Customer Reviews

The 90% Solution: Higher Returns, Less Risk

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an infomercial in book form. He definetly keeps you interested with all he talks about. Every chapter you finish reading makes you want to read more. Each chapter you wonder if the next will be the one the author will reveal his secret. Finally, he tells the reader he will not devulge his secret because he spent so many years developing it. He explains you can take 20yrs and develope your own system or use his investment firm to do it for you.
David Rogers is very brilliant. Instead of paying a TV station to advertise, he writes a book and people pay him to read it. His last chapter is filled with other sources where you can pay and receive similiar results (all are probably paid sponsors). What a genius.
His system sounded interesting and his results look good. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sent for information about his investment firm. I recieved the package today. The minimum investment is $25000.
The bottom line: If you are looking for a book to help you with your own investing (as I was), this book is not for you. There are many other better books out there that actually give you useful information. Not this one.
Furthermore, you can get most of the information in his book for free. Just Google search his name and read the same information on his firms (Watauga Equity Management) web page ...free.
Hopefully you have read this before you purchased the book. I would at least like to think I have saved someone some money.

Fascinating insights into the cycles of the markets. Mr Rogers presents a compelling rebuttal to the "buy and hold" crowd. The premise of the book that 90% of a mutual fund / money manager's return is dictated by the market direction should be ignored by investors at their peril. He shows that there are actually long periods that being out and in cash is superior to holding the "market" when the "market" has decided that down is better than up. I wish he could have provided a little better insight to some of his methodologies, but I guess if he did they'd stop working. And finally the answer to that message about "if you missed the 40 best days in the market" propaganda we keep being fed. He demonstrates that thinking for yourself is always better than having someone do it for you. His independent reasoning has enabled him to achieve superior returns - a lesson we all can learn.

I WAS DRAWN TO 'THE 90% SOLUTION: HIGHER RETURNS, LESS RISK' BY ITS AUDACIOUS TITLE AND GOLD STAR ENDORSERS ON THE BACK COVER--AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. THIS BOOK IS BOUND TO BE CONTROVERSIAL BECAUSE IT IS IRREVERENTLY CRITICAL OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY'S SATISFACTION WITH ACHIEVING ''AVERAGE'' RESULTS. IT EFFECTIVLEY CHALLENGES THE INDUSTRY'S ''BUY AND HOLD'' MAINSTAY, EVEN DOCUMENTING WHY THE CORNERSTONE OF THE INDUSTRY'S PURSUIT OF MEDIOCRITY MAY EVEN BE A FARCE. SUPERBLY WRITTEN, THE AUTHOR MAKES A COMPELLING CASE FOR OVERALL MARKET TIMING AS THE SUREST WAY TOWARD SUPERIOR INVESTMENT RESULTS. HE RECOUNTS HIS OWN PERSONAL JOURNEY DISCOVERING AND EMBRACING MARKET TIMING. HE DOESN'T GIVE AWAY HIS SECRET FORMULAS, BUT DOES GO INTO CONSIDERABLE DETAIL ABOUT HIS CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO CONTRARIAN THINKING AS A PERSONAL PREFERENCE THAT HAS YIELDED SOME PRETTY HEADY RESULTS. HIS DISCUSSION OF CYCLES AND CONTRARIAN THINKING ALONE IS WORTH THE PRICE OF ADMISSION, BUT THE INSIGHTS THAT HE SHARES FROM HIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCES ALONG THE WAY ARE AN ENRICHMENT FEW AUTHORS PROVIDE.

Mr Rogers shows in his book that the market "CAN" be timed. His record demonstrates that he has done so. I have studied the markets for 41 years and I am a retired broker. Mr Rogers is the only money manager I have ever allowed to manage my own money. This year,2006, my account is up over 30% on an annulized basis(through 10 months). BUT, I have known mr Rogers for about 10 years and have been skeptical that anyone could time the market on a short term basis. This year,2006, he has proven that the methods he writes about not only can but have timed the market short term. I can personally verify that he sold out and went short at the may top AND that he covered shorts and bought at the June and July bottoms. When the market turned up in late summer he said that his methods showed that the market "should" go to a new ALL TIME HIGH. I was very doubtful but was respectful enough of his previous "calls" to watch and NOT SHORT. HOW MANY OTHER TRADERS PROJECTED A NEW ALL TIME HIGH ON THE DOW? In my opinion, Mr Rogers has the best short term timing system that I have ever read about or personally seen in action. I'm just happy to be on the beneficial side with a few dollars.

I wish I'd listened to "Read this message before you buy." He's absolutely correct. While somewhat interesting, the book is by and large worthless. I read many many investment books, and there are only 2 I've actually thrown in the garbage, including this one.

I have to agree with the one-star reviewers and join them. However, I don't know David Rogers, his track record, or his timing method (since he doesn't reveal or describe it in the book.) I did read the book, or at least as much of it as I could stomach. He sucks you in with some sensible sections on active management and MPT, then delivers the hard sell. This book is for naive, newbie investors who haven't figured out yet what investment snake oil looks like.

Reliable timing models that work in real time, as opposed to back-tested time, are like unicorns. There are investors who successfully time the markets, at least sometimes. Rogers points to Ken Heebner several times as an example. However, as one who owned a Heebner fund in the 1980s and 1990s, I can tell you that Heebner has had some horrendous years where he was so out of touch with the market he might as well have been on the moon. Same with other successful traders/timers who have had mixed results -- Jesse Livermore shot himself in a mens room while George Soros is a fat and happy billionaire. You never know...

However, for the low, low price of an annual subscription, David Rogers will show you (why you? Because YOU are a SPECIAL person) the easy path to riches.

This book is for the gullible only. Thankfully I got it from the library and returned it before anyone caught me reading it. Shame on me.

I read a lot of investing books. Many of them have have some decent strategies for making money in an up market. Heck I can even do that most of the time, ok some of the time! This gentleman appears to have a good way to make it going up, and going down which is really important over the long term. I have seen complaints that he doesn't tell you enough about his strategies. I say, don't worry about that. You probably couldn't do it consistently anyway. Do some research on the performance, and if it makes sense, try it. You are in the market less, and you can make money up or down!

David Rogers has made a cogent analysis of the state of the majority of mutual funds and their quest for mediocrity. If you're looking for someone to manage your money who doesn't accept the status quo, look no further. He is very honest,however, about the fact that their are others who look beyond mediocrity. His three year track record speaks for itself.

90% Solution? Certainly, Dave Rogers is right that
if we could somehow buy at the bottom after a major
bear market and then sell out at the next top, there is
a 90% chance we would make money, no matter what we buy.

But his book goes way beyond this. For all the
rote praise given by the "buy and hold" crowd to blindly
holding "good quality" stocks tightly for the long-term,
their performance is usually not even average. Most fail
to match the gains of the averages.

Even those slaves to the fashion of blindly holding
for the long-term should understand that the very stocks
that make up the major averages are not fixed for all time
forward! Someone in a dark room, not in the public light,
engages in "market timing" and assesses the individual components
for continued timeliness. Every so often, they kick out
the laggards and infuse new blood into the DJIA-30,
the NASDAQ-100, the SP-500, the FTSE-100, etc.

Even more right-on, Dave Rogers asks us simply to
ponder whether the market must always be tilted up,
much less at the same steep angle that it has been since 1982.
In August 1982, the DJIA was at 800. Now in January 2007, it
stands at 12,400. This is more than a 1500% gain in 24
years. A lot of things went very right for the market
in this period. Communism was defeated. The Internet
was invented. Taxation on the rich and stocks was halved
and then halved again. But what if things change.
What if retirees start to sell their stocks on balance
as the population ages? Can the three trillion dollar cost
of the US war on Iraq be really escaped, financially,
diplomatically, morally? Peace is bullish for a while.
The ending of the US war on Viet Nam in late 1974 led to a
bull market, which ended in mid 1976. But, it then took six years
for the market to cope with war's hang-over consequences
and get back to its peak of 1020 in September 1976.

We have only to look back at the period from 1966 to
1982 to see what an unsuccessful major US military adventure in
Asia produced for the stock market, namely inflation, decline
of the dollar, sharply higher interest rates, impeachment of a
President, shrill partisianship and a DJIA that ended up in
August 1982 more than 100 points, 10%, below what it was in
January 1966, a full sixteen years earlier!

Rogers asks us, ever so politely, just to think about
how well we would take to a market that took on the bumpy
characteristics of a roller-coaster. Would we really be comfortable
riding out an 18-month to 24-month bear market like those
from December 1968 to May 1970, January 1973 to December 1974,
January 1981 to August 1982 or January 2001 to January 2003?
Such bear markets very often wipe out 50%-90% of the value of
popular growth stocks. He asks us if it wouldn't be worth while
to start to learn how to spot the tell-tale signs that are
the usual alerts to such long bear markets. Wouldn't it
be worthwhile, in other words to learn some of the tricks
that market timers have to teach us.

Shouldn't we at least think about how we might learn
to use time-tested market timing techniques to avoid 10%-35%
sell-offs in the DJIA (and twice that for most NASDAQ stocks)
that last 2-6 months? These are very common. Such panics
and sell-offs can reap havoc to the value of a "long-term"
portolio of "good stocks".

I have spent the last 25 years professionally studying market
history. Steep sell-offs of more than 10% in the DJIA occurred in 24
of the last 41 years: 1966, 1967-1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973,
1974, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1994,
1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. (Keep in mind that a
10% DJIA drop probably means twice as big a fall in the NASDAQ
and much more in volatile growth stocks.)

We have now gone 46 months without a 10% decline in the DJIA.
That is longest such period since at least the 1950's! So, yes.
I would say Dave Rogers' book on market timing is very timely!

First I must disagree with the one star review's. I honestly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it if you are serious about investing. The major criticism the one star reviews have about the book is that the authors does not divulge his timing model. I do not blame him. He spent his carrier developing his trading methodologies. He does give us a glimpse of his thought process he uses in his trades and they are enlightening. I think of this book as a pathway into a new era of investing. There is enough information here to get you started in the right direction ( if you read with an open mind it will change they way you look at investing) The author provides references to many alternative investment ideas and services for you to explore. If you are tired of Buy and Hold and are looking for a paradigm shift then get the book. If you are looking for a magic formula or a step-by-step trading plan then this book is not for you.