The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Roger S. Conrad (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stephen Leeb and Roger Conrad, editors of the Personal Finance investment newsletter, believe that in the very near future record levels of inflation will dramatically alter the world of investment. The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold lays out their carefully considered strategy for dealing with the resultant volatility. The array of long-range opportunities suggested in their subsequent "investment road map" includes oil, bonds and real estate, as well as entrepreneurship and emerging markets.

From Library Journal

Warning, dark times lie ahead!?at least according to Leeb (Market Timing for the Nineties, LJ 6/1/93), a frequent guest on numerous TV investment programs. His purpose in writing this book is to help investors deal with what he predicts will be a stagnant stock market. The author argues that in the next ten years the incredible bull market of the 1980s and 1990s will end and the country will experience great inflation, including $5-a-gallon gasoline and mortgage rates in the high teens. Leeb cites lack of economic growth, a continued threat from foreign competition, a crisis in the American education system, and huge amounts of debt as reasons why. He claims that the days of buying a stock and holding it are over, because a volatile market will require investors to use market timing to buy and sell stocks at precisely the right moment. Leeb offers a well-written, easy-to-understand text with a premise that lay investors should heed.?Joel Jones, Kansas City P.L., Mo.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 180 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers; 1st edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887307604
• ISBN-13: 978-0887307607
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,465,552 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great advice for the current economic situation, October 11, 1998

By A Customer

Leeb and Conrad were a couple years ahead of their time with respect to their predictions of massive economic change. As a reader of Dr. Leeb's newsletters, I have followed his advice for quite some time, and I believe the time is nigh for their astute analysis of world economic trends. Investors small and large should have this book on their reading list. Today's policy-makers are facing the choices that are described in the book -- between rapid economic growth with accompanying inflation, or the other, less likely, but devastating worldwide deflation and depression. Either way, the long bull market is over, and the book shows investors the way to profit from either eventuality.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book for every investor to read, April 8, 2005

By	Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

[** "Sometime in the next ten years (the book was published in 1997 so call it 2 years), inflation will crest at over 20 percent. Mortgage interest rates will hit the high teens. A gallon of low-grade gasoline will sell for $5. The value of an ounce of gold will reach $1,000 and the price of a single family home will double." These dire predictions begin this fascinating book, which is rather unfortunate, as the inflation rate is still around 3.5%, the mortgage interest rate is around that, the price of gasoline is about $2.20 per gallon, gold is stable at $412 an ounce, and while the prices of houses have gone up, they are not even close to doubling. Such is the danger of putting predictions on the first page of your book. **]

The authors of this book see a coming time when the electorate in many countries, including the U.S., will pressure their governments to artificially stimulate economic growth, which will result in the kind of inflation that was experienced in the 1970s. The reason that people will demand economic growth is that they see that their incomes have actually declined in buying power, resulting in a decline in standard of living. You see, when the world was in the industrial era, rises in productivity resulted in increases in production, and rises in wages. In the new service era, rises in productivity have resulted in decreases in the need for workers, which decreases the cost of the services and depresses the wages for the workers overall.

To make matters worse, the new service economy requires educated employees, at the same time that the American education system is costing more, and producing poorer educated graduates. (This caused by the fact that falling wages for teachers means that schools are now filled with unqualified educators.) And now that Third World countries are trying to industrialize, the late 1990s should see a skyrocketing of commodity prices. Also, the American economy is awash in paper money, which is a definite inflationary pressure.

After this hard hitting, and frankly dire, analysis, the authors launch into Part II of the book, which gives advice on what you should do to not just survive the coming inflation, but to actually prosper.

OK, as the paragraphs above should make clear, the authors of this book take an alarmist view of current and future trends, resulting in some embarrassment. However, that said, I did find their analysis of the current situation in the American economy to be sound. I merely think that to sell this book, they painted the picture much more darkly than was prudent. Overall, I did find this to be a thought provoking highly informative read.

Obviously, the inflationary explosion that the authors foresaw for the late 1990s did not occur, but the inflationary pressures are there. (Due to increasing demand in China and other parts of the world, the price of crude oil has been on the increase, and is unlike to make any significant falls.) So, this is a good book for every investor to read and consider.

My one complaint against this book is that it does not give any advice for those of us whose investments are run through a 401(k) plan, which does not allow for quick purchases and sales, or for the purchase of select stocks. But, that said, I am glad that I read this book, and I highly recommend that you read it as well.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for any one interested in todays wild economy., September 25, 1998

By A Customer

About two years ago I read Agile Investor, by Stephen Leeb and Roger Conrad. The book makes a strong - and indeed at the time I thought compelling - case for inflation or at least the end of a world in which growth and no inflation exist together. The last two years seemed to have proved the book wrong as inflation remained very low. However, the events of the past several months have made Leeb and Conrad seem like prophets. As I understand the key forecast in the book was that we would reach a point where policy makers would have to choose between inflation and deflation and inflation would win out. The consequences of inflation are spelled out in exquisite detail as are the much more unfortunate consequences of deflation. This book is must reading for anyone with any interest at all in today's financial markets.