The Alchemy of Finance (Wiley Investment Classics) [Paperback]

George Soros (Author), Paul A. Volcker (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0471445495 | ISBN-13: 978-0471445494

New chapter by Soros on the secrets to his success along with a new Preface and Introduction.
New Foreword by renowned economist Paul Volcker
"An extraordinary . . . inside look into the decision-making process of the most successful money manager of our time. Fantastic." -The Wall Street Journal
George Soros is unquestionably one of the most powerful and profitable investors in the world today. Dubbed by BusinessWeek as "the Man who Moves Markets," Soros made a fortune competing with the British pound and remains active today in the global financial community. Now, in this special edition of the classic investment book, The Alchemy of Finance, Soros presents a theoretical and practical account of current financial trends and a new paradigm by which to understand the financial market today. This edition's expanded and revised Introduction details Soros's innovative investment practices along with his views of the world and world order. He also describes a new paradigm for the "theory of reflexivity" which underlies his unique investment strategies. Filled with expert advice and valuable business lessons, The Alchemy of Finance reveals the timeless principles of an investing legend.
This special edition will feature a new chapter by Soros on the secrets of his success and a new Foreword by the Honorable Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
George Soros (New York, NY) is President of Soros Fund Management and Chief Investment Advisor to Quantum Fund N.V., a $12 billion international investment fund. Besides his numerous ventures in finance, Soros is also extremely active in the worlds of education, culture, and economic aid and development through his Open Society Fund and the Soros Foundation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Soros, who manages the Quantum mutual fund based in Venezuela, here traces the fund's performance in a controlled experiment using leverage in many markets (stocks, bonds, indexes, currency, etc.), to test the Reaganomics "imperial circle" and to demonstrate his own economic theory of "reflexivity." It is investors' perception of market values, claims the author, which perpetuates up-or-down price trends, foreign exchange movements, periodic government regulation, and so on. The most studious investment calculations, he concedes, are in the end more alchemy than science. As to such problems as the massive U.S. domestic and trade deficits and the Damoclean Third World debt, Soros offers innovative suggestions, including an international oil-based currency and a system of variable interest-rate bonds keyed to the volume of a borrower country's export trade.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Soros, manager of the billion dollar Quantum Fund, certainly has credentials that merit attention to his personal approach to money management. As might be expected, he describes his so-called "theory of reflexivity" in a manner more appealing to serious market players than to the casual investor. Of more general interest is his account of a one-year real time series of investment decisions that resulted in his Quantum Fund more than doubling in value. Libraries serving a serious investment community should add this. Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Academy Lib.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 391 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (July 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471445495
• ISBN-13: 978-0471445494
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. He survived the occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics. While a student at LSE, Mr. Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities. The financier. In 1956 Mr. Soros moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. Today he is Chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lesson in Dealing with Uncertainty February 17, 2004

By C. Kurdas VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

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.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Some Insights, but also Wordy & Digressive February 20, 2003

By Christopher Hefele

Format:Paperback

Soros is unquestionably one of the finest investors of our time, and the concept of "reflexivity" that he introduces in this book does have some merit. However, I found his wordy tome is a slightly burdensome read. Most of his most valuable points are in the first 80 pages; the remaining 300 could have been trimmed down by a wise editor.

Soros' main points revolve around a concept that he dubs "reflexivity." Reflexivity claims a few things: First, that prices aren't objective; they're based on people's biased perceptions of the fundamental factors influencing the market. Second, people make trades based on their biased perceptions, so perceptions will influence the market. Third, and most importantly, those market movements can in turn change the market's underlying fundamentals. There is, therefore, a continuous co-evolution of the market fundamentals, the market's price movements, and market participants' perceptions.

Let's run through an example to make this clear. Say a profitless Internet company's stock soars because investors have overblown expectations of earnings growth. That company could then use its inflated stock in a stock-swap to aquire another company that DOES has earnings. This aquisition would thus "justify" the stock's inflated stock value. Thus, mistaken perceptions have allowed a change in the structure of an industry (i.e. two companies merged which would not have earlier).

Soros makes a number of other valuable points about "reflexivity." He notes that traditional economics try to sidestep the issue of subjectivity and biased perceptions by assuming people behave rationally, which of course isn't always true. To demonstrate this, he points out that we see reflexive behavior all over the markets. For example, we see self-reinforcing price trends (people buy because a stock is going up, or sell when it's going down), rather than random-walks in prices. We see booms & busts in the credit markets. And so on.

Finally, the genesis of the title, "The Alchemy of Finance" comes from Soros' observation that finance can never be a science because the traditional tools of science -- that is, explanation, prediction and objectivity -- can't be used, because perceptions and subjectivity cannot be seperated out like they can in a controlled science experiment. Finance can only be a form of alchemy -- it seeks operational success, instead of being able to seeking and test fundamental laws as the scientific method does.

Overall, I found the book insightful in parts, but rambling. Some other reviewers claimed that the book was pseudo-intellectual. I did find that it lack academic rigor, but I can't be sure if that's because he was writing for a popular audience.

Since the book was written in the late 80's, there's been growing interest & academic research at the intersection between psychology and financial markets. Soros was not the first to recognize that financial markets involve a good dose of psychology, but his book serves to underscore this important truth about the market.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars required reading for aspiring money managers March 2, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Soros is the greatest publicly known investor of our times. His Quantum Fund numbers attest to that. In this book, he makes a Herculian effort to explain how he did it, including a real-time diary, which is as informative in revealing how often he is wrong-headed (and so exits) as it reveals how he piles on more leverage on a winning position. He also tries to honestly write about how some decisions are simply intuitive, and not the result of reasoned analysis. Though most investors will not be involved in macro-investing, where Soros simultaneously considers equity prices, forex, commodities, politics and economics, and using 5 to 1 leverage invests accordingly in stocks, bonds, currencies, both long and short --- still this is a must-read for anyone considering a carreer as a money manager. If you wanted to be an artist, you would read the biography of da Vinci, a master of art. Soros is a master of finance. The way the Beatles inspired a generation of musicians, so Soros inspired a generation of hedge fund managers.