Poke fun at usury, but I was recently talking to a CFA Curriculum writer who said Islamic Financing is next to come in the curriculum.
Islamic financing should be easy. No ridiculous interest to compute!..BTW how do you meet a CFA curriculum writer? Are they necessary Exam writers too?
The screenplay for “Night at the Roxbury”. Really entertaining read.
I used to read a lot of Tom Clancy back when I was in high school, just started getting back into it.
Currently reading ozzy’s autobiography (“I Am Ozzy”). Pretty entertaining, but you can definately tell he doesn’t remember a whole lot from those years. Not the best autobiography I’ve ever read, but still good.
How does this compare to “Trading in the Zone”, if you’ve read it? I picked that one up based on word of mouth, haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
hope he doesn’t write the way he speaks 
chibwack, I’ve skimmed through Trading in the Zone and on one hand it’s similar to the Psychology of Trading in that it really explores the mental and psychological aspects of trading. However, while some of the things discussed in the book may be more difficult to relate to if you haven’t spent a lot of time in the markets (yet at the same time more succinct if you do have some foundational understanding of the markets), Steenbarger uses a lot of non-finance examples as though he’s telling a story about encounters that he has with some of his clinical psychology patients. However, after those anecdotes he then relates how a particular person’s situation that may at first seem totally unrelated to finance actually is very similar when you get down to some of the common issues and mental tendencies.
In general I think they’re both good books and I’d say both of them are among the top books that come to mind when it comes to the mental aspects of trading or investing. I really think it’s essential for people to understand the mental aspect of investing because so much of what happens to stocks in the short and medium term can be highly influenced by stuff external to deep financial analysis. My personal value-oriented approach towards investing remains intact, but being more opportunistic with entry/exits of positions in the short term has definitely enhanced my financial performance beyond what I could have reasonably expected using a long term buy-and-hold approach. There’s still a lot of value in being a good fundamental investor, but with so many people trying to be fundamental investors, it does help to have a sense of the psychological and technical drivers in order to gain an edge. Those are my two cents.
I was a huge Clancy fan back in the day, even read some of his non-fiction. I noticed a new book with his name on it not too long ago. Is he actually writing again or still letting someone else write it and just putting his name on it like the Op-Center series?
The book I’m currently reading is The Teeth of the Tiger and it’s pretty much written in his style, so I’m assuming he’s the author. This one is particularly interesting because it lightly touches on finance.
^ I read that when it came out and it’s an actual Clancy book. I think it’s the last Clancy book I read.
For fiction with a bit of finance: A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss is entertaining - it takes place in old London and talks about the South Sea Company and more… I’m reading it slowly before bed, but I’ll probably try his other books later on.
From Zero to Sixty on Hedge Funds (online only I think) may have a lot of basic stuff, depending on how much you already know from CFA/job/whatever, but it’s possible to get some clarification on some HF and PE workings, and it is easy to read - the author seems very down to earth most of the time.
A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett – straight fiction set to the back drop of late 19th century finance.
I been watching Khloe and Lamar…
Just wondering if anyone has read any of these books and thought it was worth it:
Bailout by Neil Barofsky
The Secrets of Economic Indicators by Bernard Baumohl
Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin
I am now reading The Art of Short Selling and Financial Shenanigans right now. Both of them are fantastic books and are good to read in tandem in order to keep one’s mind focused on digesting all the things you could be looking at short-selling indicators. I’ll plan to get through both books in the next week and then leave them on the shelf as reference material as needed.
If you want another take on the crisis, I really liked All the Devils are Hereby Bethany McLean. I read Too Big to Fail as well and didn’t like it as much. TBTF is mostly about the crisis while it happened, different parties involved, who was saying “oh, shit” in whose conference rooms about what, etc. ATDAH contains large chunks about how it happened, and the specific events over the 25 year leadup that enabled the bubble to form. It manages to do this without painting anyone in particular as evil or stupid - no real axe to grind, just damned good explanations.
How anyone preparing for CFA or even holding a CFA charter could read and recommend conspiracy crap like “The Creature from Jekyll Island” is beyond me.
I didn’t even read half of it before throwing it out. Full of half-truths, mistakes, imagined correlations and a general ignorance of the subject. Simply embarrassing.
Is it part of the “World without End” and “Pillars of the Earth” series?
Reading Boomerang from Michael Lewis. He has fantastically captured the events happended in debt markets of Iceland, Ireland and Greece in the book.