Searching for Alpha: The Quest for Exceptional Investment Performance (Hardcover)

by Ben Warwick (Author) "Harry Markowitz got it right the first time..." (more)
Key Phrases: alpha generation, quant jocks, investment management business, Wall Street, Smoky Mountain, New York Stock Exchange (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Praise for searching for alpha "A provocative, witty, and meaningful book. Searching for Alpha is eminently readable. I highly recommend it!" —Dr. Martin Zweig Zweig-DiMenna Associates "Searching for Alpha is right on the mark and essential reading for anyone who wants to go beyond stock-picking and think about how to construct a total portfolio to fit their own risk and return objectives." —Bluford H. Putnam, President CDC Investment Management Corp. "Searching for Alpha is as instructional as it is entertaining. Ben Warwick’s engaging examination of the modern investment process is succinct yet thorough, and cleverly interspersed with amusing facts, anecdotes, and historical insights…a charming book with lots of insight for both the novice and the professional." —Mark Kritzman, Managing Partner Windham Capital Management author, Puzzles of Finance "Searching for Alpha is a wild and entertaining read that just happens to be an investment book. Along the way, you’ll read about the Civil War, the origin of professional football, and even whaling—and by the time you’re through, you’ll know more about the investment game than you ever imagined." —Jeremy Pink, Editor-in-Chief worldlyinvestor.com "An erudite, well-written, and interesting book—with the added advantage of being right! The theory is state-of-the-art; the practice is very much current. Warwick has a special talent for historical analogy and storytelling." —Theodore R. Aronson, Partner Aronson & Partners

From the Inside Flap
searching for alpha Can anyone win the investing game? Considering the small number of mutual funds that produce market-beating returns, the task may seem nearly impossible. Even so, there remains an elite group of investment professionals who manage to produce market-beating returns, year after year. What is their edge? Their edge is defined as alpha—which represents the portion of an investment fund’s return that is generated solely by the skills of the portfolio manager. Investors, traders, and speculators alike have searched for a dependable source of alpha for as long as there have been financial markets. How much of this search is art, and how much is science? The answer to this and other questions can be found within this provocative and highly entertaining book. Some of the topics covered in Searching for Alpha include the following:

• The three reasons why the mutual fund industry will always underperform the overall stock market
• The well-known economist who, by comparing the stock market to a "beauty contest," made a fortune as a speculator
• How a highly successful football betting scheme can be utilized to profitably trade stocks
• How to profit from the idiosyncrasies of human behavior
• What the waxing-and-waning tendency of oil wells can tell us about the impact of technology on the investment management industry
• The commonalities between catching monkeys in India and avoiding taxes on investments in the United States
• The profit potential of value stocks for the next decade

Say goodbye to dry investment theory and hello to a rich and wonderful cast of characters. Who can resist the one-armed mechanic who single-handedly changed the business of U.S. oil production, or the pacifist who pioneered the explosives industry? Where else could you find the likes of Beethoven, Dom Perignon, and the mathematician who stopped Napoleon’s advancing army dead in its tracks? Searching for Alpha cleverly combines these colorful figures with cutting-edge financial theories, bringing both to life in a refreshingly educational manner.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471348228
• ISBN-13: 978-0471348221
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #378,348 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Muddled, wandering, uninformed., January 17, 2003

By	John Sturges (Chappaqua, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Being in the asset management consulting field I thought this highly recommended title should be as insightful as Swensen's "Pioneering Portfolio Management". I found it directionless, full of unconnected pointless anecdotal comments, as well as giving misleading shallow guidance regarding indexing.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars At last - a lighter read on a heavy subject, October 8, 2000

By A Customer

Warwick has done a fair job in tackling a faily in depth and for many, a fairly boring subject. I am a fund manager and don't necessarily enjoy reading such books but do so as it is an occupational requirement.

It is refreshing to read a book that sheds some new light on the subject often with a touch of humor so lacking in other books written by intectuals who: 1. Have never traded or managed money before yet believe they are qualified to discuss certain subjects in depth 2. Confuse their talent with their ego.

Warrick does not make any pretence that this book is directed at a certain market. However, for those who manage money professionally and are ethical enough to actually work in the best ineterests of their clients, read this book. You'll find it both entertainig, and refreshig.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disorganized, error-prone, unhelpful, August 19, 2000

By A Customer

I suspect that when Ben Warwick sat down to write this book he had no good idea of his intended audience. There are three very different audiences for works on finance. There are ordinary folks, who work for wages or salary, have built up a modest nest, and want some rise-averse suggestions on how to invest it. Then there are people with enough money to get more daring with it, or at least with some portion of their portfolio. This second group, the so-called "sophisticated investors," are the ones who are literally looking for alpha.

Then there is a third group, those whose concern with matters of finance is mostly intellectual. They may want supplemental reading for a college course, or they may be life-long sufferers from curiosity, or even Washingtonian policy wonks.

My point is -- a focused book begins with a decision as to one's audience. Warwick never makes that decision, there are bits and pieces of this book for all three, but a satisfactory whole just isn't here for anybody.

The book is also error prone. Consider the very first graph, on page 5. The caption tells us, "The part of the curve extending from point A and above designates the optimum return for a given amount of risk." But the above graph doesn't contain ANY POINT A! One can figure it out eventually, where point A should be. But the value of a well-drafted graph is that it gives us a sense of certain relationships at a glance. So this sort of mistake -- one example of many, is devastating.