Finance

One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is an impressive book about fundamental analysis for stock picking. Following is my terse summary of the same. Emphasis on Fundamental Analysis Look around for companies that are performing well and invest in them before Wall Street institutional investors pick them In the long run, common stocks give the best rate of returns Only basic math is needed to analyze and pick stocks “Don’t gamble, invest your savings to buy good stocks and hold them till they go up and then sell them. If it doesn’t go up, don’t buy it” Investing directly in common stocks is a seven-card stud-poker hand Rules of investing in the market Buy a home (≠ house) before stocks Only invest what you can afford to lose (without impacting your daily life) Patience, Common sense, and willingness to do independent research Ignore short-term fluctuations There is nothing called a good or bad market Predictions are futile ...

Principles Investing is a sequential process The only goal is to maximize wealth over time. Do not “narrow frame” it to focus only on annual returns. A risk mitigation strategy must lower risk and hence increase CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate)

“What I learned losing a million dollars” covers the iconic rise and fall of Jim Paul in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a trader.

The book is a memoir of John Perkins who worked as an economic hitman.

The reasons behind our portfolios and investment choices reveal a lot more about us than we might initially think. Half of all US mutual fund portfolio managers do not invest a cent of their own money in their funds, according to Morningstar. " How Doctors Die” showed the degree to which doctors choose different end-of-life treatments for themselves than they recommend for their patients. This book does the same for financial money managers. “Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The story of the rise and fall of the biggest foreign investor in Russia.

The book is a great read about how money and wealth are acquired, preserved, and lost. And that too not because of the market but because of the individual’s psychology.

Another great read in the Incerto series by Taleb. The core idea is that certain systems benefit from uncertainty. And our goal should be to make all systems antifragile, so that, they can benefit from uncertainty.

The book posits a unique viewpoint to understand randomness and unpredictability in the world around us. Rather than trying to predict the improbable black swans, it focuses more on how not to be adversely impacted by them.

The book is a good read on why some nations are rich today while others are poor.