writser

Not to mention that there are a lot of single mothers because they will burn in hell for eternity if they would have an abortion. And the doctor risks being shot straight away by "pro-life" activists for performing one. We prefer to force them to become parents even if they are irresponsible. The joys of religion. .. Boom! Let the flaming commence!

FWIW, I worked at a trading firm, this magazine was shipped every month (or something like that) to all employees with a BB terminal and I have never seen anybody read it in a couple of years. Most people didn't even bother to take off the plastic. I flipped through it one or two times, didn't look really interesting. Maybe it's more aimed at asset management though.

"Just think about it Bill. This guy could be the previous Michael Lewis."

Bill even promotes the book on his blog: http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures . You can download one chapter for free.

Something like that. The book is an instant #1 seller on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/2739/ref=sr_bs_1 Exploiting Buffett groupies: easy money.

Hah, that was a _very_ expensive lesson.

In that case, why bother opening a fund anyway .. ?

Worst thing is even if you win that bet you'd think "I could retire if I wasn't such a wuss".

8)

Gio: agreed but I usually look for stocks where I can be satisfied with a much simpler calculation. If it's profitable and trading below NCAV I don't need to know the present value of the equity in 3 digits.

I read this book because of some positive reviews here, but frankly I was quite disappointed. In fact, I didn't even finish it. I guess I was hoping for a different kind of book. What follows is my $.01 review. --- This is a book featuring a lot of math like this: http://www.writser.nl/images/math.png If you just plug in your assumptions for cost of capital, return on capital, growth rate, etc. then this formula will give you the current value of the equity. Unfortunately my investing style is completely different. I mostly focus on the balance sheet. I hardly invest in growth and prefer the back-of-the-envelope 'this is too cheap' stuff that, for example, Nate features on his blog. I was hoping for a book that would teach me something about analysing financial statements from a value-investors perspective. The practicalities of LIFO vs. FIFO, what to look out for with pension liabilities, how to estimate maintenance CapEx, what are the business implications of NOL's, when should I look at the cash conversion cycle, etc. In short, I was looking for a practical book. This is certainly not that book. Instead, this is mostly a very theoretical treatise. The writer explains to me that the 'implied growth forecast' for Starbucks was 9.8% in 1999 based on the numbers. If you think that that is useful then this is your book . I am a bit sceptical about such calculations. If I need them to calculate whether something is cheap I wouldn't buy it in the first place. That said, there are some interesting tidbits in this book, for example the part about expensing R&D. --- I hope the writer isn't a board member :) . If anyone can recommend the sort of book that I am actually looking for then that would be greatly appreciated. I liked Financial Shenanigans and Quality of Earnings, but mostly these were about avoiding frauds instead of looking at 'normal' companies.

Clearly you haven't studied computer science .. :)

This should do the trick, where A1 is your cell.

If my hedge-fund would go bust I'd also blame the market ..

@Hellsten: yeah, that was confusing. In the end I picked the first book based on a couple of Amazon comments. Probably both are fine. I also enjoyed 'The Undercover Economist' by Tim Harford, despite the cheesy title. Reason I'm mentioning it here is that that book featured a really interesting chapter on broadband spectrum auctions. Some countries (New Zealand if I remember correctly) didn't put much thought in how to set up their auctions and the results were really embarassing for the government. On the other hand the British government brought in a couple of Game Theory specialists to design a better auction format and their spectrum auction was a huge success, raising about ten times the money expected. Writing a paper about how you made 22.5 billion GBP for the UK government through an auction -> you're in my cool book. The Hartford book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Tim-Harford/dp/0345494016 . All his books are interesting reads imho.

[amazonsearch]Thinking Strategically[/amazonsearch] I almost finished this book. Really liking it so far. Basically the book serves as a primer to game theory and it explains nerdy stuff such as equilibria, minimax algorithms and dominating strategies. The engineers here should like it. The nice thing (imho) is that the authors skip most of the math and present the concepts in real-life examples such as tennis, the Cuba missile crisis, union negotiations, corporate take-overs and monopolies. This makes the book a relatively easy read. Applying game theory to real-world problems sometimes leads to really surprising results. Some cool stuff from the book that come to mind: - The ban on tv advertising for cigarettes actually improved the profitability of tobacco companies. - If your stance on terrorism is 'we don't negotiate' it might actually be in your best interest to negotiate anyway (but to bail out on your promises afterwards). - The concept of brinkmanship: pushing dangerous events to the brink of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome. Only criticism I have of the book so far is that it was published in 1993 so some of the examples are a bit outdated. Would have been cool to follow a couple of courses on this stuff. Really interesting.

I really hope somebody kicks out Brazil.

Frankly I think it's just a bad idea on multiple levels. Maybe there is a huge tax incentive however.

PlanMaestro: Auch. At least your family can now bond together rooting against the Dutch team.

Debate from the Milken Institute featuring Jeffrey Ubben: Activist Investors and the Search for Alpha.

Easy win against Mexico. 8)

Ok, there are also a couple of Belgian forum members but everybody knows they don't stand a chance :P .

I know this is a Canadian board, but seriously, is there no topic about the World Cup yet? At least there are a couple of Germans here, Dutchies, a Mexican and the USA is well-represented. Not sure if Gio is interested anymore :) . I just witnessed a great match, Chile vs. Brazil. Brazil is through, but all in vain. The Dutchies will take this one! Or the Germans - as usual.

Define simple? If it's really simple there's not much money to be made - you can probably download it for free or do it online.

Sure, but I think it could be very helpful. Reading isn't the same as applying your knowledge in the real life. You played poker, right? Coaching is also very popular there, and for good reason. You can read every book & watch every instruction video about poker ever made but you will still play like shit. Somebody who points out glaring errors, makes you think about plays in a new way and challenges your reasoning process can greatly enhance your play. Coaching also happens & is useful for students, new company employees, all athletes, politicians and criminals. Basically for everybody - and with good reason.