The Ultimate Investor Great investment opportunities and ideas are emerging constantly, from cutting edge developments in derivatives markets to the explosion in internet investing. There is a seemingly inexhaustible supply of books, articles, speeches, websites and interviews offering analysis, advice and inspiration, with time as the most valuable asset of all how can smart investors absorb only the best and most profitable thinking? The Ultimate Investor is the answer. Influential investor and commentator Dean LeBoron has teamed up with best–selling investment writer Romesh Vaitilingam to produce a one–stop guide to the world’s greatest investment ideas and thinkers.
Introduction:
Is the volume you are holding in your hands — or reading on a screen — really ultimate? Well, of course not. But it is our intention to come as close as we can to getting to the key ideas in modern investment and the people who have them and use them. And to make it as comprehensive as we know how.
We only know the ultimate after the fact. And then new features come along, yet to be time-tested, which might prove to be part of a new ultimate. So, like the trace of a particle in a cloud chamber, by the time we see it, the particle has passed by. Our view of ultimate has to be colored by our times. The role of the observer determines the experimental outcome, another thought taken from the physical sciences.
We have tried to approach a moving target as best we can, treating thirty ideas and thirty-plus people. The ideas are not neatly bounded so that they exist without important and active relations with other elements. Rather, they are part of the market soup, boiling and vibrant, which is constantly evolving in the interplay of mathematics and personalities. We can pretend that each element is distinct only for the purpose of descriptive analysis. But, in the end, each market instant and each investor has to reassemble the pieces to grapple with our task of forecasting imponderable outcomes.
We have tried to simplify the ideas, at times borrowing from the writings of the personalities or gurus who are associated with the ideas — and borrowing from the ideas of others. None of us as investment students and practitioners lives in isolation: we are all part of the mosaic being analyzed, shard by piece. At times, we may seem glib and cavalier. It is merely in our attempt to be concise about things that defy precision.
So now that we have started with our limitations, what will we be doing to merit your attention? Answer: give you a grounding in the ideas and people who have brought us to today’s market understanding. These people have also shaped tomorrow’s market. They might not know it yet but they — and others we have omitted or do not know — set the base for innovation. You need to know them and their work. They are your investment future — at least your future in ways we try to understand for you.
Contents:
- PROLOG
- THE PROMISES MEN LIVE BY
- INVESTMENT INSIGHTS: CHANGING STYLES ACROSS TIME AND SPACE
- INVESTMENT IDEAS AND THEIR GURUS
The Ultimate Investor: The People and Ideas That Make Modern Investment By Dean LeBaron and Romesh Vaitilingam pdf
Jazmin Jefferson (verified owner) –
As an avid student of the markets, as well as an instructor at Yale University for a residential seminar entitled “Market Psychology and the Truth about Derivatives,” I find the book The Ultimate Investor both fascinating and intructive. It is a very successful analysis of concepts that defy precision. Without seeming glib or cavalier, Dean LeBaron provides a refreshingly honest format which highlights the issues that have plagued both individual and institutional investors. The Ultimate Investor exposes the limitations of various methods of investment analysis. The Counterpoint approach I find to be particularly useful. Whether it is Market Efficiency and Random Walk, Value Investing, Contrarian Investing, Quantitative Investing, Indexing or Technical Analysis, the authors fully explore the issues. Particularly in that light, this is a very effective approach.
Raylan Dunn (verified owner) –
In his review (March/April 2000, Financial Analysts Journal), Martin S. Fridson, a CFA and chief high-yield strategist at Merrill Lynch & Company, New York, describes The Ultimate Investor as “a densely packed collection of insights, problems, and witticisms.” Fridson comments on the “book’s many practical insights” and its candid treatment of the “problems facing investors.” He further observes that the “witticism scattered liberally through The Ultimate Investor make serious and highly useful points.” A thoughtful and careful reviewer, Mr. Fridson notes a few flaws but concludes: “it would be remarkable, however, if a few such faux pas did not appear in a book as encyclopedic as The Ultimate Investor. More important is the authors’ success in weeding out extraneous material while comprehensively covering the essential elements of their vast subject. Readers should find themselves returning to this valuable reference work again and again.”
Kai Atkinson (verified owner) –
There has been no book written like this in the field of investments. Dean LeBaron has been one of the most successful money managers in recent times. He is also a gifted writer who together with his co-author, Romesh Vaitlingam an English consultant and financial journalist, has brought out this book and its companion, The Ultimate Book of Investment Quotations. Both are books which should not only be read and enjoyed for their enlightenment but they can be put into practice as well. The real genius of the authors in The Ultimate Investor is to have been able to bring into one book the wisdom of today’s leading investment “gurus” ranging from Warren Buffett, George Soros, Charles Ellis, Peter Bernstein, Peter Lynch, George Russell to Dean LeBaron himself. The manner in which this is done is also rather unique: A set of facts on a given subject whether it be equities versus bonds, contrarian investments, fixed income, growth investing, emerging markets or what have you is followed by a response from the respective guru or expert on the subject. The result is an assembly of investment knowledge in 300 pages which one might easily say could be found in a wall to wall book shelf. This book should be read and studied as well as even practiced in some instances by portfolio managers, investment/financial advisors, market analysts, economists and investors who want to learn what is happening and not just blindly gamble away their assets. There is a wealth of knowledge in this book and it is not only an important reference but if put into practice, much of what the book offers has the potential for one to improve on the performance of his investments and at the very least to understand more about the factors relating to all sorts of investing. After reading this book, one feels as if he has just completed a course at Harvard Business School on the subject and he is now ready to face the complex financial world armed with the knowledge of those who have achieved the pinnacle of success as “The Ultimate Investor(s).”