Supermoney [Paperback]

Adam Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1973

"Adam Smith continues to dazzle and sparkle! With the passage of time, Supermoney has, if anything, added to its power to inspire, arouse, provoke, motivate, inform, illuminate, entertain, and guide a whole new generation of readers, while marvelously reprising the global money show for earlier fans."
?David M. Darst, author of The Art of Asset Allocation Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist, Morgan Stanley Individual Investor Group

"Nobody has written about the craft of money management with more insight, humor, and understanding than Adam Smith. Over the years, he has consistently separated wisdom from whimsy, brilliance from bluster, and character from chicanery."
?Byron R. Wien, coauthor of Soros on Soros Chief Investment Strategist, Pequot Capital Management

Supermoney may be even more relevant today than when it was first published nearly twenty-five years ago. Written in the bright and funny style that became Adam Smith's trademark, this book gives a view inside institutions, professionals, and the nature of markets that has rarely been shown before or since. "Adam Smith" was the first to introduce an obscure fund manager in Omaha, Nebraska, named Warren Buffett. In this new edition, Smith provides a fresh perspective in an updated Preface that contextualizes the applicability of the markets of the 1960s and 1970s to today's markets. Things change, but sometimes the more they change, the more they stay the same.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Adam Smith continues to dazzle and sparkle! With the passage of time, Supermoney has, if anything, added to its power to inspire, arouse, provoke, motivate, inform, illuminate, entertain, and guide a whole new generation of readers, while marvelously reprising the global money show for earlier fans."
—David M. Darst, author of The Art of Asset Allocation Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist, Morgan Stanley Individual Investor Group

"Nobody has written about the craft of money management with more insight, humor, and understanding than Adam Smith. Over the years, he has consistently separated wisdom from whimsy, brilliance from bluster, and character from chicanery."
—Byron R. Wien, coauthor of Soros on Soros Chief Investment Strategist, Pequot Capital Management

Supermoney may be even more relevant today than when it was first published nearly twenty-five years ago. Written in the bright and funny style that became Adam Smith's trademark, this book gives a view inside institutions, professionals, and the nature of markets that has rarely been shown before or since. "Adam Smith" was the first to introduce an obscure fund manager in Omaha, Nebraska, named Warren Buffett, and in this new edition, Smith provides a fresh perspective in an updated Preface that contextualizes the applicability of the markets of the 1960s and 1970s to today's markets. Things change, but sometimes the more they change, the more they stay the same. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

“Everyone who is anyone in U.S. investment knows ‘ADAM SMITH,’ ” wrote Newsweek. While originally he had a fanatic following in the financial community, his reputation has now spread far beyond. Professor Paul Samuelson, America’s first Nobel laureate in economics, called his book, The Money Game, “a modern classic.” --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Popular Library (October 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0445082364
• ISBN-13: 978-0445082366
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,722,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great history lesson, March 28, 2007

By 

R. Carandang "optimus25" (Costa Mesa, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Supermoney (Paperback)

I've always loved reading books written about investing. Supermoney provides the reader with a basic fundamental view of his accounts of investing in the 60's & 70's. I found the first couple of chapters to be interesting...it got a little slow towards the end though. If I got anything from reading this book, it had to be about Supercurrency. The author describes it as super wealth creation via the stock market and more specifically the IPO market. Create a company, go public and become instant millionaires and billionaires. The author also describes it as "minting wealth" from nothing.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What is 'SuperMoney?', June 18, 2009

By 

Scott FS (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Supermoney (Wiley Investment Classics) (Paperback)

In my opinion, the other reviewers miss the mark on this book. I bought this book when it first came out (yes, I was at the Lincoln inauguration...).

Anyway, this book has stuck with me all of those years for one over-riding principle...SuperMoney. What is SuperMoney? SuperMoney is the money you get when you leverage your own investment in your business into a publicly-traded company, and multiply it many times over.

Let's say you have a clever idea, and start a business. Let's say it's a furniture company, called, oh, I don't know, maybe Levitz Furniture (Levitz furniture, now defunct, pioneered the furniture warehouse concept. Some people will remember the musical slogan, 'You'll love it at Levitz!). This is an example from the book.

Anyway, you start this company. It's successful. You open a couple more branches. They are successful. You decide to incorporate and sell stock. The financial community suddenly falls in love with the idea of a furniture superstore, because they've never heard of such an idea before.

Now, your company, which started out pretty small, now has lots of people bidding up your company's stock. It turns out to be a hot stock. Since you started the company, you own most of the stock. Congratulations, my friend, you now have wheelbarrows full of money. SuperMoney! Remember the fancy furniture store that would never buy your mass-market furniture, with the owner who held his nose up in the air? Want revenge? Buy it! Use your new-found wealth, SuperMoney. Just sell off some of your stock, or have the company issue more stock and use that to trade for the assets of the hoity-toity company. Fire the manager who used to look down at you!

Or let's say you own a big, but boring utility company. Yes, you are rich, but nobody invites you to flashy parties where starlets (yes, that is a word) flit around and the champagne flows like water. Peel off some of that SuperMoney, and buy, I don't know...maybe a movie studio! Or maybe a fancy winery selling wines whose names you can't pronounce! Or maybe a super-snooty hotel where the restaurant sells $100 dinner courses!

It's a whole new world out there, isn't it? SuperMoney!

Highly recommended. This is an extremely entertaining book that explains the often arcane concepts such as leverage and publicly-traded companies in fun and illuminating (and real) examples.

Willie Sutton used to say he robbed banks because that's where the money was. Why risk jail time when you can be wealthier than you ever dreamed possible...just read this book, and come up with something new and catchy...

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Follow up to The Money Game, February 12, 2008

By 

Steve Booth-Butterfield (Morgantown, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Supermoney (Wiley Investment Classics) (Paperback)

Super Money is the follow up book to the earlier and wildly successful Money Game by 'Adam Smith' the pseudonym chosen by George Goodman. Super Money provides a series of linked vignettes of the adventures in the pursuit of money. The big news from this 1970s book is its identification of Warren Buffett (yes, that one) as the outstanding money manager of his time. Forty years ago 'Adam Smith' got it right with Mr. Buffett. The remainder of the book is just as accurate and informative even though it's the Old Old Thing. I would also more highly recommend the early book, The Money Game.