Customer Reviews

Quantum Investing

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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.

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.

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.

Waite lays waste to the idea that the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble was the end of the technology revolution, and instead puts forth the idea that the "emergence" of nanotech (quantum) capabilities mean this is only the beginning. The book makes a compelling case for the non-linear nature of growth in a knowledge based (as opposed to resourse based) economy.

Perhaps, more importantly, Waite introduces the science of complexity and it's framework for understanding complicated systems (as are markets, mutli-celled organisms, weather systems, etc). Complexity theory, developed by the Sante Fe Institute over the last 15 years, is a mechanism by which investors in the modern era can develop a tool kit to read and react to a world of constant change, contagion, evolution and catalytic shock.

This is important stuff; well written, concise and comprehensive. It include both the raw information and the framework with which to manage it. It's a body of knowledge the well equiped investor needs in their arsenal.

Author Stephen R. Waite is a Wall Street veteran, but despite its title Quantum Investing is not about investing (the few investor-oriented tips are at the end of each chapter and at the book's conclusion). Rather, it is a futurist manifesto, an infectious, heady hodgepodge of science textbook and thought experiment, which reads like a sequel to Future Shock. Waite takes you on a whirlwind tour of quantum theory, which has enabled astounding technological advances (note the glossary of physics terms and the timeline of relevant scientific developments). He assesses the accounting industry as hopelessly out-of-date when it comes to valuing intangible assets, and offers a thought-provoking discussion of the stock market, chaos theory and complex systems. You'll probably be skeptical of - but intrigued by - the discoveries he predicts for the twenty-first century. We from getAbstract recommend this to executives who are interested in a big-picture treatment of the economic evolution, or who are science (or science-fiction) buffs.

Quantum Investing provides investors a road map for understanding the impact of innovations in science and technology on businesses. It's a must-read for those looking for an eloquent and cogent synthesis of the forces of quantum physics, complexity science and intellectual assets on the business world.

Steve Waite builds a very strong case for the expectation that these forces will combine to unleash a powerful wave of innovation that will wash over nearly all parts of our scoiety. Though the tech bubble has burst in the stock market, it is important to recognize that we have only begun to benefit from recent advances in science and technology. Steve Waite makes it very clear that the real power of recent advances lies in how they combine to drive faster and faster rates of innovation and improvements in productivity. Having better tools enables us not only to do more with less but also to create even better tools. This virtuous cycle is just getting its footing as we begin to taste the benefits of consilience.

The stock market may be down over the short-term, but Steve Waite shows that it will rise again on the shoulders of scientific breakthroughs that will reshape our world.

Science is taking society on a magical trip that has tremendous consequences in the way that we plan our futures. Investors to be successful must prepare their trading day by first being cognizant of the drastic changes that science is providing us everyday. A technological breakthrough may mean that the stock that you highly value today becomes the stock that you are ashamed of tomorrow.

Quantum Investing is an incredible asset to own as you change over your investing philosophy to one that mindful of the power of science over our lives. Stephen Waite's writing style is smooth and easy I eagerly recommend this book.

Rick Torres

Let's face it folks, this is a deep book. Spend some time with it - mull it over. It's not People Magazine. The insight it gives us on who we are, and where we are going as a society and an economy is quite profound. We are living today, and have been living for quite some time, in a world driven by quantum discoveries. Tie the threads together - and realize that we're on a spaceship earth that is moving through the universe in surprising ways. "Quantum Investing" opened my eyes.

Waite's book is an outstanding think piece and the investment advice he offers is sound. However, for a hardcore trader who is just looking for short-term trading ideas like me, I think something short, sweet and extemely effective is more my cup o' tea. Something like The TradingWindows strategy from Connors will probably help you make money faster in the markets...this is helpful in developing a macro-view of potential tech stocks i.e. how to judge where a company is in their stock-price-life cycle based on his projections of where technology's trajectory should take us over the coming years, but it maybe too much for a short-term trader to take.

Science is taking society on a magical trip that has tremendous consequences in the way that we plan our futures. Investors to be successful must prepare their trading day by first being cognizant of the drastic changes that science is providing us everyday. A technological breakthrough may mean that the stock that you highly value today becomes the stock that you are ashamed of tomorrow.

Quantum Investing is an incredible asset to own as you change over your investing philosophy to one that mindful of the power of science over our lives. Stephen Waite's writing style is smooth and easy I eagerly recommend this book.

Rick Torres