The Alchemy of Finance, Soros presents a theoretical and practical account of current financial trends and a new paradigm by which to understand the financial market today.
Introduction:
As a trader coming of age in the latter half of the frenetic 1970s and the 1980s, The Alchemy of Finance was somewhat of a revolutionary book. Remember, this was the period when trend following and indexation were the vogue in investing. It was a time when technical analysis (the study of price movement as a forecasting tool) reached its zenith. Traders of my generation armed themselves with charts and computer-generated graphics that predicted future price direction.
We sat day after day in front of screens, mesmerized by blinking lights and everchanging numbers in a deafening cacophony of information overload. With the possible exception of Elliott Wave Theory, an intellectual framework for understanding the course of social, political, and economic events was noticeably forgotten in favor of just making sure that one was part of the ever-quickening process.
The Alchemy of Finance was a shot out of the dark for you. It let you take a giant step forward by first taking a step backwards, clarifying events that appeared so complex and so overwhelming. During an era when so much money was made in larger than life events, from the Hunt brothers’ squeeze of the silver market in 1979 to KKR’s takeover of RJR Nabisco in 1989, Mr. Soros’s theory of reflexivity is the first modern, nontechnical effort to describe and forecast the dynamic interplay between the participants in the process.
Contents:
- The Theory of Reflexivity
- Reflexivity in the Stock Market
- Reflexivity in the Currency Market
- The Credit and Regulatory Cycle
- The International Debt Problem
- The Collective System of Lending
- Reagan’s Imperial Circle
- Evolution of the Banking System
- The “Oligopolarization” of America
- The Real-Time Expriment
- The Scope for Financial Alchemy: An Evaluation of the Experiment
- The Quandary of the Social Sciences
- Free Markets Versus Regulation
- Toward an international Central Bank
- The Paradox of Systemic Reform
- The Crash of ’87