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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some Good Stories from the Era of Wall Street Titans., November 11, 2005
This review is from: Baruch: My Own Story (Library Binding)
"My Own Story" are the memoirs of Bernard M. Baruch, which he published in 1957 at the age of 87, after a long career as a public servant following a couple decades of fortune-making on Wall Street. Baruch starts with histories of his parents and tales of his South Carolina childhood before his family moved to New York when he was 10, where his father, a physician, became a pioneer in public sanitation and physical therapy. Baruch got his big break on Wall Street in 1891 when he joined the firm of A. A. Houseman, where he would enjoy great success for over a decade. Although Baruch retired from Wall Street, gave up his seat on the Stock Exchange, and sold all of his stocks when President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the War Industries Board in 1918, "My Own Story" is dominated by his days investing, making deals, and building companies before middle age. Baruch says next to nothing about his role on the War Industries Board or the Treaty of Versailles. He mentions his duties on the U.N.'s Atomic Energy Commission only in passing at the end of the book.
Most of Baruch's experiences with the stock market are found in Chapters 7-14 and in Chapter 19, entitled "My Investment Philosophy", where he lays out his rules for speculating. Baruch's method was nearly identical to Gerald Loeb's, which Mr. Loeb articulated in his 1935 book "The Battle for Investment Survival". Both men were investors, not traders, who succeeded because they knew when to get out of the market. Chapter 12 is dedicated to the "Waldorf crowd", the glamorous and fabulously wealthy businessmen who frequented the Waldorf-Astoria. Baruch gives us his personal take on the extravagant "Diamond" Jim Brady, reserved and optimistic James R. Keene, and the boisterous "Bet a Million" John Gates. Baruch also discusses his involvement in founding and financing several ventures in raw materials after he retired from A.A. Houseman in 1904, among them the International Rubber Company, the Utah Copper Company (which invented strip-mining), and the Gulf Sulphur Company.
The last few chapters of the book recall Baruch's adventures at his South Carolina estate Hobcaw Barony, where several presidents went for rest and relaxation, including Roosevelt during WWII. Baruch ends with some discussion of his political philosophy, which seems to have vacillated with the wind over the course of his lifetime. From anti-carpetbagger Southern Democrat to laissez-faire capitalist to Prohibition advocate to New Deal Democrat to Cold War crusader for high taxes and arms build-up. Yikes! Baruch seems like a generous man, but his politics are incoherent. His prose style is direct and clear, his tone always amiable. I think Baruch is at his best when discussing Wall Street's era of "unrestrained individualism", dominated by "the titans of finance at the zenith of their power", and contrasting it with today's more regulated and more diverse financial market. Too bad Bernard Baruch was always on the outs with J.P. Morgan. But he has interesting stories to tell about Morgan's contemporaries, including his own role in the panic of 1901, precipitated by a corner on Northern Pacific stock.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stand the test of time. Excellent!, July 10, 2003
Though legislation and time changes, human minds and rules of the game dont. In this book, the great "operator" of the first half of the twentieth century (I really think only Jesse Livermore and Bernard Baruch deserve the honor) talked of his political views, family relationship, and most importantly to trader readers like me, a lot about his "operation". Dont wanna be so hard sell here. However, if you like Reminiscences of a stock operator, you shouldnt miss this. In fact, there are many commonalities between the two, like their strong avoidance of tips and influence of "insiders", searching and acting on facts and facts only, mass psychology as the dominant market driver, demand and supply as the ultimate axiom, extravagant hopes and talk of a "New Era" in advance of financial panics, the seeming almightiness of Morgan, the formation of a pool by a speculative crowd is a sign of weakness, etc etc. I am quite surprised to have found so few reviews here about this book relative to ROSO. Anyway, dont miss this. p.s. I would like to quote some paragraphs from the book for your reference. 1. Page 105: Speculator comes from Latin speculari, which means to spy out and observe.... To be successful ....in all human affairs including the making of peace and war, three things are necessary. First, one must get the facts of a situation or problem. Second, one must form a judgement as to what those facts portend. Third, one must act in time before it is too late. 2. Page 183: ...when money came into the hands of people too easily. Such money did not seem real. When men tossed around such huge sums in bets....they had lost all sense of value and of economics. No market in the hands of such people could be a stable or genuine one.....behind their bantering I sensed a feeling of insecurity, as if they were talking strong to cover up their own weaknesses. 3. Page 184: To enjoy the advantages of a free market one must have both buyers and sellers, both bulls and bears. A market without bears would be like a nation without a free press. There would be no one to criticise and restrain the false optimism that always leads to disaster. 4. Page 248: The true speculator is one who observes teh future and acts before it occurs. Like a surgeon he must be able to search through a mass of complex and contradictory details to the significant facts. Then still like the surgeon, he must be able to operate coldly, clearly and skillfully on the basis of the facts before him. What makes this tasks so difficult is that in the stock market the facts of any situation come to us through a curtain of human emotions....how to disentangle the cold, hard economic facts from the rather warm feelings of the people dealing with these facts. 5. Page 318: This test of our ability to govern ourselves is really threefold. First, it is a test of values, of what things we will give up in order to make other things secure. Second, it is a test of our reasoning powers, of whether we have the wit to think our problems through to an effective solution. Third, it is a test of self discipline, of our ability to stand by our values and see our policies through, whatever the personal cost.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent read, June 18, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Baruch: My Own Story (Library Binding)
A great account of the life of one of the world's most famous investment speculators. Interesting perspective on some of Baruch's contemporaries, notably J.P. Morgan. A reader can also get a glimpse of some of the activities that inspired the insider trading laws that form the foundation for modern securities industry regulation. A very worthwhile book for those interested in finance, investing and history.
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