● Practical Risk-Adjusted Performance Measurement
By Carl Bacon
Summary via publisher, Wiley
Risk within asset management firms has an undeserved reputation for being an overly complex, mathematical subject. This book simplifies the subject and demonstrates with practical examples that risk is perfectly straightforward and not as complicated as it might seem. Unlike most books written on portfolio risk, which generally focus on ex-ante risk from an academic perspective using complicated language and no worked examples, this book focuses on ex-post risk from a buy side, asset management, risk practitioners perspective, including a number of practical worked examples for risk measures and their interpretation.
● Petropoly: The Collapse of America’s Energy Security Paradigm
By Gal Luft and Anne Korin
Video of author discussing US energy policy via Milken Institute
Is energy self-sufficiency a realistic goal for the United States? In his latest book, expert Gal Luft argues that energy independence is a pipedream that will have little or no effect on the price Americans pay at the pump. Luft and co-author Anne Korin point to the fact that, over the past seven years, domestic oil production has expanded, vehicle fuel-efficiency has increased and oil imports have fallen. Yet the amount Americans spend on oil imports has skyrocketed. True energy security requires an uninterrupted energy supply and affordable prices, he argues, and energy self-sufficiency guarantees neither. At this Milken Institute Forum, Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, will explain the reason for the collapse in the energy security paradigm and how the U.S. can avoid the pitfalls of today’s cartel-dominated oil market.
● Mastering the Stock Market: High Probability Market Timing and Stock Selection Tools
By John L. Person
Reference via Tom Aspray/MoneyShow.com
In the mid-1990s, I published weekly and daily pivot levels for the cash forex markets to my institutional clients. At that time the formula was not widely distributed. I even recall that there were a few services that sold the pivot levels for a price. I concluded that the weekly levels were often not reliable enough for me and the pivot levels were not available in most technical analysis programs.
That changed in 2004 with the publication of John Person’s book Complete Guide to Technical Trading Tactics: How to Profit Using Pivot Points, Candlesticks & Other Indicators. In the following years, he gave numerous presentations of his methods at The Traders Expos, and by 2007 pivot points were a common feature of pretty much every trading or technical analysis program.
I had never thought about doing monthly pivot analysis until I read John’s books and later found out that he had been using pivot point analysis for over 20 years. I was even more fascinated a couple of years ago when he let me in on the secret of quarterly pivot point analysis. It was something that he had never revealed publicly, and therefore I did not incorporate them into my analysis.
John now discusses them in his latest book, Mastering the Stock Market: High Probability Market Timing and Stock Selection Tools, published this month by Wiley. Therefore, I now plan on referring to them in my analysis.
● The Evolving Role of China in the Global Economy
Edited by Yin-Wong Cheung and Jakob de de Haan
Summary via publisher, MIT Press
China is now the world’s second largest economy and may soon overtake the United States as the world’s largest. Despite its adoption of some free-market principles, China considers itself a “socialist-market economy,” suggesting that the government still plays a major role in the country’s economic development. This book offers a systematic analysis of four factors in China’s rapid economic growth: exchange rate policy, savings and investment, monetary policy and capital controls, and foreign direct investment (FDI).
● Inflation, Unemployment and Government Deficits: End Them: A professional’s readable explanation of the current recession and how to quickly end it.
By John Lindauer
Summary via Amazon.com
This is a professional’s explanation of how the economy of the United States went wrong in 2008 as the result of poor political appointments. More importantly, it explains how the recession can be quickly ended without further congressional action. It was written because people, investors, and politicians have been badly misled by unqualified journalists and political appointees who merely repeat the inaccurate common knowledge they gleaned from a few undergraduate courses and luncheon speakers. The results have been horrific: massive unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures, business failures, and low tax collections that have resulted in severe and unnecessary deficits.