Customer Reviews

Investment Titans: Investment Insights from the Minds that Move Wall Street

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This book is the nonmath, condensed books version of much of the financial theory written by academics about stock investing, plus some perspectives by outstanding practitioners. If you can understand the math, you will learn a lot more by reading the original works. If you cannot, these side-by-side comparisons are not examined in enough depth to help you understand who's right and who's out of date. The book is well written though, for what it is. The book's concept is simply mistargeted from what investors need to know.

Of the thinkers who were interviewed for this book, the most useful information comes from John Bogle, Gary Brinson, Richard Thaler, Joseph Lakonishok, and Jeremy Siegel. You can read any of several books by John Bogle that are more helpful than this book, such as Bogle on Mutual Funds or Common Sense about Mutual Funds. Jeremy Siegel's Stocks for the Long Run is a classic that anyone can learn from. The Lakonishok studies suggest lots of inefficiency in the markets that Brinson talks about. Thaler's work is cutting edge in helping people understand the systematic tendency for professional and amateur investors to make mistakes.

If you ignore the Markowitz, Samuelson, Bernstein, and Sharpe material in the book, you will have missed relatively little.

Modern financial practice has moved well beyond the original academic perspectives built around the theoretical assumption of a perfectly informed and rational market composed of identically-minded investors. Those useful research-based distinctions are not made here.

If you want to understand what you should be doing as an investor, I would suggest looking elsewhere. Depending on your goals and circumstances, different paths may make sense for you. If you are between 46 and 56, I suggest that you start with Charles Schwab's new book, You're 50 -- Now What?

Of the key lessons in the book, you should pay most attention to the advice to diversify, hold as much in common stocks as your risk profile allows you to do, stay invested all the time, keep costs down (taxes, fees, and trading charges), focus on indexes of sectors that have historically outperformed (such as small cap, value stocks), start investing as soon as you can, add to your investments as much as possible, and . . . leave well enough alone (forget about chasing the latest hot stock or manager to try to beat the averages -- past performance is not an indicator of what will come next).

If you do decide to read this book, check your behavior against the principles I have just listed above. Most people violate these concepts, and have missed the chance to make more money.

May you achieve all of your financial goals!

The core concepts of the nine you know who, as summarized by the author, are: 1) diversify your portfolio 2) be cost conscious 3) start investing now and stay invested 4) keep your emotions in check 5) take an active, involved role in investment even if you got an advisor.

Not that insightful, right? You know these ideas quite well but just fail to execute them profitably, dont you? Now you may see why I dare not recommend it a "buy".

p.s. The best I can get is from Samuelson:- "You should take money seriously. In fact, you shouldnt enjoy investing. That's a trap. It makes you too active. You churn your own portfolio. You listen to stories, and most of the stories are not worth listening to."

Mr. Burton has managed to leave out the usual cliches and well worn stories of investing lore that even the novice knows. It is truly one of those "If there is only one book you can read about investing it should be this one..." kind of books. Great info and well-written. Let me emphasize the well-written part. I don't think that the average person is turned off by learning about investing; I do think the average person is turned off by having to cut their way through dense jungles of jargon and puffery to get to some sort of universal truth about investing. Burton has accomplished it here. Authoritative, interesting, funny, smart, challenging, and as close to a good beach read as you can get in this genre.

Investments Titans By: Jonathan Burton

The first chapter goes through the important knowledge of investing in the stock market. The most important thing an investor should try to do is to minimize his/her risk. To minimizing his/her risk in the market is to have a diversified portfolio. The portfolio risk decreases as the number of different types of stock increases. But how many much diversification is enough? If an investor is trying to reduce the volatility of his/her portfolio as a whole, then he/she need more than one type of stock. But an investor also needs to have stocks that don't go up and down together. It makes perfect sense to own more different types of stock to reduce an individual's risk in an up and down market. A famous 1970 study by Lawrence Fisher and James Lorie showed that risk declines as stocks are added to a portfolio. But the research noticed that once the portfolio holds more that 20 stocks, adding more stocks will have a minimal effect on risk. The point here is to have a diversified portfolio but not to go overboard. In my opinion, having five to eight different types of stocks is being diversified enough. Yet, many analysts say owing between 12 to 20 is ideal for a portfolio. It makes perfect sense that investors will seek the highest return for the least amount of risk. You should take in count that diversification eliminates some risk, but not all. Besides having a diversified portfolio, it is also important to focus on well-managed companies that have a strong franchise (brand name). An investor should try to invest in a business that he/she understands well and companies that generate lots of cash and competitive characteristics. When he/she buys a stock at what you think appears to be an attractive discounted price, he/she will benefit from the future increase in value generated by owing all or part of a business that is well established.

From Investments Titans, I have learned that the most important thing an investor should try to do is to minimize his/her risk. To minimizing his/her risk in the market is to have a diversified portfolio. The portfolio risk decreases as the number of different types of stock increases. But how many much diversification is enough? If an investor is trying to reduce the volatility of his/her portfolio as a whole, then he/she need more than one type of stock. But an investor also needs to have stocks that do not go up and down together. It makes perfect sense to own more different types of stock to reduce an individual's risk in an up and down market. A famous 1970 study by Lawrence Fisher and James Lorie showed that risk declines as stocks are added to a portfolio. But the research noticed that once the portfolio holds more that 20 stocks, adding more stocks will have a minimal effect on risk. The point here is to have a diversified portfolio but not to go overboard. In my opinion, having five to eight different types of stocks is being diversified enough. Yet, many analysts say owing between 12 to 20 is ideal for a portfolio. It makes perfect sense that investors will seek the highest return for the least amount of risk. You should take in count that diversification eliminates some risk, but not all. But one thing that this book does not mention is besides having a diversified portfolio, it is also important to focus on well-managed companies that have a strong franchise (brand name). I think it is very important that an investor does not pick stock that has poor management team. An investor should try to invest in a business that he/she understands well and companies that generate lots of cash and competitive characteristics. When he/she buys a stock at what you think appears to be an attractive discounted price, he/she will benefit from the future increase in value generated by owing all or part of a business that is well established. The one thing that I like about Jonathan Burton is that he makes the most important factor in investing very clear. He makes risk in the stock market very straightforward. It is not all about looking at data and number all the time. It is about looking at how much risk an investor is at when he/she is buying or selling a stock. Another thing that I like about this book is that it does not give only his opinion on investing but many others as well. You do not only get one opinion but you get many opinions. So you are not narrow-minded and set only one direction. Over all, the book is a great guide for new investors like me. I would recommend new investor to read this book but would not recommend investor to invest after reading the book because I have learned that you can not understand the stock market by just reading book but you also need to have experience as well.

Jonathan Burton relays the advice of nine top investors - Harry Markowitz, Paul Samuelson, Jeremy Siegel, John C. Bogle, Joseph Lakonishok, Richard Thaler, Gary Brinston, Peter Bernstein and William Sharpe. The author focuses on different aspects of investing - stock-market risk and reward, indexing, value versus growth investing, investor psychology, international investor strategies and risk tolerance. Burton concludes Investment Titans with observations about common themes - diversifying, investing now and staying invested. This solid book avoids repetition by focusing on different investment issues for different investors. We [...] won't give you stock tips, but we do offer book tips - this is a recommended buy for all readers interested in investment strategies.

I'm actually waiting for my book to arrive, but wanted to encourage would-be investors to purchase this book. Mr. Burton is a well-known financial writer for publications such as The New York Times and Bloomberg Financial and has a commanding knowledge of not only investment strategy, but leading-edge technologies that fuel global markets. His ability to atract top investors and convince them to reveal some of their strategies is a testament to his stature in the financial community. For someone whose portfolio has taken a major hit, this book purchase, based entirely on his authorship, was an easy decision to make.