Quantum Investing: Quantum Physics, Nanotechnology, and the Future of the Stock Market [Paperback]

Stephen R. Waite (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1587991934 | ISBN-13: 978-1587991936 | Edition: 1

Quantum Investing is a book about todayÂ's ascendant quantum-physics-based industries, such as communications, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Author Stephen Waite makes clear why these areas are the most important investment opportunities today and how these industries will have a profound impact on our economy. Â"Waite nails the big ideas that will create the next revolution. DonÂ't leave the 20th Century without it.Â" - Christopher Meyer, Director, The Cap Gemini Center for Business Innovation

Editorial Reviews

Review

Steve Waite looks at the sweep of economic history and nails the big ideas that will create the next revolution. WaiteÂ's done all your homework for you--Kurzweil to Kauffman, Arrow to Arthur, Drexler to Drucker. DonÂ't leave the 20th Century without it.

The stock market is a mystery, one that will probably never be fully understood. Steve Waite, though, has identified a family of disruptive technologies that promise to reshape our entire world--from the stock market to your living room.

Steve WaiteÂ's Quantum Investing is a wonderful book, filled with valuable insights. But most important of all--in this period of doom and gloom--itÂ's a refreshing change, full of optimism and belief in the future. It deserves wide readership.

Waite argues that to understand where the business world is going, and where to find value, it will prove crucial to focus on quantum physics and the industries that will flow from it. In a very timely way, Waite highlights SchumpeterÂ's process of creative destruction with old goods going extinct and new ones coming into existence; and demonstrates the coming importance of intangible asset accounting and complexity theory with its models of self organization.

About the Author

Stephen Waite has spent the past seventeen years working on Wall Street. Currently, he is Chief Knowledge Officer of TheInfoPro, Inc., a New York City-based technology research company. Steve was co-founder and managing director of Trilogy Advisors, an investment advisory firm with billions of dollars under management. Co-author of Boomernomics, his work has been in the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and BusinessWeek. He is a frequent participant at the Santa Fe Institute and an adjunct professor of Finance at Quinnipiac University

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Texere; 1 edition (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587991934
• ISBN-13: 978-1587991936
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,289,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read on the next wave of technology, January 7, 2003

By 

Jonathan Messeri (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quantum Investing (Hardcover)

In a single easy to disgest book Stephen Waite explains how quantum science and technologies will have a profound impact on investments and the world we live in. He walks the reader through the key periods of great change in economics, society and wealth creation. This puts in context the next great wave that will effect all of us-quantum-based science and technologies. Waite explains the underpinnings of quantum science and builds an excellent case that quantum based-technologies will have a significant long-term wealth creation potential through much of the 21st century and how the investor came begin to take advantage now.

This is a book on investing and a lot more-Waite focuses on potential areas of historically unprecedented opportunities and also on the significant societal benefits emanating from quantum-based development. Waiter sites physicists, economists, historians, futurists and politicians in the text. This gives a multi-dimensional view to the impact quantum technologies will have and that in fact we are beginning to see them today.

The book is also well organized with takeaways at the end of every chapter. Given there is so much information for the reader, the chronology of events of quantum science and the glossary of terms are very helpful understanding the ideas discussed in the text.

I highly recommend Waite's Quantum Investing to all-To the investor who is looking to take advantage of emerging opportunties and to anyone who is looking to understand quantum science and technologies and how it may change our lives.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scientific advances are increasing exponentially, February 17, 2003

By 

Mark D. Wolfinger (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quantum Investing (Hardcover)

Waite presents a fascinating description of how the coming (next 25 years) technological advances will have a tremendous influence on the economy, stock market, and our lives. Businesses must be flexible enough to change with the times, or may not survive. The change in the companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrual Average changed drastically over the years, and the trend will continue. The majority of stocks currently listed in the Standand & Poors top 500 companies will no longer exist 25 years from now.

The process of creative destruction will allow those companies benefiting from yet-to-be-invented technologies to grow at amazing rates, replacing those business that fail to keep pace. Noting that more welath was created during the past 100 years than in all previous history combined, Waite feels the rate of wealth creation will accelerate, with the next 25 years producing more wealth than was created during the entire 20th century.

The Industrial Revolution was made possible by technologies generated from Newtonian physics, and our future will be enhanced with inventions from quantum based technologies.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More interesting to futurologists than investors, December 17, 2002

By 

Larry Elam (Mill Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quantum Investing (Hardcover)

Picked this booking thinking it would be a good way to familiarize myself with what's going on in high-tech industries. But this book has little to do with investing. It merely suggests spreading your risks in a diversified portfolio and consider mutual funds or a good index fund. That would be a major disappointment for most readers. However, I found the book fascinating because I share a common interest with the author in what he appears to be most interested in writing about. He writes about the pace of advancing technology and quotes people like Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Kurzweil - both advocates of rapidly advancing technological progress. Waite explains clearly the idea of just how fast exponential change is occuring. His metaphor with grains of rice on a chess board is quite useful. And his explanation that technology is evolving 10,000 times faster than biological evolution is so clear I had to read it out loud to other family members. His explanation of tangible vs. intangible assets and the need to consider both to evaluate modern businesses is one of the most convincing arguments I've read regarding this misunderstood and often ignored idea. Arthur C. Clark and other futurologist's lists of anticipated 21st century technological breakthroughs are quite interesting to ponder. His suggestion that the crash of the dot.coms is not the end of the world for the advancement of technology stocks is well argued and illustrated. But the most interesting concept introduced to me in this book is the idea of what he calls a coming "singularity." Definded by Waite as a point in technological advancement where human understanding is unable to keep pace with the remarkable advances of technology and future advances in science and technology fall into the hands of superintelligent thinking computers. It sounds astounding and quite arguable but Waite and others suggest that it may come to pass in one's current lifetime. Very interesting and alarming.