Customer Reviews

If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks

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

 

 

...because it's seductively written, and is liable to give readers unwarranted confidence in their ability to speculate/gamble (a distiction without a difference if there ever was one). The book is filled with entertaining fictionalized case-histories of people who both ignore and practice "macrowave investing." Problem is, of course, it's not as easy to play chess while everyone else is playing checkers as Navarro makes out. Case in point: throughout 2003, after March 12, he was calling market tops week after week, dissing the rally, eagerly adding to his short positions. Have no idea when he finally covered.
Investing is about a lot more than interpreting news alerts. When a major computer virus breaks out, it will occur to a lot of people to buy Symantec. It's awfully hard to get in first, even if you have time to sit in front of the computer all day, while glued to CNBC. And you'll be wrong half the time even if you do react instantaneously, because too many other things are contributing to a stock's valuation. From bitter experience, I've come to conclude that the best you can do is to respond to the over-reactions of Wall St. But then you have to know the companies you're buying, and there's zilch here on analyzing and evaluating businesses.
Though ostensibly written for all kinds of investors, the book is, of course, all about momentum trading--riding trends. For people who want to do this, _If It's Raining_ probably covers the basics as well as any book. He even throws in a glib and inaccurate account of the history of economic thought in the 20th century. The coverage of the business cycle and the introduction to the economic indicators is a lot better. Hence the 4 stars. But if this book fires your enthusiasm for "macrowave investing," do some paper trades for a few months first. Better still, take a look at the archives of Navarro's old columns from his website, if he's kept them.

This book gives you different scenarios as to what can happen to the stock, currency and bond markets with every economic report that comes out. Be sure you dont get overwhelmed by all of this and perhaps focus mainly on the 3 and 4 star data that comes out for a while. I am a semi-professional stock speculator myself, and even I was overwhelmed at how much info he gives. I will surely have to keep this one on my shelf for constant reference.

He gives many entertaining samples of how real speculators would act on news and economic data. The funny thing is, many fundamental and technical analysts pay too little attention to this data, and some pay it too much heed. So you need to find the balance. I will say this; I always found economic data very boring until Peter showed us they are all pieces of a puzzle and that makes it very, very interesting indeed. I will never look at CNBC the same way again. As well, the resource guide for websites and news sources at the back of the book are worth the price of this book itself! (...)Marc

For ages, humans were trying to figure out a way to predict the future. This book is a continuation of this same old quest. The authors argue that investors and traders can use different events to predict price movements in order to profit from them. This book is more for short-term investors and traders than long-term investors.

However, just because I personally do not believe in what the authors are teaching, I am not going to say that this book did not help me. It did. Most of the investment community is short-term oriented and as a long-term investor, it is extremely useful to understand what indicators or events make prices move up and down. I want to know what my competitors are doing even though I do not agree with them.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

I like this book because the author uses a funny style. Thus, it is easy to remember some typical phenomenas in macroeconomics and stock markets. Of course, you have to read books about forecasting stock market movements very very very carefully. But this is the story about a young naive boy who go for an internship in an investment bank and listen to sucess stories of the experienced collegues - They are never talking about loss reports!

As you see I am from Germany. Therefore I can tell you: Some of Mr Navarro's causal relationships cannot work in Germany. Actually, I have read the book and made notes: This might work in the US and that might happen in Germany (or maybe in another economic zone somewhere, which i know about). The difference have a little bit to do with cultural differences but more important are differences in institutional and political systems. For example the ECB don't care about what will happen to the unemployment rate in particular Euro-countries during particular election years because it is not possible to consider all member-states equally.

But I think to have read some comments of Mr Navarro that everybody have to think on its own, and thus, find their own magical "macrowave" relationships what have a pretty simple reason: If everybody does the same, the magic doesn't work anymore... I really think to remember that he have indicated something like this in the first chapter.

Therefore, dear reader, this is a very good book because it explains that macroeconomics is linked to the financial markets although some "smart" people postulate that it is not the case anymore. It depends on the viewpoint. and Mr Navarro explains, maybe not very very very academically, that there is one wave level most people don't want to see anymore. While I have read the book I skimmed through the stock market news und macroeconomic data (of Germany / Europe) of the last years and compared them to several stocks and stock indicies - It is not exactly what Mr Navarro have written but in principal he is right.

This book uses fictional stories. Fake people make tons of money in the stories using Navarro's strategies. Those fake people seriously know how to pick stocks.

It's probably still worth reading, but I'm taking the advice in the review "dangerous." Why? Because I have absolutely no idea if his advice has ever worked for a real person. It seems far too large a commitment of time and mindset without much more evidence that it works.

I'm starting to hunt down people who've tried it. So far, I've looked at Tobin Smith, who practices change wave investing. Apparently the guy's track record is dismal. So far so bad, but of course that's not enough to discredit the book.

This book was written 8 or so years ago. Many would discount this literature as old or out dated. Their assumption would be incorrect. For the person looking for a way to translate economic data into their sector analysis, this book gets you started. By using the instruction provided in this book, you will be tracking prevalent economic data and then be able to identify the best sectors for the current business cycle. I have been able to identify stocks that provide good intra-day price movements in the right sectors for the current economic environment. Don't mis-interpret my commets. It takes some effort to set up like this book explains, and you'll need to do some research to understand the economic factors the author explains if you don't already know it, but in the end it's a lot better than looking at the NASDAQ color coded screen to figure out if the market momentum is up or down or just using the spdr's to identify trends.

if you don't have a degree in finance and you want to understand how markets work and which market events drive the stock markets up or down, this is the book to read. It goes into detail on how the fiscal policy impacts the market, what lower dollar or increasing deficit mean to you as an investor, etc. The best part of the book is that it explains these events and subsequent impacts in a plain simple language, so you don't need an advanced degree in finance to understand what the author is trying to explain. I hope this book makes me a better and more informed investor in the future.

Today is Nov 14th 2005, Tyson food reported it quartely profit surged to 49 percent, as operating income surged in its chicken and pork businesses also because of record corn production last year and this year, there is ample supply (inventory) of corn that should benefit Tyson food further as it can buy corn at cheap prices.
But... stock declined by 6% in the premarket trading. Reason..."Market is effecient". There are thousand of analysts who analyze these information and incorporate them in their stock price estimate. If result surpasses expection, stock price will rise else it will fall.