Book Bits | 2.2.13

The Little Book of Market Myths: How to Profit by Avoiding the Investing Mistakes Everyone Else Makes
By Ken Fisher
Summary via publisher, Wiley
Everybody knows that a strong dollar equals a strong economy, bonds are safer than stocks, gold is a safe investment and that high PEs signal high risk…right? While such “common-sense” rules of thumb may work for a time as investment strategies, as New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Ken Fisher, vividly demonstrates in this wise, informative, wholly entertaining new book, they’ll always let you down in the long run. Ken exposes some of the most common—and deadly—myths investors swear by, and he demonstrates why the rules-of-thumb approach to investing may be robbing you of the kinds returns you hope for.


Opportunities in Emerging Markets: Investing in the Economies of Tomorrow
By Gordian Gaeta
Summary via publisher, Wiley
Though potentially risky, investing in emerging markets can offer extremely attractive returns. Opportunities in Emerging Markets offers practical advice for investors based on the real life experiences—both positive and negative—of practitioners, pioneer investors, and local heroes with experience in frontier markets. Exploring how every developing market has its own unique regional cultures and social structures that change the way investors invest, and must be understood in order to make wise investments, the book combines standard approaches to investing with the exigencies of frontier markets to create an invaluable framework for success.
101 Things Everyone Needs to Know about the Global Economy
By Michael Taillard
Summary via publisher, Adams Media
The news is full of accounts of the rise and fall of economies around the world, but you may not know how these changes can affect your life. 101 Things Everyone Needs to Know about the Global Economy takes the basics of global economics and breaks them into ten straightforward chapters. From the organizations involved and trade imbalances to global risk and foreign investment, Dr. Michael Taillard describes the world markets in terms that you can recognize. You’ll also learn how these matters affect the United States and your own financial future.
How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America’s Wealth
By Les Leopold
Summary via publisher, Wiley
Top hedge fund managers make more than Oprah, Rupert Murdoch, and A-Rod combined—but they aren’t running news and entertainment empires or playing baseball for the New York Yankees. Aren’t you curious about how these hedge fund dudes make so much doing who knows what? You may even wonder if you can get there, too. After all, this is America! This book gives you the answers in a twelve-step guide to accumulating vast riches the way hedge fund managers do—by playing trillion-dollar poker with a marked deck. Through each easy step, you’ll learn the sleight of hand and disregard for basic morality you’ll need to move from making tens of dollars an hour to millions an hour!
Yield Curve Modeling and Forecasting: The Dynamic Nelson-Siegel Approach
By Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch
Summary via publisher, Princeton University Press
Understanding the dynamic evolution of the yield curve is critical to many financial tasks, including pricing financial assets and their derivatives, managing financial risk, allocating portfolios, structuring fiscal debt, conducting monetary policy, and valuing capital goods. Unfortunately, most yield curve models tend to be theoretically rigorous but empirically disappointing, or empirically successful but theoretically lacking. In this book, Francis Diebold and Glenn Rudebusch propose two extensions of the classic yield curve model of Nelson and Siegel that are both theoretically rigorous and empirically successful.