundamentally based trends, a very sound and useful approach. He promptly offers up 9 simple, yet elegant mechanical models for stock market timing, ranging from technical price and breadth based models, to those based on more indirect fundamental things like consumer sentiment gauges. He then reveals his own formula for calculating the high reward/risk times for non-United States equity investing, melding interest rate trends with stock relative strength trends... a real gift, and worth many times the book price by itself. There is a tremendous compendium of money management rules and techniques ... methods of controlling equity drawdown while allowing upside gains. Another gift. There is another tremendous section on US market individual equity investing. Boucher includes his own modified/improved version of William O'Neil's CANSLIM technique (I feel like Boucher's handling of the technical patterns for buying and selling is much superior to O'Neil's pioneering treatment... and again, worth many times the price of admission). He then covers portfolio construction, via alternative asset classes: various types of bonds and what types of market conditions favor their use, including two excellent bond market timing models; use of gold and silver with several timing models; REITS; use of arbitrage funds and global hedge funds in portfolio diversification, including specific fund recommendations for their various niche expertise! Throughout, Boucher's coverage of strict risk control is very refreshing and speaks of his real-world experience managing funds. This is the absolute BEST $50 education I've ever given myself, and I'm tremendously indebted to Mark Boucher for publishing so much of his work and experience in one book. I read it front-to-back in two days on what was supposed to be a vacation cruise... I couldn't put it down. Read it a second time on the same cruise. And a 3rd once home. Boucher graciously acknowledges his own influences (O'Neil, Zweig, Davis, Freeburg, Sullivan, Bank Credit Analyst), making for an instant listing of follow-up reads if you wish. He mentions his favorite sources of ongoing investment info as well. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Boucher 6 stars, and if he writes another book, I'd buy it sight-unseen. Bravo.
Rating: 
Summary: Misleading title
Review: Confusingly this book is not about hedge funds or how they trade except at the most basic level. Around half of the book is a collection of sensible risk management ideas which will be instructive to anyone new to the profession of trading and investment. The other half is a bizarre political/economic rant in favour of Austrian economics. This will make anyone who knows anything about the subject cringe but will probably appeal to the political bias of the intended audience.
Rating:
Summary: ...on the ... rack
Review: first, in boucher's defense, other reviewers have misunderstood the term "hedge fund" to mean "market neutral." the term "hedge fund" simply means the ability to go short in a portfolio. in that regard, the title is not misleading at all. this book does outline several short strategies based on an understanding of the liquidity cycle.however, boucher, for as much as he espouses the austrian economic method, has forgotten that one tenant of that methodology is a total diregard for econometric forecasting. the relationships he defines in this book would have had many people in trouble in the early 2000s because, as the austrians state, what happened (past economic relationships) in the past does not have to happen in the future (these once dependable relationships may break down - with your money on the line). current monetary policy has been ineffective, and therefore, so would any of boucher's systems that rely on monetary indicators. these indicators would have been screaming "buy" the equity markets, while the equity markets themselves would have been screaming "sell us...now!" that being said, the primary reason not to buy this book is that some of the systems that boucher gives are insightful logically, but dubious in execution. while he may give you a system, he does not give you all you need. the reader assumes that he is giving valid systems, with all pertinent information. but, he leaves certain important points out. for example, on page 138, he says that you should buy stocks when up volume on the NYSE is greater than 77% of total volume and then he gives past buy and sell dates for the strategy. after much testing, i figured out that he is not using total volume on the NYSE, but rather total volume less unchanged volume. in other words, total volume is up volume, down volume and unchanged volume for all shares trading on the NYSE. boucher's "total volume" is just up volume plus down volume. this makes a huge difference. also, any time he uses 30-year t-bond data, good luck to you trying to figure out what he's actually using. the fed has a constant maturity series that goes back to 1977. boucher can go back to 1943 for this data. hmmmmmm. i'm sure he's using something, but i have no idea what. so, what good is the system if you don't know what he's using as the "30 year treasury yield"? and, through no fault of boucher, the 30-year is not issued any more. he also relies quite heavily on the dow jones 20 bond index. this series was discontinued. this is not boucher's fault, of course, but just another reason to steer clear of this book. i will say that i learned quite a bit from this book, however. it was fun to read. my problem simply resides with the somewhat tricky way that some of his systems are given. hey, i don't expect the guy to give away a proprietary system, but if you give a system, step up to the plate and tell the reader you're going to leave out some things (he actually does do this when he relays someone else's strategy). i find his method a bit disingenuous. ...
Rating:
Summary: ...on the ... rack
Review: first, in boucher's defense, other reviewers have misunderstood the term "hedge fund" to mean "market neutral." the term "hedge fund" simply means the ability to go short in a portfolio. in that regard, the title is not misleading at all. this book does outline several short strategies based on an understanding of the liquidity cycle. however, boucher, for as much as he espouses the austrian economic method, has forgotten that one tenant of that methodology is a total diregard for econometric forecasting. the relationships he defines in this book would have had many people in trouble in the early 2000s because, as the austrians state, what happened (past economic relationships) in the past does not have to happen in the future (these once dependable relationships may break down - with your money on the line). current monetary policy has been ineffective, and therefore, so would any of boucher's systems that rely on monetary indicators. these indicators would have been screaming "buy" the equity markets, while the equity markets themselves would have been screaming "sell us...now!" that being said, the primary reason not to buy this book is that some of the systems that boucher gives are insightful logically, but dubious in execution. while he may give you a system, he does not give you all you need. the reader assumes that he is giving valid systems, with all pertinent information. but, he leaves certain important points out. for example, on page 138, he says that you should buy stocks when up volume on the NYSE is greater than 77% of total volume and then he gives past buy and sell dates for the strategy. after much testing, i figured out that he is not using total volume on the NYSE, but rather total volume less unchanged volume. in other words, total volume is up volume, down volume and unchanged volume for all shares trading on the NYSE. boucher's "total volume" is just up volume plus down volume. this makes a huge difference. also, any time he uses 30-year t-bond data, good luck to you trying to figure out what he's actually using. the fed has a constant maturity series that goes back to 1977. boucher can go back to 1943 for this data. hmmmmmm. i'm sure he's using something, but i have no idea what. so, what good is the system if you don't know what he's using as the "30 year treasury yield"? and, through no fault of boucher, the 30-year is not issued any more. he also relies quite heavily on the dow jones 20 bond index. this series was discontinued. this is not boucher's fault, of course, but just another reason to steer clear of this book. i will say that i learned quite a bit from this book, however. it was fun to read. my problem simply resides with the somewhat tricky way that some of his systems are given. hey, i don't expect the guy to give away a proprietary system, but if you give a system, step up to the plate and tell the reader you're going to leave out some things (he actually does do this when he relays someone else's strategy). i find his method a bit disingenuous. ...
Rating:
Summary: If you are a professional - forget this one!
Review: For the novice to average investor, this may be a good book to read. However, for professional portfolio managers, not only is this book remarkably void of original ideas, it is a complete waste of paper. It is a realatively good synopsis of what can be found elsewhere and better written. If you are a professional portfolio manager, don't waste time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Having sifted through mountains of investment books, I can honestly say that this far-reaching tome is the one I have enjoyed and learned from the most. Skip all other financial books, including the great classics, and run to pick it up. The philosophies and methods Boucher details are simple, comprehensible and will change the way you manage your trades and money. It could use some expansion and editing, but as it stands you cannot afford not to read it.
Rating:
Summary: There's always a market where you can make a profit.
Review: Hedge fund advisor Boucher's book provides an excellent introduction to investing on a global basis and across a wide range of asset classes. His point is that limiting oneself to a small group of markets/asset classes limits an investor's ability to make consistent profits with relatively low risk. He provides a basic model for finding the strongest equity/bond markets, as well as other models specific to each of those and other asset types. The research behind each of these is robust enough to provide high confidence levels, something I haven't always seen elsewhere. Highly recommended!
|
