Play Money Review

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(More customer reviews)I am working my way backward through the Pedersen oeuvre, having just read LAST CALL, BEGINNER'S LUCK, and GOING AWAY PARTY. I thought this was going to be another novel, but SURPRISE, it is an account of Pedersen's adventures going to Wall Street back in 1983, the start of boom times. She was only 18 and coming from a small town in upstate New York, a self-admitted hick, unable to find the stock exchange on her third day of work because it was raining and the flag wasn't flying. The supervisor had never heard THAT excuse before. Anyway, Pedersen is as light-hearted and charming in her nonfiction as in the novels. She doesn't come off as being a child whiz kid, though I imagine you must be pretty smart to do what she did, but credits her phenomenal success more to being in the right place at the right time, getting up early, and loving the work, action, excitement. Her coworkers are unbelievable and highly entertaining in their practical jokes and bizarre priorities. For someone who has lived in Indiana her entire life (me), it was fun to read about leaving home for a big city right after high school graduation, something probably many of us dreamed of doing, but for whatever reason didn't. This book reminded me why American is such a great country -- not so much because a teenage girl of divorced working class parents from a former steel town can strike it rich in just a few years, but because the young woman was able to make the opportunity for herself, no matter what happened after that. Though I'm glad she took her money and ran, and am looking forward to the next novel, HEART'S DESIRE. HOWEVER, if she wants to write another nonfiction book, I'd be happy to go along for the ride. Pedersen has the great comic/storytelling gift of making getting up in the morning into something funny and interesting. I read an essay she wrote about growing up with her mother (a nurse) on the Internet and it is laugh-out-loud funny.

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When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management Review

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(More customer reviews)A somewhat didactic narrative history of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management. Nicholas Dunbar covers the same subject in his book "Inventing Money." Both books present a blizzard of details about who did what and when. Too much detail. The general reader would better served by a medium sized article. Nevertheless if you're a finance buff interested in the nitty-gritty then read both books. Dunbar has a physics background and his book is more technical, while Lowenstein comes from journalism and his narrative flows better.
LCTM began operating in 1994, set up by John Meriwether formally head of the bond-arbitrage group at Solomon Brothers. He put together a star-studded cast that included three (1997) Nobel prize winners in economics. Their basic strategy was something called convergence arbitrage. In essence this strategy says buy two bonds that you think will track one another. Go long on the cheap one and short on the other; you make money if the spread narrows. In theory you are protected from changing prices as long as the two vary in the same way. To make the big bucks LCTM was after they took a gigantic number of highly leveraged arbitrage positions all over the world. To get high leverage you borrow for the position, like buying a stock on margin. LCTM got really high leverage by avoiding something called the "haircut," which is an extra margin of collateral banks usually demand, but forgave LCTM. Why would banks they do such a thing? Because they were blinded by the glitter of the cast, and in some cases the banks themselves were investors in LCTM. By 1997 convergence arbitrage opportunities in bonds began to dry up, everyone was doing it. So LCTM applied their strategy to stocks. Find two stocks that will track on another and go long and short with borrowed money. This is not easy. Stocks are less amenable to mathematical analysis than bonds, and after all these were the bond guys from Solomon, they were out of their depth. You might ask how can you borrow most of your stock position when the Federal Reserve requires 50% margin (Regulation T). Answer: don't really buy the stocks, instead buy derivative contracts that simulate stocks, an end run around Regulation T. Even with all this leverage LCTM would claim that the fund was no more risky than the stock market, meaning a stock index. In 1998 the markets went against LCTM, with the "flight to quality" (US government bonds) as investors panicked. The fund suffered from what reliability engineers call "common mode error." Spreads got wider not narrower across the board, and LCTM's capital base began to shrink as their positions lost money. At a certain point they would have to start liquidating positions, and the market impact of such large scale selling would cascade across their portfolio. The fund would "blow up."
The above gives a flavor of the material Lowenstein provides, only in much greater detail. If that's what you want, buy the book. Is this a tale of human folly or just plain bad luck? Answering that question is not easy, one needs to grasp a large amount of technical finance theory, and understand what happened in the particular case of LCTM. This book will help.

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Henry Hastings Sibley: Divided Heart Review

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Rhoda Gilman has written an authoritative and interesting account of Henry Hasting Sibley's life. Although Sibley's entire life and career centered around the upper midwest, he was involved in a number of different activities, from the fur trade to representing Minnesota as its first state governor. He had many dealings with the Sioux (and other) Indians in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory, producing the "Divided Heart" of Gilman's subtitle.
Sibley was born in Detroit in 1811, a town known for its cultural diversity at the time, and he knew French and French ways. He first worked for the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island, but then was put in charge of the company's operations on the upper Mississippi. This is when he built his famous stone house at Mendota, across the river from Fort Snelling. He went to Washington in 1848 to help secure recognition of Minnesota as a territory. He was able to cede lands from the Sioux in 1851 and was elected first state governor in 1857. He opposed the harsh policies against the Indians popular with the federal government at the time, but to no avail. In 1862, as the head of the state militia, he was instrumental in subduing the Sioux at Wood Lake during the Minnesota Uprising. The following year he led an expedition into Dakota Territory to reduce the remaining Sioux. After this successful campaign he retired to St. Paul, where among other things, he was president of the Minnesota Historical Society for a number of years.
Sibley left all his papers to the Society and Gilman makes excellent use of them. She writes in a very forceful style and her book should remain the definitive biography of Sibley for years to come. Highly recommended.

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Congressman, governor, military leader, and senior statesman--no person played a longer, more influential, or more varied role in the shaping of Minnesota than Henry Hastings Sibley (1811-91). Yet Sibley's history reveals universal tensions about the duality of the nineteenth century frontiersman who is at once an accommodating trade partner of the Indian/European/Metis worlds and the conquering government official of the ever-expanding West. Rhoda Gilman has spent over thirty years examining Sibley--through hints and fragments of stories that Sibley himself left in articles, an unfinished autobiography, and scores of family letters--and uncovers in this perceptive and balanced biography the complexities of a man who embodied these clashing extremes. As Gilman writes in her preface, On the broader stage of national history Sibley's life spanned nineteenth-century America. Rooted in the political and social establishment of the old Northwest Territory, he witnessed the colonizing of a continent and its people, the closing of the frontier, the agony of civil war, and the explosive birth of an urban, industrial society. He was keenly conscious of what he conceived to be the nation?s destiny, and he identified closely with it. An heir to the Indian policy of Lewis Cass, who had managed to dispossess the Great Lakes tribes without war, Sibley belonged to the generation that was left to pay the price of that betrayal in blood and shame. And unlike Cass, he had personal ties to the Dakota people that placed him in a deeply ambiguous position. Gilman sets the controversial but altogether human Sibley against the tapestry of trade, politics, frontier expansion, and intercultural relations in the Upper Mississippi valley, and reminds us that throughout his life Sibley was poised to become a national figure but always chose to remain in the place he loved and had helped to name "Minnesota."

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Getting Started in Online Day Trading Review

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(More customer reviews)As the title indicates, this book is for the total beginner. The author takes the reader by the hand and guides him / her through the complex world of online day trading. All of the major areas of concern are covered: Everything from what is day trading and opening your online account to strategies and techniques used to gain profits. This book provides a great bird's-eye-view, kind of a road map for the long journey ahead. This book is not intended to cover every area of day trading with an exhaustive explanation, but rather, introduce each subject and point the reader in the right direction for further study. I strongly recommend this book. Happy trading.

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EXPERT ADVICE FOR EVERYDAY SUCCESS!The coauthor of the bestselling Getting Started in Online Investing now brings her winning expertise to the increasingly popular day trading arena-along with the methods of today's most consistently successful trading practitioners. From a solid overview of the functional basics to a frank assessment of the pros and cons of day trading, Getting Started in Online Day Trading provides you with the know-how to begin, the information to speculate on the future of the medium-and the knowledge to decide if day trading is right for you. In this indispensable book, Bentley:* Approaches day trading by examining the basics from the perspective of the novice trader* Shares her years of experience and industry connections in online finance, and introduces you to some of today's top traders* Offers an in-depth analysis of the challenges and realistic rewards of online day tradingGet the solid, accessible, and practical guidance you've come to expect from the Getting Started In series with this outstanding and timely resource for today's hottest investment vehicle.

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The Truth About Day Trading Stocks: A Cautionary Tale About Hard Challenges and What It Takes To Succeed (Wiley Trading) Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are searching around on Amazon for a book that will get you started in day trading, this is it. Josh DiPietro will give you the straight truth about the reality of being a day trader. It is a career choice like any other. It takes hard work to become successful. Almost every beginning trader blows out their account before learning to manage risk. You can read books and take seminars but only real trading will make you successful. I have been a trader for over 6 years and I agree completely with these observations from the author.
Josh's key points are to start with 100 share blocks only, to limit exposure and build skill. Do not move above this amount until you have been successful for months, then only increase trade size very gradually. You can make money trading 100 shares at a time through out the day. This also keeps your emotions under control when no one trade has to much riding on it. Use preset stop losses if your trade goes against you. Most amateurs make the mistake of stubbornly holding losing positions or even increase their position on the way down, this can be disastrous. The key to day trading success is consistency, making the money you need daily, by having a great win ratio.
Josh's system is scalping .20 cents to .40 cents off nice steady consumer staple stocks that trade at least a million shares daily on the market. He uses the previous days support and resistance levels as a trading range along with volume. His trading seems to be primarily counter trend, shorting at break outs to new highs and going long at support to try to catch retracements to profit. I have used this system in range bound markets for much success. So I can say his system is sound from my personal experience. He also wants to avoid stocks if they are in the news or earnings are expected, because that will disrupt the range and lead to volatility and trends.
He also explains the value of using pay per share brokers versus pay per trade brokers. If you qualify for an account with a pay per share firm you could get 10 to 1 or even 20 to 1 leverage. This is for the advanced and you must show them your ability to trade before they will release that much buying power to you. But it enables you to be profitable with $10 and $20 scalps because a 100 share trade is about .35 cents. This is an opportunity amateurs rarely hear about.
I have read over a hundred trading books and day traded successfully through this recent financial crises, with a 31% return from September 2008 to July 2009. I also was one of the rare people who went to a cash position in my 401K on January 5th of 2008. With my background I still learned several things from this book and it was great to get my mind focused during this break from trading. I highly recommend for all beginning and intermediate traders. I wish I would have had this book when I started day trading it would have saved me both money and time.

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Jedediah Smith (Wld Explorers) (Z) (World Explorers) Review

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(More customer reviews)i thought this book was very well written and i learned a lot about jedediah smith and after i read this book i went to my local library and checked out another book on jedediah smith i also learned about other pioneers

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Chronicles the exploits of the mountain men who opened many trails and passages through the American West in the early nineteenth century.

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An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund Review

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(More customer reviews)I really do not like giving negative comments, but after reading the book and having been an active trader for over 6 years, I KNOW this book will not help anyone in their trading or yearning for insight or knowledge. I do not believe Tim is a very good trader, but was able to take advantage of a special time in history to accumalate great returns. He tries to argue that its the regulations of the hedge fund industry that hindered his ability to raise funds and hence limit his success. After getting stuck in a very bad Investment (not trade)his limited capital prevented him from taking advantage of other trades.........Well that was the blessing.

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$2 trillion is invested in the hedge fund industry, and yet, due to industry regulations, the general public knows little about them. This book will change everything. Timothy turned $12,000 of Bar Mitzvah gift money into $1.65 million trading thousands of stocks from 1999-2002, managed the #1 Short Bias Hedge Fund from 2003-2006, starred in the television documentary Wall Street Warriors, and appeared regularly on CNBC all before the age of 26. It's been a wild ride. This `Rocky'-like story is the first realistic look at the world of stock trading and hedge funds-it will educate and inspire everyone.

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